Why Does Fullerton Exist?
Why Does Fullerton Exist?
By Andrew Adams, CFO
Yes, we are an engineering, site acquisition, and construction firm for wireless, fiber and EV infrastructure. But what's the reason we come together as a company…the employees of Fullerton and our partners to work on a common goal that we cannot accomplish individually. For me, the fundamental reason for our existence is to solve interesting problems for our customers.
What is "interesting" about the problems we solve? Is drafting a CD interesting? Is drafting CDs for 200 sites or 1,000s of miles of fiber interesting? Is performing the site acquisition for those 200 sites, drafting the CDs and then installing/overseeing the installation of the equipment or fiber on those 200 sites or 1,000s of fiber route miles interesting? While these problems are good thought exercises, with unlimited resources (time, money, training, etc.) and with no standards around quality or speed, most of us could (eventually) solve this problem. What makes problems interesting is what makes them difficult to solve. And what makes a problem difficult to solve are the constraints.
Be Honest and Transparent: Delivering bad news is never easy, but honesty is crucial. Be direct and transparent about the situation.
Show Empathy: Acknowledge the impact of the news on your audience. Express understanding and concern for their feelings.
Offer Solutions: Whenever possible, provide solutions or next steps to address the issue. This demonstrates your commitment to resolving the problem and supporting your team.
Prepare for Reactions: Be ready to handle various emotional reactions. Stay calm, composed, and supportive throughout the conversation.
In our business, the constraints are complex. Speed — we need to turnaround the CDs for those 200 sites fast. Quality — we need those CDs to be close-to-error-free. Cost — we need to produce those 100s of close-to-error-free CDs at a cost that allows us to offer market prices and deliver a margin to the company. Resources — this is related to cost, but in order to produce the 100s of close-to-error-free CDs at a low enough cost, resources must be constrained — the number of hours we devote to this, others costs to deliver (e.g., of software, tools, etc.). Seamless (to our customers) end-to-end delivery — When you layer in the additional complexity of site acq and installation or construction management to deliver those 200 sites or thousands miles of fiber seamlessly to our customers — from start to finish, with speed and quality while being resource-constrained…now that is complex and difficult — that is interesting. This is a problem that no single person, no matter how talented and dedicated, can solve alone. This is why Fullerton exists, this is why our 100+ employees come together as one Fullerton team — to solve interesting problems for our customers.
While Fullerton may not have the financial resources of a large company, we are in a better position to continue to innovate — to find new and improved ways to solve interesting problems for our customers. We have talented, smart, dedicated people in every part of the organization, yet are still small enough to be nimble — to take the creative ideas of anyone on our teams and try things and see what works. How can we solve these interesting problems better?
By Kelly Lazuka
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