Fiber industry veteran honored for commitment to FTTH and workforce development

Today at Fiber Connect 2024, the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) presented Mark Boxer with the 2024 Chairman’s Award for his exemplary dedication to the fiber broadband industry and his leadership throughout FBA’s organization for more than two decades.

Each year, the Chairman’s Award honors an individual or company that has shown tremendous effort to promote, educate, or accelerate Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH). Boxer has more than 30 years’ experience in the fiber broadband industry and has served FBA in many capacities. Most notably, Boxer led FBA’s initiative to create a workforce development program to train and certify the technicians needed to connect all Americans to reliable broadband. FBA’s Optical Telecom Installer Certification (OpTIC Path™) program was introduced in 2021; today 40 of its targeted 56 states and territories are engaged to roll out the OpTIC Path program, with 44 service providers and 70 community colleges and training institutions. The OpTIC Path program is also rapidly gaining traction among employers in the fiber broadband industry.

“Mark’s unwavering support of the fiber broadband industry and workforce development made him the right candidate for this year’s Chairman’s Award,” said Jimmy Todd, FBA Board Chair and Nex-Tech CEO & General Manager. “He is a valued contributor to FBA and has played a significant role in our ability to address timely workforce issues throughout the industry and advance our mission to connect every community to high-performance fiber broadband.”

In addition to his work on the OpTIC Path program, Boxer is currently serving his second three-year term on the FBA Board of Directors. He is also Board Liaison of the Deployment Specialists Committee and Technology Committee, and Co-Chair and Board Liaison of the Education Committee.

Beyond FBA, he serves OFS as Technical Manager of Solutions and Applications Engineering, where he assists customers deploying fiber in a wide variety of network design scenarios around the world and analyzes trends in telecommunications markets that drive new product innovation. Boxer’s other activities include inventor of five U.S. Patents, member and past Secretary of the IEEE Power Engineering Society Fiber Optic Working Group, and member of North Carolina Broadband Matters.

Boxer was presented with the Chairman’s Award on Monday, July 29, during Fiber Connect 2024 general sessions. To learn more about his workforce development efforts and the OpTIC Path program, visit fiberbroadband.org/education-and-certification/fba-optic-path/. To learn more about Fiber Connect 2024, visit the conference website here or subscribe to FBA’s Fiber Forward Weekly newsletter here to stay updated on conference news and more.

About the Fiber Broadband Association

The Fiber Broadband Association is the largest and only trade association that represents the complete fiber ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers, industry experts, and deployment specialists dedicated to the advancement of fiber broadband deployment and the pursuit of a world where communications are limitless, advancing quality of life and digital equity anywhere and everywhere. The Fiber Broadband Association helps providers, communities, and policymakers make informed decisions about how, where, and why to build better fiber broadband networks. Since 2001, these companies, organizations, and members have worked with communities and consumers in mind to build the critical infrastructure that provides the economic and societal benefits that only fiber can deliver. The Fiber Broadband Association is part of the Fibre Council Global Alliance, which is a platform of six global FTTH Councils in North America, LATAM, Europe, MEA, APAC, and South Africa. Learn more at fiberbroadband.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240730296300/en/