I hope everyone had a FABULOUS Independence day and you were able to take a day or two off work, spend time with friends and family, and celebrate America!
And speaking of celebrating, I’ve got another milestone coming up: on July 12, I’ll have officially worked at NATE for one full year! It’s crazy to think it’s been that long already. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun. 😉
And since I’ve had A LOT of people ask me recently what exactly NATE does and what my job consists of, I thought I would tell ya real quick. NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association is a non-profit trade association that provides our members with uniform safety standards, improved communications, and a unified voice to help shape the future of the tower industry. We work with companies who are involved in tower work in really any capacity. Whether they own the towers, climb the towers, supply materials to build towers or anything and everything in between. We are the collective voice for this industry! Getting involved with NATE really does make a difference, and we are still striving towards consistency in training and developing federal regulations, but we’ve come a long way!
As the Manager of Wireless Industry Network (WIN), my job is to help spread the word of the Association. However, since I am only one person and I can’t be in every corner of the country at once, I have a great team spread all over the United States – and even some in other countries! – that help me out. Our Wireless Industry Network (WIN) consists of eight Regional Ambassadors, who each cover a different region of the USA; five International Ambassadors, who represent other countries from Canada, to the Bahamas, to Guam; and 50 State Liaisons, who cover every single state to help me spread the good word of NATE!
A large part of my job is to keep track of industry events such as conferences, fundraisers, socials, etc. and try to have NATE represented at those events in any way possible. Whether it’s having one of our WIN representatives go and network with others; or whether we sponsor the event; or whether we send a speaker to present the safety topics NATE represents – the possibilities are endless! The more we can get the word of NATE out there, the more members we acquire, and therefore, the more change we can make.
I’ve learned so much about this industry in the last year, and I’ve met so many wonderful people as well. I’ve gotten to travel more – I spent a week and a half in Orlando, FL for our annual show, and I even got to go back to Washington DC for a few days! I’ve got a couple more work trips planned for the rest of 2023, and I’m pretty excited to go see all the hard work we’ve done come to life.
I’ve mentioned in past blog posts that even since graduating from college, I’ve had a hard time figuring out what my “dream job” really is.
Other than being a famous author of course, but let’s be real, that’s not happening anytime soon! 😉
So, until then, I’m perfectly okay with finding a different dream job. And if you had asked me ten years ago – or really even 2 years ago – I definitely wouldn’t have said working for NATE would be that dream. Mostly because I didn’t know much about it! But now that I do, and I’ve been here for a whole year now, I really am happy with my job, and I feel like this is where I belong. I feel included, and I feel like this is something I’m actually pretty good at. Not to mention I’m helping to make a difference in an industry that’s pretty darn important!
So, overall, I’m pretty excited to have a year at NATE under my belt now, and I can’t wait to see what future years bring!
Bring it on!
Until next time! 🙂
Megan Reiffenberger