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Intro:
The following program is brought to you by the Tennessee
Broadband Association.

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Lead Tennessee Radio, conversations with the leaders moving our
state forward.

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We look at the issues shaping Tennessee's future: rural
development, public policy, broadband,

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healthcare, and other topics impacting our communities.

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Andy Johns:
On the stage at the Tennessee Broadband Association, Kentucky
Rural Broadband Association Joint Conference here in Franklin,

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Tennessee, one of the speakers asked the audience, what are your
biggest concerns about rural broadband in 2025 and

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beyond? The answer, according to the informal survey that was
put up on stage, was the workforce shortage that we're looking at

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when all of the funding for broadband grows.

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What we'll be talking about on this episode of Lead Tennessee
Radio is about apprenticeships and how that can help potentially

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expand the labor pool.

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My guest on this episode is Craig Barber, founder and CEO of
Hatbox.

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Craig, thanks so much for joining me.

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Craig Barber:
Thanks. Good to be here.

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Andy Johns:
And I'm your guest host on this episode, pinch hitting for Carrie
and Trevor Andy Johns of Pioneer Utility Resources.

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So a little bit of background on Craig.

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He was born, as you may have noticed, from the accent, he was
born in England.

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And your hometown was one of the last in the country to go from
dial-up to broadband.

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Connecting rural communities has been a passion for you, and
your career includes leadership roles at British Telecom and

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Telefonica before moving to become a CIO and then CISO of a
cloud technology

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company. Interestingly, and we'll get into this a little bit in
the discussion, but Craig moved from the UK to middle Tennessee

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and now lives in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, which is served by the
good folks over at United.

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So, Craig, tell us a little bit about that move.

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We talked about it on stage, but what drew you to Tennessee?

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You could have moved anywhere, but you decided to leave the UK
and move right here to middle Tennessee.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. I mean, I think it was the fact that the area was growing
very fast.

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There's a lot of opportunities.

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There's a lot of rural areas that are historically underserved
by good, reliable internet

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and high speed internet and broadband.

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But at the same time, yeah, there's a lot of growth going on.

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There's a lot of new networks going in, a lot of new
infrastructure.

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And really, I just think it's an exciting time for Tennessee as
a whole right now with the way the economy is going, certainly in

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this state. It also is strikingly similar to where I grew up,
which I was really surprised being thousands and thousands of

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miles apart.

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Andy Johns:
Right. You said miles instead of kilometers, so that shows you're
settling in.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. Yeah. Although we use miles in the UK, but the rest of
Europe, not so much, but yeah.

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Yeah, it's really did.

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You know, Chapel Hill is a very small town.

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Reminds me so much of where I grew up, and just felt right at
home there from the moment that we found our

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house, and we settled down there.

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Andy Johns:
Now, we will be talking about, mostly about, apprenticeships and
the idea of an apprenticeship program on this episode.

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But I did want to get into just a little bit about your
background, because so many of the folks that we work with in

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economic development here in Tennessee, so many of the folks at
the broadband providers, the telcos here in the rural parts of

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the state, they've heard about you, and they've talked about
you, or at least the kind of person that you represent.

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The fact that somebody can move from anywhere in the globe and
connect to the rural broadband networks that folks have built in

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Tennessee and be able to work, to do anything.

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So tell me a little bit about Hatbox and why, you know, how that
works, that you're able to do that from a small town like Chapel

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Hill?

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. I mean, to begin with, I founded Hatbox because of the fact
that I grew up in that small town, passionate, as you were saying

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in my intro about connecting underserved communities, and, you
know, reliable internet access is kind of a necessity

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nowadays. So, anything that I can do to help with that mission,
I'm all in on.

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And, yeah, as I said, as with my background working at British 
Telecom, BT, and Telefonica, it's the

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area that I'm knowledgeable about, almost two decades in that
space.

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And yeah, primarily working on cyber security.

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I think there's kind of two sides to it.

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So (a) there's that kind of, you know, that's my passion.

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That's where I want to be.

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Andy Johns:
Right.

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Craig Barber:
And (b), it's kind of a case of, I think there's a need right
there to obviously secure these

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networks and ensure that, you know, as their businesses grow and
they invest in infrastructure, that, you know, they are protected

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against attacks and data breaches and so forth.

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Because it does have a very real negative impact on business
reputation and regulatory fines and so on and so on.

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But yeah.

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And then of course, living in a rural area right now, yeah, the
internet connectivity makes my job far easier because, you know,

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that's the world that I'm working in.

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So being reliably connected is obviously a very key thing for
me.

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Andy Johns:
I would go so far as to say not just easier, but possible.

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Craig Barber:
Absolutely.

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Andy Johns:
You could not do what you do where you do it, without that.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. And I think that feeds into the whole thing of getting good
connectivity out there into these rural areas is it's not just

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about myself that, you know, I moved to a rural area and that's
available to me.

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It's also about the residents and the people that were born in
these areas, giving them good, reliable internet connectivity o

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pens up a world of job opportunities, you know, customer support,
working on, you know, on live chat for various companies,

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answering calls for companies, you know, it just opens it up.

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Project management, for example.

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There's so many roles out there from a professional and a kind
of personal growth perspective that can be achieved by having

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good connectivity and working in these rural areas.

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Whereas historically, you know, you're a 150 miles from the
nearest city.

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You've got a limited selection of employers there.

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This is opening that up, and you could almost work for any
company anywhere in the country or even the world.

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Andy Johns:
Sure, sure. It's pretty amazing.

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And sorry to detour on your, you know, bio a little bit there
longer than usual, but I just think it's an important detail.

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And what so many of the folks that  are a part of Lead Tennessee
Radio are working to do, and you just kind of exemplify that.

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So I wanted to bring that up.

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But our main topic today is apprenticeships and apprentices.

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And, you know, I'll be perfectly honest, when I hear the word
"apprentice," I think of the trades, and then I think of Star

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Wars. And then that's about where my knowledge ends on
apprentices.

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Tell me a little bit about when you talk about an apprentice
program, what do you mean?

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And how is it different from an internship or other things that
that folks may be a little bit more familiar with here?

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Craig Barber:
Sure. It's a concept that's been around in the UK since, I mean,
British Telecom for example.

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They started their program in 1960.

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And it is a little different to internship.

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So internship typically is unpaid.

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Might not have much kind of structure to it.

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The difference with an apprenticeship is that typically the
individuals are being paid a full time salary or a part time

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salary, and they're working from day one for your business.

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And typically it's a little more structured.

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So there's some kind of structured training involved as well as
spending time with a mentor or spending time out in the field or

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with other engineers where you're learning.

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So it's slightly different.

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The concept and the idea is that you're landing a position in a
company, for example, in telecoms or in rural broadband.

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You're learning from day one how to do that job.

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So if you're a field engineer, you're out there, and you're
working on the networks, and you're running cables, or you're

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fixing faults, and you're working on the infrastructure.

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And the idea is that you learn by doing as opposed to in a
classroom setting, you know, with a degree program, for example.

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It's very theory based.

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And, you know, there are benefits to that, right?

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So, depending on how you learn as an individual.

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Myself, I did an apprenticeship, and I learned by doing, and I
learned by being hands on, making mistakes and learning from them

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and picking up on the soft skills as well from day one.

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You know, dealing with customers that are unhappy and so on, and
learning how to navigate that.

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Andy Johns:
And I think that's such an important piece of it, because a lot
of times when you hear "apprenticeship," you know, I think of the

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trades, you know, where it is, you know, it is more about the
technical skill.

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But I've been interested to hear you talk about that it is a
very well-rounded look, kind of 360 degrees at the

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role where you are getting into some more of those soft skills.

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Craig Barber:
Correct. Yeah, yeah.

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And historically it was in the trades, and it, you know, the US
is slightly behind Europe in that sense in that it is still seen

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that way in a lot of cases.

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But, you know, you can apply the apprenticeship model to cyber
security.

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You can apply it to network engineering, even customer service
to some extent.

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You can, you know, you can apply that model.

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It's really about, as you say, it's kind of, it's a well-rounded
program.

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You're learning the technical skills, but you're learning them
hands on in the role, typically from a mentor or somebody that's

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been with the company a lot longer.

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And then you're also learning the soft skills.

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So back to what I was saying about the unhappy customers.

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I remember on the first day of my apprenticeship, I was visiting
somebody's house to put their internet service in with my mentor,

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of course, because I, you know, at that point I was very
inexperienced.

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And one of the customers was unhappy.

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I think she'd had two bills for two different phone lines from
the same company.

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Had no luck sorting it out with customer service.

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So obviously we were the first people she saw face-to-face.

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Andy Johns:
So here it comes.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah, here comes the, and rightly so.

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And you know me at the time, 17 years old, just out of high
school.

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It was a very useful learning experience to see how my mentor
dealt with that and, you know, put the customer at ease and

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explain how the issue was going to be dealt with and that, you
know, we want to get this resolved right now.

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We're not going to leave until we've escalated it.

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And, you know, you're not going to get that on a degree program.

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Whereas with an apprenticeship, you know, you're getting those
soft skills and those experiences and the business skills.

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You're learning them alongside at the same time as the technical
skills.

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Andy Johns:
Now, on our panel that we did today here at the Tennessee
Broadband and Kentucky Rural Broadband Association Conference,

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Jackie Griffin was on there from Franklin Skills, an
apprenticeship program.

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And I thought it was interesting.

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She said about 20% of the apprenticeships they're doing are
fully remote.

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And a lot of the other apprenticeships have at least a remote
component to it.

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How do you think this opens up, particularly for rural areas
when we're looking at tech jobs in the rural, you know, in rural

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areas, how does that that ability to work remotely, how has that
changed apprenticeships?

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You know, as opposed to what they were when you were going
through yours with BT?

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. I mean, I think it kind of works two ways, right.

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So, you know, if you're a rural broadband provider and you are
struggling to find people in your local area, well, technically,

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you know, you could do something where there's, you know,
somebody slightly further afield, maybe there, I don't know,

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maybe they're 50 miles away.

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You could maybe kind of utilize some of that talent and bring
them on board.

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And they could be partially remote, like a hybrid situation, or
maybe even fully remote.

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And customer service, I think is a good example of that, where,
you know, you could almost balance, you know, you want to market

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your rural broadband services, having US based customer service,
for example, a good differentiator.

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Well, perhaps you, you know, perhaps you first look in your
local area, look at setting up some kind of apprenticeship

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program there.

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Or perhaps you look slightly further afield and you do a hybrid,
or you do a remote working situation, then you can use that, you

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can still market that way.

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But you can kind of widen the talent pool slightly.

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So, you know, that's kind of something to consider.

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Of course, technology jobs and cyber security, for example.

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It applies to that as well.

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You know, you could look at hiring individuals that are 
somewhere else in the country or in the world and so on.

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Andy Johns:
Are there certain types of folks and you mentioned that, you
know, your learning style a college lecture hall was not

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necessarily the space where it was going to be the most
efficient and effective way for you to learn.

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Are there folks that that you think an apprenticeship program or
what types of folks in particular do you think it's an

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apprenticeship is kind of perfect for them?

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Are there certain kinds, you know, is it kind of just the way
certain people think, learn that kind of thing?

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I was surprised to hear in our presentation, Jackie said the
average age of apprentices they have is

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32, which was significantly higher.

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You know, I think of folks like yourself who 17 years old, going
right into it, right out of school.

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But it sounds like it's the kind of program that can really
apply to folks at all different stages of life.

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But are there some folks that, you know, you think an
apprenticeship is a better fit for than others?

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Or what what kind of, you know, details or characteristics do you
think make a person a perfect candidate for an apprenticeship?

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. And I think, so from an age perspective to begin with,
yeah, it's all ages.

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So, you know, it can be career changers.

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It can be veterans.

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It could be young people.

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It really, kind of, you know, the training model and the idea of
it is that it helps you land a career.

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For example, in technology or in rural broadband or, you know,
in some kind of stem field where you are, you know,

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you're finding something that you're going to have and hopefully
stay in for a foreseeable future.

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It's helping you to find a good, solid career, basically
regardless of age or previous job experience or college

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experience or high school.

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In terms of the thought process and the kinds of types of people
that I think it helps, I think you have to look at it from an

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affordability and an economic perspective.

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Because if you're like me, you grew up in a small town.

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There weren't many opportunities around.

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For me, it was I didn't really, I didn't learn by being in a
classroom, really.

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I always learned by kind of building computers, troubleshooting,
fixing things for family members and stuff.

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And (b), I didn't really want to have to travel, you know, like
an hour round trip, or a two-hour round trip, even to the nearest

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kind of technical college in an area that I wanted to work in.

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As I was saying, you've got other folks that can't afford to go
to college, or, you know, they're too far away.

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They can't afford to go to college, or they just plain don't
want to, because that's not how they learn.

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They just want to get out there and get into the workplace.

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All of those things kind of point toward an apprenticeship and
point toward that as a kind of good opportunity to go and

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learn and, you know, get qualified and land in a career that is
going to kind of, you know, set the motion for you and get you

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into things going forward.

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I was going to say problem solving as well, right?

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So like for me, I'm very much a problem solver, a logical
thinker.

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I think, you know, if you're in that kind of situation, taking
computers apart, or you enjoy troubleshooting, you enjoy unknowns

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, you know, if you've got that way of thinking and that's how you
kind of operate, then I really think it's a win-win over, over

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doing a degree.

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Andy Johns:
Let's get into the nitty gritty details and maybe even a little
more than we were able to get to on stage in the session.

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The apprenticeship that you did with British Telecom was three
years, I think.

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Jackie, our other panelist, had said they have programs that are
one year, and then additional certifications beyond that.

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Typically these are done by the company that is looking to hire,
right.

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Where the system and the curriculum, or whatever, is set up by
the company that's that's looking to recruit.

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Sometimes there's a partner like the group that Jackie had
Franklin Skills, but usually this is something where you were

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going to get these skills on a track to work at British Telecom,
and it's done by the company, and usually it takes a couple of

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years to do it.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. So yeah, the programs in the UK are typically around three
years.

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And the reason for that is they're kind of seen, we're lucky in
the UK in that it's kind of seen nationally as a kind of degree

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equivalent. So a vocational equivalent to a degree.

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It would be great for us to get there in the US at some point in
the future.

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I know it's a little more complex with different levels of
government and states being involved and stuff.

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But that's the idea behind the UK program and the US is, as
Jackie was saying earlier on stage, typically they're a little

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bit shorter. And there's kind of two ways to do it.

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So with BT, they're obviously a huge global multinational
company.

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So they have teams of individuals that are skilled in setting up
their own apprenticeship programs, and they have a lot of

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structure and a lot of kind of, you know, a lot of people
working on it.

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And for smaller companies, then a company like Franklin Skills
can help by setting up that training program and that

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structure on behalf of the business, kind of de-risking some of
it and taking some of the effort away.

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And, you know, that could be in cyber security, it could be in
network engineering, any really kind of, you know, technology

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based role.

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Just because it's a smaller company doesn't mean that, you know,
they need to replicate the BT model because really it's, yeah,

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it's quite different in the sense that they have a lot more
people working on it full time.

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Andy Johns:
You had pretty much one mentor throughout most of it.

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Or did it rotate through, [and] you had a lot of different
mentors?

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Craig Barber:
I had, I want to say I had three.

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And the reason for that was, they were quite good in that I came
in as a trainee network engineer.

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Had a mentor that was a network engineer, I think he'd worked
there for 15 years, something like that.

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So really experienced, really new, not only BT, but also the
infrastructure and all that kind of stuff.

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The way that they structure their apprenticeship programs is
that you come in and started out as a network engineer, and then

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they always give you opportunities to pivot from that.

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So I spent some time working with the radio team, which was
microwave links, fixed wireless access, all that kind of stuff.

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I had a mentor that specialized in that.

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Did a bunch of stuff on fiber because that was then, this was
back in the mid 2000.

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So fiber was starting to come out and the, you know, be used
more on the backbone.

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And it was kind of different skill sets.

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And at the end of the apprenticeship, it wasn't sort of a case
of you had a choice of where to go, but you had options.

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So you could voice, okay, I really liked working with the radio
team, so I'd like to, you know, climb towers, and I'd like to fix

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microwave links, things like that.

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And they would look to try and place you in that team.

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It wasn't a given, but it was a, you know, we would try
basically.

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And I think that was one of the beauties of it, was that, you
know, if you were really doing well in your apprenticeship

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program and you were, the company liked you and the teams liked
you, other opportunities in the business would then

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open up, and they would be there potentially.

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I stuck with the network engineering, but I was lucky that that
was where I felt like my passion was, and there was an

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opportunity for me there.

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Andy Johns:
Worked out perfectly.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. And the, you know, there was a full time role for me at the
end of it.

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I passed the apprenticeship because there are obviously, there's
a standard, and you have to meet the standard.

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I met the standard.

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I passed. I then, you know, I was then moved from a trainee into
a full time network engineer.

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So it paid off.

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Andy Johns:
Yeah. Sounds like it. It's worked out very nicely.

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Last two questions here for you.

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So there's the job seeker or job candidate side of things, but
there's also the employer side of things.

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What are some things that you've seen – you used the word
de-risk earlier – what are some things that employers can do

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differently to be more open to this?

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You know, so many of the jobs out there, it's a required four
year degree, or required two year degree.

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Require, you know, master's degree a plus, whatever it is.

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What are some things that employers can do to be more open to
not miss out on some of the great talent that may be there,

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somebody that's either looking for an apprenticeship or that's
already been through one?

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, I think it's being more
flexible.

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So you know, looking at the requirements for the roles that you
have and looking at, you know, making it a little bit

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more flexible. Because there are going to be individuals in your
local area that have the right skills, they just don't have the

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paperwork or the certifications or the degree.

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Andy Johns:
Right.

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Craig Barber:
And they're there.

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And, you know, they're going to be passionate about technology.

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You're going to need good people.

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So there's a match there.

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And I think, you know, being more flexible on the job
descriptions can help.

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Obviously, setting up an apprenticeship program as well,
building a bit of a structured program using maybe somebody like

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Franklin Skills or speaking to us at Hatbox about building and
growing your business.

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It's a case of the talent is there, and, you know, you really
want to use

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that.It is, you know, it's kind of hard to, you know, hire
somebody that has no job experience for example.

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Maybe they're straight out of school like I was, so they have no
experience.

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They don't have a degree.

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And I can see that a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses
would see that as slightly risky.

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Andy Johns:
Sure. Risk was exactly the word that I was going to – yeah.

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I mean, that's risky proposition.

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Craig Barber:
Yeah. And I mean –

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Andy Johns:
Or it feels risky anyway.

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Craig Barber:
Exactly. Yeah.

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And I think the, you know, I would reflect back to what BT were
doing, and I'm sure they're still doing it now, you know, almost

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20 years on from when I did my apprenticeship where the
interview was more about, you know, as I was saying earlier,

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building,. I think it was give an example of when you
troubleshooted a technical problem.

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As simple as that, as basic as that.

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And it allows you, as a skilled interviewer to really
understand, is that person willing to learn?

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Are they passionate about technology?

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Do they have some of the basics?

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And, you know, I look for it as a CISO, I look for not only, you
know, I don't necessarily look for somebody that knows

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every single cybersecurity or regulatory framework out there.

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I look for somebody that maybe, you know, they might know a
couple, but they have the willingness, they have the passion,

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they have a way to learn them, and they can learn the others.

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And I think that's, you know, that's the kind of basis of hiring
apprentices, really is, you know, make the interview more

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general. And, you know, you're going to get value as a business
from them on day one.

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There are activities in rural broadband that an extra set of
hands, they can really help you.

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You know, running cables, testing circuits, for example.

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Like it doesn't, if you've hired somebody that's passionate and
they understand technology, they're willing to learn, you can

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explain to them how to use a fiber tester.

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And, you know, I could see it within a day, they could be at the
other end of your circuit running tests on the phone to you.

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And, you know, they're immediately giving value.

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So I think it's kind of being willing to accept that yeah,
interviewing individuals that maybe don't have any credentials

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and asking the right questions, building an apprenticeship
program.

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And then, you know, having that understanding of there are tasks
and there is value from day one in having trainees on

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board.

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Andy Johns:
Yeah. Somebody who's gone through the hiring process with several
different candidates, it may feel less risky to see a four year

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degree on there, but that doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that
that person knows how to learn, or is eager, or any of that.

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It may feel less risky, but that may just be a bias in the
process.

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Craig Barber:
And for some individuals, that's a perfectly acceptable route.

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That's how people learn.

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It shows expertise.

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It shows that you've learned a lot of standards, and you've
learned good principles and things.

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It's just that with an apprenticeship, I found that, as we were
saying earlier, it wasn't just about the principles.

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You learned those, but you learned the business skills.

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And you learned that, you know, sometimes or in fact, most of
the time, things in the real world don't exactly tie back to the

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principles.

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Andy Johns:
To the textbook. Yeah, yeah.

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For sure. Last question I have for you as we wrap up here, what
advice do you have for somebody who is listening to this and is

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thinking, you know, maybe either (a) we need to start an
apprenticeship program, or (b) maybe we need to be more open to

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people who have been through I would say a less traditional
route here in the States to have done an apprenticeship or

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other work there? What advice do you have for somebody who's
listening and thinking that there are some changes their company

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needs to make?

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Craig Barber:
Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to what, some of it was just
kind of similar to what I was just saying in terms of, you know,

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there are, as a rural broadband provider, in Tennessee, there
are going to be individuals in your area that would benefit your

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business, but that don't have any credentials.

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And that is the, I think that's the number one benefit to a
business in terms of looking at apprenticeships.

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One thing we didn't talk about as well is the other way around.

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So injecting –

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Andy Johns:
Oh yeah, I meant to get to that.

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Craig Barber:
New ideas. Yeah.

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New ideas, new, you know, criticizing, questioning things, I
guess is probably a probably a better word to use.

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But, hiring apprentices is going to inject new ideas and new
ways of thinking and

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questioning into your business.

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So, you know, you may have a specific process when it comes to
making infrastructure changes, for example.

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Well, an apprentice may come in and, you know, they're going to
have a completely different background to everybody who's worked

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at your company in the past.

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And they might go, "Well, hey, have you looked at doing it this
way?

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Or how about if we change our maintenance window to this time on
a weekend because, you know, a lot of, you know, it could

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be a better time to do it?

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Or have we looked at using this system instead?" You know, it's
a two-way thing.

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It's not a one-way thing where you're training apprentices.

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It's also that your business, your employees, and the people
that are acting as mentors will learn from the

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apprentices as to, you know, different ways of doing things and
things like that.

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And a lot of them never have, you know, when you're working full
time, you don't, you know, it's hard to learn new things.

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Andy Johns:
A true two-way street, I think, is how you phrased it in our
panel, so it makes perfect sense.

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Yep. Well, Craig, thank you so much for being willing to not
only speak at the panel, but also join us on this episode of

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Lead Tennessee Radio.

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Craig Barber:
Thank you. It's been good.

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Andy Johns:
He is Craig Barber, the founder and CEO of Hatbox here in Middle
Tennessee.

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I'm your guest host, Andy Johns, and we appreciate you listening
to this episode of Lead Tennessee Radio.