At the Wireless Infrastructure Show, last week in Orlando, tower builders and related service providers put in the groundwork for a charitable foundation to be devoted to aiding “family members of a severely injured, permanently disabled, or deceased tower worker injured or killed in an accident stemming from working at heights on communication structures or other on-the-job related activities of which tower workers are involved on a daily basis.”
To be called the Tower Industry Family Support Charitable Foundation, it is scheduled to become active in September at the Super Mobility Week show in Las Vegas, Sept. 9–11. A board of directors was elected with Jim Tracy, CEO of Legacy Telecommunications, Inc., Burley, Wash., as president; Jim Coleman, vice president of MUTI – Sabre Industries Telecom Services, Pelham, Ala., as vice president; and Kari Carlson, chief operating officer at Tower Systems, Inc, Winter Park, Fla., as secretary/treasurer.
“The intent of the foundation is to provide a funding ‘bridge’ to the affected families to help pay for groceries and help defray other related costs that families experience in a post-accident or fatality situation,” stated TIFSCF President Jim Tracy.
An advisory committee was also elected. It includes: Cliff Barbieri, founder of Advanced Tower Services, Inc., Albuquerque, N.M.; Victor Drouin, president of Green Mountain Communications, Inc., Pembroke, N.H.; Karen Kyman, president of Precision Communications, Inc., Grove, Okla.; Randy Cadieux, founder of V-Speed, Clanton, Ala., John D. Talley, vice president of Talley, Inc., Santa Fe Springs, Calif.; and Todd Schlekeway, Executive Director of the National Association of Tower Erectors in Watertown, S.D.
Communications lawyer Don Evans, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, was appointed to serve as special counsel and advisor to the committee.
Advisory Committee Chairman Cliff Barbieri said, “The advisory committee will be working hard over the next several months to establish the official criteria, guidelines and application processes that will govern the distribution of donations from the foundation.”
