2019 Annual Membership Meeting 

October 9-11, 2019 | The Westin Austin at the Domain | 11301 Domain Dr. | Austin, TX 78758

TSTCI will celebrate our 67th year anniversary in September (September 22, 1952) just prior to our 2019 Annual Meeting. Sixty-seven years of service, education and fellowship of the Texas rural telecommunications industry — and once again we want to celebrate this milestone with each of you. This year, the TSTCI Annual Meeting will be held in Austin, Texas at the Westin Austin at the Domain from October 9-11, 2019.  

2019 has not been without its challenges and changes. While the legislative session held opportunities, as it always does, we didn’t have do-or-die type legislation as in previous years. We did participate and work with other industry advocates on several broadband related bills and much of our advocacy was successfully directed at “do no harm” and “avoid harm” philosophy. As an industry, we have been struggling within about our future identity and make-up. We celebrated beginnings of life and beginnings of lives together (Gil & Peggy); we also honored the life well-lived of industry stalwarts (John Greenberg); and, we will honor some that have made a significant impact to our industry this past year and throughout their career.  So this October, together, we will honor the events and friends gone by; we will celebrate the moments and each other; and, we will look and plan forward to what is to come.   

We will gather in Austin at the Westin Austin at the Domain — October 9-11, 2019.  

The meeting will continue the tradition of educational programs, great networking time with friends and time well-spent and invested with our valued Associate Members. 

Wednesday, October 9th "tees up” the meeting with the Wesley B. Roberts Memorial Golf Tournament at the Avery Ranch Golf Club, 10500 Avery Club Drive, Austin, Texas. Always a good day (better for some than others on the course) — great time of the year for nature.  

Continuing Wednesday late afternoon into the evening, brings us all together for our traditional Where the Stars are Still Big & Bright Welcome Reception/Vendor Table-Tops / & Silent/Live Auction! This important and fun event from 4:30 - 7:30 pm brings these three aspects of our kick-off together in a well-choreographed event — valued time to spend with everyone and specific time with our loyal Associate Member vendors (Table-Tops) who work hard with and for all of us. We roll in the Live/Silent Auction benefitting the TSTCI PAC — which always elicits some focused yet playful-competitive spirit to the evening. And, while there is always food and drink to share, we do end early enough that if you still want to make personal dinner plans you can.

Thursday begins with breakfast and moves into a half day of General Session programs for all attendees. Thursday afternoon, the ILEC members and designees attend the Annual Membership meeting where the officers for the coming year are elected. Thursday evening, we all gather back together for the “Rural Matters Dinner & Awards Banquet.” This evening event provides an inclusive time together to introduce the new Board and Officers and honor each other and our industry. The Awards Dinner gives us a special platform to recognize the recipients of the two Annual Awards — the “TSTCI—Legend Award” — which focuses on someone who has help guide the industry and the Association for many years; and the “TSTCI—Friend of Rural Award” that recognize someone — either internal or external to TSTCI — that has or is making an extraordinary difference to/for/in Rural Texas. Our industry, our members and our Association have so much to be proud of and we want to take the time to officially recognize those efforts. We hope you will plan to join in the celebration of our industry and of our rural roots.   

REGISTRATION is now open for the Annual Membership Conference & Associate Member Table-Top Display at The Westin Austin at the Domain in Austin, Texas, October 9-11, 2019 CLICK HERE   

To help make your attendance and participation as easy as possible, we provided links on the EVENT LANDING PAGE to assist you with “Registration” “General Sponsorship” “Hotel Reservations” “Golf – Participation and/or Sponsorship” Banquet Sponsorships.”  There you will also find an AGENDA link for the proposed meeting sessions as well as a few highlights. 

We begin our time together Wednesday, October 9th with the Annual Wesley B. Roberts Memorial Golf Tournamentat the Avery Ranch Golf Club. The morning begins with breakfast being served at 7:00 am in the Golf Clubhouse and a Shotgun Start Tee-Off at 8:00 am. Your golf fee includes the cart rental, green fees, driving range balls, full breakfast, beverages, lunch and prizes. Registration for the golf tournament and opportunities to assist with golf tournament sponsorships is available on the online registration page. We also are always grateful to and for any of you that donate golf prizes that we give out at the golf lunch.

Following golf, plan to join us for the “Vendor Table-Tops”beginning at 4:30 pm and moving into the evening event “Where the Stars are Still Big & Bright Welcome Reception” which goes till 7:30 pm. This exciting and fun evening event is highlighted by our Associate Member Table-Top Displays and our traditional PAC-benefiting Silent & Live Auction  These are all important events for our members and our Association — so we give each aspect of the evening focused-time. We encourage all attendees to honor our Vendor Displayers with your time and presence. The Silent Auction items will be intermingled and will run from 4:30-7:00 pm. The Live Auction items will be presented in three 15 minute segments (the first beginning around 5:00) and spaced hourly throughout the evening. Each venue in this event packed evening is important — so please support our Associate Membership vendors and supporters and participate in the Auctions as they continue support of our PAC. We depend and are grateful for items that are donated for either the Live or Silent Auctions — so please consider an auction item donation. We include a list of all Auction Items and Donors. We would greatly appreciate your help in letting us know as early as possible if you are donating an auction item and, if so, what. Pre-planning helps us. PLEASE let us know your auction items/door prize items so we can plan for them and so we can include you in the program and on-site sponsor board.     

Thursday morning after a hosted breakfast (7:00 - 8:00 am), TSTCI President Steven Steele and TSTCI CEO Weldon Gray will officially open the conference and introduce our Opening Keynote Speaker: Colonel Mickey Addison, USAF (ret), MSCE, PMP.  Colonel Addison will share stories and wisdom and his “The Five Be’s.”   This presentation is sure to have us all leaving wanting to be his “five be’s or making our own “To Be” list.  Don’t know about you, but I plan to BE there!  

Following the Colonel, David Villyard with Homeland Security (NCCIC/NCC)will again present to us on “Cyber Security – New Developments and Operational Focus.”  As many of you will recall, David presented to us before and brought not only a lot of information but also a lot of resources available to our membership. 

Just before we break for lunch, Pete Denagy, of Internet of Things-America, will address “The Internet of Small Packets.”     

After lunch, only those attending the Annual Membership Meetingwill return for the afternoon session --Annual Membership Meeting & Election of Directors.”  This meeting is open to TSTCI ILEC members and their signed-in designees.

Thursday evening we will all come together for the 6th Annual Rural Matters Dinner & Awards Ceremony.  An enchanted evening of shared fun, memories, nostalgia and honor. It is an evening of celebration of our long and enduring journey together — today and always. There is no additional charge to conference attendees and their guest for the banquet; however, when you register for the conference, we would very much appreciate your filling in the area about whether you and your spouse/significant other will be attending the banquet. This is a catered event and your help to ensure a reasonable headcount is greatly appreciated. In addition, we always make arrangements for a vegetarian dinner option or other special dietary needs, so please let us know.  We have several opportunities for sponsorships of this important event including “Table-Sponsorships” and “Hosted Bar Sponsorship.” Table sponsorships are a great way to get extra recognition — your table will be reserved with your name and you will also get to invite other registered attendees who you would like to be seated with you at your table for eight. In addition, you will be listed as “Table Sponsor” in our promotional material and will get verbal and signage acknowledgment during the conference. Remember, too, this is part of the package for our Premiere Sponsorship — which we acknowledge JSI Consulting, VTX1 Companies and Moss Adams as our 2019 Premiere Sponsors. Details for all sponsorship opportunities are included on the website sponsor page. Please make plans to join us for an evening honoring our industry and some of your peers. 

Friday, after a continental breakfast open to all, Charles “Chip” Spann, Connected Nations/Connected Texas will update us on the re-ignited Broadband Mapping project and their new alliance with Texas Rural Funders Collaborative (TRFC). TRFC is made up of private foundations, community foundations, and health-conversion foundations. Next, Julie Darrington, VP Consulting-Vantage Point, will talk “Change is Constant: Growth Strategies & Positioning for the Future.”

Following Julie, an industry panel will converse with each other and the audience on “Central Office Switching — Legacy, Virtual, Cloud, Shared….What Do We Do? The panel members have been invited and we are pending some acceptance.  

And the finale speaking session will be “Broadband Only – CBOL – Is It For You?”  Panelist for this session will include representatives from Moss Adams, Peoples Telephone Cooperative, Taylor Telcom and YK Communications. This will be a good discussion with some real life introspect. 

And then, before we adjourn for another year, we will draw for the Grand Prize graciously sponsored by Texas Communications Expo.

Please plan to join us in Austin!

 

Registration for Meeting – Please visit the event landing page.


Continuing Education Units - 
The objectives of this conference are to improve the skills and knowledge of accounting and other issues related to the telecommunications industry. Participants shall receive 8 non-technical CPE credit hours for participation, and there are no prerequisites for participation. We have registered with the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy as a CPE sponsor. This registration does not constitute an endorsement by the Board as to the quality of our CPE program. TSTCI Sponsor ID# 2349


FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION REGARDING SPONSORSHIPS AT THIS LINK

Award Dinner Sponsorships — Table Sponsors and Hosted-Bar Sponsors 

Sponsorship/Door Prizes/ Auction Items — As an appreciated sponsor, your company will be recognized in the on-site printed program, on the Sponsor-Sign displayed throughout the meeting and in the Weekly “This Week” leading up to the conference. To be included in the printed material, we need to receive your sponsorship, door prizes and/or auction items donation by September 18, 2019. As always, your support is very much appreciated.  


HOTEL INFORMATION — The meeting is at Westin Austin at the Domain, Austin, Texas. For your convenience, we have a direct link to the hotel on the TSTCI Conference registration on the website. If calling the hotel direct, please make sure they know you are with the TSTCI group so they include you in our room group. Room rates are $235.00. There is complimentary self-parking and valet parking will run approximately $25.00/day. Be sure to make your reservations before the September 18, 2019 cut-off date. After that date, rooms will be on a space-available basis at the regular hotel rate. Check-in time is 3:00 p.m.; check-out time is noon. 


Discretionary Fund — The TSTCI Board appreciates contributions to the Discretionary Fund— used for important off-budget expenditures such as payment for featured speakers, donations to death memorials, PAC administrative expenses, and more. The Discretionary Fund is included in the annual independent audit of TSTCI. Since this fund is not used to provide campaign funds to candidates and office holders, corporate contributions are acceptable. Contributions to this fund can be made online when you register for the meeting. Credit card payments (online), as well as corporate or personal checks made payable to the TSTCI Discretionary Fund may be sent to the TSTCI Austin office. 505 W. 12th Street, Suite 206, Austin, TX 78701. 

If you have questions or need assistance with registration for this meeting, please contact Weldon R. Gray, CEO-TSTCI at 903-658-0055, [email protected]; Kari at [email protected]or Pat Holder, TSTCI Event Planner at 512-349-7470.