By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune Editor
Some 117 new laws passed during the recent session of the Kentucky General Assembly, and most of them went into effect last week. Others, like the no-dropout law, will become law July 1.
It’s one particular law, however – known as the telephone deregulation bill or “AT&T bill” – that drives Hood Harris in his efforts to connect Kentucky.
Harris is president of AT&T Kentucky. He came to the assignment in August, 2013, but AT&T has been working toward a more “broadbanded” Kentucky for several legislative sessions.
So Harris is doubly happy: that success was finally achieved on his watch – and that success was finally achieved.
He’s passionate about what bringing Kentucky into the new century technologically can mean for the future of the state – and he has big plans for some powerful lobbying with his own company to leverage additional resources to put the Commonwealth on a competitive edge.
The hard-won legislation will allow the company – as well as Windstream, Cincinnati Bell and others – to focus on investment in the new technologies that consumers are demanding.
Gov. Steve Beshear was supportive, calling the bill “an important piece of legislation that strikes a right balance between providing consumer protection and creating economic development opportunities.”
“Imagine how rural Kentucky can be opened up to the rest of the world.”
— Hood Harris
Harris, who found his way to one big “dream realized” in Kentucky, grew up in Alabama and became an AT&T lifer in Birmingham in 2008. He found his Kentucky-born wife along the way, on a career path through Atlanta.
Now settled in Kentucky, Harris plans to stay put. He sees great things ahead, professionally and personally.
“I love technology,” the Auburn University engineering graduate told the NKyTribune on a recent visit to NKy. “I love the possibilities that have opened up for Kentucky.
“Technology drives innovation. It allows small companies to have the same access big companies do, ad it means entrepreneurs and innovators can compete on a global platform.
“Imagine how rural Kentucky can be opened up to the rest of the world.”
If Harris sounds passionate, he is. He embraces change, the Big Picture, and the limitless possibilities cyberspace.
Just think, he says, if we can leverage more investment in new technology in Kentucky, there can be more cell towers, more fiber, more jobs all across Kentucky, more “stores of the future” like AT&T is opening already in Louisville and planning for Newport and Lexington.
With technology, he says, you can “track kids and dogs,” provide an expansive “digital life” such as home security and home automation, improve schools and possibilities for our children, help small businesses be more efficient and sustainable, open global markets to everyone — and more.
He enthusiastically provides an engineer’s example: AT&T set up the technology at Churchill Downs for onsite broadcast from the Oaks and Derby which required 5.1 terabytes (a unit of measurement for digital information). Think of it this way: Just one terabyte would be the digital equivalent of 1000 sets of Encyclopedia Britannicas.
Think how that kind of cyberpower delivered to underserved areas of Kentucky could be a game-changer for the state – for businesses and individuals and for schools.
“It will change the lives of our students,” Harris says. “It can create a climate in which our children don’t have to move away to get opportunities. They will be able to connect to those opportunities from home, be entrepreneurial in doing what they want to do.”
Harris says 17 states haves passed legislation similar to what Kentucky now has, and not a single customer has lost a landline as a result. But stepping into the 21st Century technologically provides additional, powerful connections.
AT&T will also expand its employee base in Kentucky, he says. Currently there are 3,000 AT&T employees across Kentucky and 4000 retirees.
“We are now hiring,” he says. “Our aim is to meet consumer demand on every level.”
Back to that personal part of the “dream realized,” Harris is settling into Kentucky quite nicely. He and wife Heather, a Kentucky native, have a three-year-old son, Rutledge. Harris is an unabashedly proud father, glad to talk about a precocious son who will also enjoy the advantages of a well-wired Kentucky and improved schools.
He has found his place, especially given the grand new horizon – energized by work challenges and family responsibilities. For him, he is finding life in Kentucky to be all he could have hoped for.