A recent Forum letter (“Quality service will continue with ECFiber”; Sept. 19 spoke to the strength of ECFiber’s service. I’d like to provide some clarification on who makes that possible.
As someone who has worked with ValleyNet, GWI, and ECFiber for years, and now serves as general manager of GWI Vermont, I am proud that our employees have delivered the reliable service and customer experience Vermonters expect. From construction crews to installers to the call center, the people you think of as “ECFiber” have been GWI employees.
That’s why the recent actions of the ECFiber governing board are so troubling. Rather than renewing the contract with the people who built and have run the network for years, the board created a new nonprofit, VISPO, and actively recruited away GWI employees to staff it. This is not the kind of business practice that builds resilient organizations.
The stakes are high: ECFiber serves 31 towns and thousands of customers who depend on stable, reliable connectivity. Replacing a proven, local team with an untested organization — built on cherry-picking staff — and a CEO from out-of-state creates unnecessary risk for the entire network.
Customers and residents deserve transparency and stability. If the service is working, why dismantle it? I urge readers to ask their local ECFiber representatives: Why fire the very people who built this system and replace them with an unproven model?
Don’t fix what isn’t broken.