The Telecom Group, begun by Nova Group GBC less than a year ago, may be young. But if you count the experience of the veteran employees, it is well established. In November of 2020, Nova, an environmental consulting firm, saw the potential in the 5G buildout to bring in additional regulatory and due diligence business in the telecom space.
Seeing overlap between its real estate due diligence services and telecom services, regulatory compliance, and environmental due diligence, the company decided to leverage its existing resources and bring in some specialists to create a telecom division.
In the fall of 2020, it hired Cris Kimbrough, PhD, PMP, as Vice President – Telecom Group Lead, a U.S. Secretary of the Interior-qualified archaeologist, who has two decades of experience. She previously worked for CBRE Group where she managed a federal regulatory compliance program for the telecom industry. Her resume includes site acquisition and regulatory compliance for SmartLink and providing nationwide telecom project management for EBI Consulting.
“I have been in and out of regulatory and telecom since 2008,” Kimbrough said. “I have a lot of connections in the business and really know the process. I have experience managing a team and running a business. So, it was fortuitous that I was referred over to them and had the skills to come in and start this team.”
As the head of the Telecom Group, Kimbrough recruited an A-Team of experienced industry professionals. “I had the good fortune to be able to bring on a team with decades of experience almost immediately after starting,” she said. “We’ve got a team with loads of experience working for all the major carriers and tower companies.”
Today, Nova’s Telecom Group provides regulatory and due diligence services for the telecom industry. Services include National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and compliance, Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) and lead and asbestos testing, 1A/2C Surveys, FAA Studies, RF-EME, and related tasks for wireless sites. Nova’s Telecom Group’s customers include carriers, tower companies and site acquisition firms.
“Our nationwide team can navigate the difficult siting issues facing new towers, along with the completion of large portfolios of 5G modifications,” Kimbrough said.
Environmental Due Diligence
The environmental side of Nova’s business, which performs ESAs across the country on a daily basis, transfers over nicely to the ESAs needed for telecom installations, particularly new towers. Rob Wilkens is Director of Telecom Due Diligence, which performs Phase 1 and Phase 2 ESAs plus asbestos, lead-based paint, and soil testing for telecommunications carriers, tower companies, and site acquisition firms.
Before joining Nova Group, Wilkens was a colleague of Kimbrough’s at CBRE in Telecom Advisory Services. Before that, he was with IVI International, providing construction, property condition and environmental consulting, due diligence and advisory services to the real estate industry and, previously, with GC Environmental.
NEPA Team
Nova’s NEPA Team brings ample experience in all aspects of NEPA compliance. Along with bringing in environmental professionals, Kimbrough created a multi-talented team of professionals on the NEPA side of the business, which is headed by Dave Akerblom, Director, Telecom NEPA, who also worked with her at CBRE Group, and has held telecom and project management positions at IVI International, SAI Communications and EBI Consulting.
The NEPA Team has a director of cultural resources, who’s a Secretary of the Interior-qualified architectural historian; a biologist; and a wetlands expert; in addition to specialists in writing State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) correspondence.
“We’ve got somebody to cover each of the pieces of the NEPA process,” Kimbrough said. “We’ve got some really heavy hitters in the cultural resources space. If you’re trying to site a tower that’s difficult and you need expert testimony, we can handle that.”
One of the services most in demand currently is a review of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which is a law that requires federal agencies to consider the effects of federally funded projects on historic properties.
“I do see a substantial increase coming as the 5G buildout gains steam,” Kimbrough said. “I think we’re going to see a lot of Section 106 requests as carriers collocate on non-tower structures. We are making sure we have our Section 106 process really down pat, so we don’t have any lags in the process and we’re providing speed to market for our clients.”
Diligence on Timelines, Flexibility to Change
Kimbrough’s team maintains diligence to keep to its client’s timeline but can be flexible to change. Although there are parts of the regulatory process that are dictated by the FCC and cannot be sped up, Kimbrough said she is intent on making sure the parts that can be controlled run as smoothly and quickly as possible and keep those timelines as tight as possible.
“We keep the process on track to make sure that we don’t have any lag time from one step to the next and to make sure that especially with things like Tribal Consultation we’re following up as soon as possible, as soon as the regulations allow,” said Kimbrough.
From her experience working in site acquisition, Kimbrough understands how important it is to provide her clients with an accurate, timely compliance forecast. “If you don’t forecast the compliance correctly, then you’re leading your client astray on when their site acquisition process will be complete,” she said.
But things do change. The Telecom Group has worked on a lot of small cell C-RAN deployments, which many times involve attachments to light poles that are subject to change mid-stream. If the carrier can’t get an attachment on a certain pole, then it has to move the antenna and the whole deployment has to be redone.
“We are flexible enough to work on those projects efficiently and deal with the fluid nature of them, I think, is something that this team excels at,” she said.
And she should know. When Kimbrough looks at her team, she sees a lot of familiar faces. Telecom industry professionals who have completed thousands of consultations and reports for carriers, tower companies, and other firms in the telecom space.
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