Photo: City Councilwoman Jenny Folsom and AT&T Alabama President Fred McCallum sign the agreement.
CULLMAN – With representatives from Topre America Corporation, Cullman Economic Development Agency (CEDA), Wallace State Community College, Republican U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt’s office, United Way of Cullman County and Cullman City Council on hand at Festhalle, AT&T Alabama President Fred McCallum today proudly announced that many areas in Cullman’s industrial parks are now fiber ready.
“We are very excited to be here today to announce that the Cullman Industrial Complex and the Cullman Industrial Parks 1, 2, 3 and 5 are now classified as AT&T fiber ready. There are a number of reasons that we are able to be here and to do this,” began McCallum.
Noting the effort among community agencies and elected officials to make the vision a reality, McCallum continued, “I’m proud of the work that our 6,300 employees at AT&T have done in this state, and in particular, in this area. Our infrastructure has been here for a long, long time. We started in Alabama 137 years ago. But, since the mid-1980s, we’re been deploying fiber into the state of Alabama. While the infrastructure has been here a long time, the program that we’re talking about here is new.”
McCallum went on to congratulate the city and county on their growth and improvement following the 2011 tornadoes, which caused an AT&T cell phone tower to fall down.
McCallum invited City Councilwoman Jenny Folsom, who represented Mayor Max Townson who had a scheduling conflict, to a desk where they signed the official agreement.
Folsom shared, “On behalf of the mayor, the other city council members, the City of Cullman, Cullman County and the entire community, thank you, AT&T. I see many existing businesses and industries that are already residing in our industrial parks and I’m sure that they’re welcoming this opportunity so thank you very much for having the foresight and the opportunity to invest in Cullman.”
“In a lot of ways, this agreement just formalizes the relationship we’ve had, in part, with the Cullman Economic Development Agency for many years,” said McCallum. “Peggy (Smith), Dale (Greer) and their wonderful team there regularly call us and ask about communications infrastructure and other telecommunications related issues. So, we’ve had, for a long time, a very fruitful partnership with them.”
CEDA President Peggy Smith shared, “It’s a great day for economic developers primarily because, for years, the things that we were judged on by site selection consultants would always be the water and the sewer and the wastewater and all of the normal utilities that you would expect. And, those were the things that we strived to provide in our parks. But today it’s all changed and telecommunication is a huge component in every site selection search that takes place not only in Cullman but around the United States. Rural areas probably have the most difficult time of meeting the demands of telecommunication so, to AT&T, we would like to say thank you. This certification for our Cullman Industrial Parks means a lot to us and we are grateful to have this service available to us.”
The announcement, which took place Monday afternoon at the Festhalle Market Platz in Cullman, was also attended by State Rep. Corey Harbison, R-Good Hope and members of the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce.
