By: Laura Phillips
Jonathan Spalter is the President and CEO of USTelecom – The Broadband Association. In his role, he leads a roughly thirty-person team advocating for federal and state broadband policy on behalf of more than 100 USTelecom members. These consist of internet service providers, suppliers, and manufacturers committed to connecting the world through the power of broadband. Jonathan has been with USTelecom for nine years and when we got together, he was eager to reinforce for FCBA members reading this column that his team is extraordinarily dedicated, talented and really likes to have fun when they get the chance. I enjoyed his ebullient take on life and on what telecom policy enables for society.
Q: What attracted you to the field of communications?
A: I have always been a bit of a tech geek, including having been in a ham radio club in high school, but it was in the earlier days of the commercial internet, along about 1998, at the White House and as Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Information Agency, that I got really hooked. At USIA, a key mission for my team was to develop a series of pilots to test-bed bringing internet access to diplomatic missions around the world using low earth orbit VSAT technology. I’m just as enthralled today by this amazing thing called broadband as I was then.
Q: Tell us about the various places you’ve worked through the years.
A: I’ve been a pretzel vendor at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A broadcast journalist covering foreign affairs in D.C. and in Boston. I’ve held national security roles at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. And prior to USTelecom, I’ve held CEO and other management roles in internet and communications companies in Paris and San Francisco as well as heading the D.C-based wireless association Mobile Future.
Q: That’s quite a diverse range of work experiences. Have things unfolded in your career more or less the way you planned?
A: No — partially because I’ve never really planned it all out. Everyone must evaluate their own level of risk tolerance in career planning or advancement. My own consistent path has been to seek out and embrace doing things that really interest me, while prioritizing having a positive impact in whatever role I had. That’s not necessarily the most practical approach to career planning. But I always encourage younger professionals and invite them to try to build careers that can have an impact on things they value and are passionate about. I think that everything works out ok at the end of the day and it’s absolutely ok, if not essential, to fail at times. But I recognize that different people maintain different sensibilities about taking risks.
Q: What’s the most interesting or challenging thing that you’ve done in your current position?
A: Playing a role alongside my teammates and our members in helping broadband technology evolve from being a sidebar to a central part of our national conversations across the entire policy waterfront.
I am proud, and I think all FCBA members should be as well that we’ve been a part of the transformational success of broadband and all it can do. As a community and as a bar association, we do incredibly important work advancing the power and the promise of communications technology in our society. We can take deep satisfaction in our shared mission in that it delivers positive, real-life impact.
On the personal side, when my then eight-year-old daughter was diagnosed in 2011 with type 1 diabetes, she was admitted to a clinical trial meant to help make the dream of the broadband powered artificial pancreas a reality. What blew me away when she arrived at the children’s hospital at Stanford University was the pediatric endocrinology team included not only doctors and nurses but also network engineers and coders developing closed-loop technologies aimed at predictively controlling a patient’s insulin levels. The head of the research trial promised my daughter that by the time she was ready for college the technology would be available, And lo and behold, just a couple of months before she left for college, the artificial pancreas arrived at our door, making her life, and so many thousands of others like her, safer. You’ll never convince me that the work we do to enable broadband connectivity isn’t lifesaving and life enhancing.
Q: Is or was there something interesting or someone who surprised or impressed you during your career, and why?
A: A dear mentor of mine had a sign on his desk that read, “The person who is willing to defer credit can achieve unimaginable things.” That has been the touchstone for me when it comes to what leadership really means.
Q: What do you enjoy reading?
A: You mean when I am not waiting for the next edition of Phil and Jon’s Digital Crossroads? Mostly history, biography and poetry, an occasional novel, not to mention tons of policy and tech periodicals, substacks, and blogs. Do podcasts count as reading? If so, The Rest is History and Past, Present, Future.
Q: Is there something — a hobby or other tidbit — that people don’t know about you that you are willing to share?
A: I had a brief stint as an actor in Hong Kong, with a supporting role in a kung fu movie. This happened right after I graduated from university and had won a one year travelling fellowship to do a research project in Asia. At the time, I was living in Hong Kong, where I attended the first international film festival there with a friend, and a film producer from Jackie Chan’s movie studio approached me to see if I’d be interested in playing a supporting role in an upcoming movie. My only question was “does it pay?” It did and I was cast as a bad guy. I worked for about a month shooting a bunch of scenes around Hong Kong (I even had a stunt double for the fight scenes!). While it didn’t earn me all that much money, it certainly earned me tons of street cred when many years later I screened the movie to our kids.
Q: Can you share your perspective on the pitfalls to avoid or other career advice for those who are just getting started in the communications field?
A: One’s professional journey in the communications sector need not be linear, nor does it need to be rooted only in Washington, D.C.
Q: What are you looking forward to doing next?
A: Getting admitted to law school at Catholic University so I can take Patrick Halley and Justin Faulb’s communications law class.
Q: How long have you been an FCBA member, and what to you is the value of FCBA membership?
A: I’ve been lucky to have worked in a number of different places around the world and across various industry sectors in both the private and public spheres, but I’ve never come across a professional community as collegial, mutually supportive, and mission-driven as the women and men of the FCBA. As someone coming out of the Silicon Valley tech world, I have to say I’d not seen anything like it. I really love the energy and enthusiasm of the young lawyers who year in, and year out create new networks that are valuable to them as they progress in their careers. I also really appreciate that the FCBA is inclusive of non-lawyers as members. We also have been serial supporters of the FCBA’s inspiring scholarship programs.
In terms of events and programs, I have to say I really treasure the Women’s Summit, which our Association also proudly supports, and my colleague Lynn Follansbee is involved in. It’s so inspirational and motivating to see some of the industry’s brilliant minds and leaders interact. I also am amused when I recall attending my first ever FCBA Annual Dinner …. After having lived way outside the beltway for so many years, I felt a bit like Margaret Mead encountering natives in local garb and attempting to decipher their customs and rituals. Now I know it’s an evening I look forward to, to celebrate important moments, professional milestones, and friendships.