The president of a rural electric cooperative in central Missouri that took a leading role in providing rural broadband service is President Trump’s choice to head the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service. The agency oversees programs that range from water and sewer facilities to electrical lines and telecommunications. The White House announced the post would go to Kenneth Johnson, chief executive of the Co-Mo Electric Cooperative and its telecomm subsidiary, Co-Mo Connect, in Tipton, Mo.
“Co-Mo is the first to deploy a fiber-to-the-home network to all of their members without federal or state funding, providing gigabit internet, video, and voice services to nearly 16,000 subscribers,” said the White House. On its website, Co-Mo Electric, founded during the Depression, said it organized Co-Mo Connect in 2010 to provide “fiber-to-the-home internet, TV and telephone service.” Echoing a common refrain among rural cooperatives, Co-Mo says, “The people asked for the service. For-profit companies that provided these communications services to cities around Co-Mo Country had no intention of extending them here.”
The rural prosperity report delivered to Trump a month ago described universal broadband service in rural America as a springboard for economic growth. “Ken’s experience with rural utilities, including real success in expanding access to high-speed internet, will serve us well as we strive to increase prosperity across rural America,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who led the task force that wrote the report.