Tilson Scales to Meet Industry Demand Through Long-Term Focus on Workforce Development

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The wireless and the wireline industries are moving fast. To build out the growing infrastructure needs, a company needs to move fast too. Tilson, a multi-specialty telecommunications services firm, knows this well and remains in perpetual motion to respond and keep up with the infrastructure needs of the telecommunications industry today.

Tilson is an 850+ employee, organically grown, national fiber and wireless network design-build firm that also provides consulting service for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), technical due diligence, and broadband consulting for state, tribal, and territory governments. Tilson’s sister company, Tilson Infrastructure, is a leading digital infrastructure developer. Tilson recently earned its twelfth consecutive spot on the annual Inc. 5000 list, the only telecom firm to have such persistence on the list. 

Organic workforce growth remains core to Tilson’s response to its customers’ increasing needs, whether it is for wireless or wireline infrastructure, according to Adria Horn, Executive Vice President at Tilson Technology Management. “We’re hiring, onboarding, and training at an unprecedented rate to take on our customers’ largest and most impactful projects across the country,” she said. “[The Inc. 5000] recognizes our willingness to be part of the changes in the industry and not just let them happen.”

Darrell Ingram, Chief Operating Officer at Tilson, joined Tilson in February with extensive and relevant experience at organizations including Nexius, Bluestream Professional Services, and Goodman Networks. What intrigued him most was Tilson’s self-performing service philosophy.

“The current largest driver of our growth is Tilson’s investment in self-perform and diversification between wireless, fiber, and consulting services. Deployments of small cells, macro towers using C band spectrum, and the expansion of high-speed internet into rural areas are all driving fiber deployments,” said Ingram. However, Ingram said that wireline and wireless are seen as part of the same connectivity solution at Tilson.

“There is no service we provide that we don’t have self-performing capability for,” Ingram said. “That is a big part of why I joined Tilson. I come from the field, climbing towers, working on a traveling crew, and doing the work myself. By self-performing all aspects of permitting, engineering, and construction, we’re able to move faster and better meet the demands of our customers in the rapidly growing wireless and fiber-to-the-home sectors with fewer handoffs between vendors.”

“There is a lot of investment going into the industry but there are a lot of problems that need to be solved. Tilson is solving those problems,” Ingram said. “We are truly a solutions provider, not just one or the other. If our customer has a problem, we have a solution.”

Building a Workforce

Tilson has found ways to be cost competitive through self-performing its work, which has enabled it to scale efficiently, control safety, and ensure quality. “We want to be sure that when we deliver a product to our customer, it is up to the Tilson standard,” Ingram said.  

Tilson started the year with 550 team members and now has over 850. All told, the company will have more than 1,000 people in the field by the end of this year on its self-perform team alone. In order to maintain a high standard of quality, Tilson’s internal recruiting, onboarding, and training team is expanding to support an average of 28 new employees each week. Those that make it through then have a comprehensive onboarding and safety training. Tilson was an early participant in the Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP), which is administered by the Wireless Infrastructure Association. TIRAP reimbursements helped Tilson maintain the training of its new employees as COVID shut down travel for group training events. 

“We hire a lot of people and inherently our continued growth provides planned and unplanned opportunities for individuals to specialize or cross-train into an adjacent area of the company,” Ingram said. Horn agrees that recruitment and training are keys to the company’s success. “We are proud to offer new opportunities for people from a range of backgrounds and fields,” Horn said. “You need to be willing to bring people in who don’t understand the industry but fit into the company culture. They have to be mission-driven.”

As a veteran-led company, Horn and Ingram join CEO Joshua Broder as Army veterans on a mission to help other veterans find meaningful work in service of Tilson’s mission to build America’s information infrastructure. Tilson is a national leader in offering internship opportunities for transitioning veterans and offers an industry-leading paid military leave benefit for reservists and guardsmen.   

A Company On a Mission

Tilson’s headquarters is in Portland, Maine, but its largest employee bases are in Wisconsin. 

“As the telecom industry faces new opportunities and challenges, we will continue to deliver our customers’ networks at the speed they need to compete by showing up with the people to get the work done.” Ingram said.

For more information on Tilson’s telecom infrastructure solutions, call 207-591-6427 or email info@tilsontech.com. For job opportunities, visit Tilson Careers or email recruiting@tilsontech.com.

By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor

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