Mosaic Technologies had applied for broadband grants twice on behalf of Dunn County’s Grant Township before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission awarded Mosaic the funding to support 133 Grant Township residents and businesses with fiber broadband access. Dave Hayden, Grant Township resident reflected, “It felt like it was our best chance to get broadband.  We had to do it differently and we had to get overwhelming community support.”  The third grant attempt began around a kitchen table and community broadband champions talking over coffee about how this time would be different.   The Mosaic Technologies Public Relations Manager, De Anna Westphal made 4 trips in total throughout the grant application process to hold public engagement meetings. The Grant Township’s board collectively believed the project needed financial support to make the grant as attractive as possible.   “It’s one thing to have letters of support, but to financially support the grant with ARPA funding, a community collection, and private donations from local businesses we felt it would get Grant the award it needed to get Mosaic fibered throughout the community,”  stated Treasurer James Ackerlund. 

The township’s grassroots efforts and mailings brought the public to the meetings.  Residents took flyers, extra letters of support information to their neighbors, and phoned one another to raise awareness and increase grant support.   “It took the entire community to work together with me to make the most compelling community impact narrative we could.  The packages just kept coming by mail,” remarked De Anna Westphal, Mosaic Technologies Public Relations Manager.   Due to the inability to collect letters of support digitally, the township collected them and sent them by mail weekly.  In total, there were 76 letters of support from the 133 locations within the project scope.  Grant Township Chairman  Mark Dietsch stated, “We just had to get it done.   I can’t tell how many times community members told me ‘You’re doing a good job, but we really need internet.’  We did everything we could to make sure this time we got it awarded.”    

With Mosaic’s leadership expertise, the team was able to model and differentiate the grant application to be a standout.   Chief Operating Officer Preston Pearson oversaw the engineering and design of the project scope.  It was imperative to engineer the grant extremely carefully due to the population scarcity while making the dollars make sense to build it.   Then Linda Garbelman, Chief Regulatory and Financial Officer modeled the grant work to show Mosaic’s financial strength within the application.   Collaboratively, Chief Human Resources Officer Tammy Emerson developed narratives with Public Relations Manager De Anna Westphal to embody the Grant Township’s critical broadband need for reliable, affordable access.   CEO Domenico Fornaro, “This team worked incredibly hard to deliver an award-winning application on behalf of the community.   Our team of experts’ focus drives our capabilities to expand our footprint and support rural communities with Mosaic’s state-of-the-art fiber broadband network.” 

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission awarded the Grant Township application to Mosaic Technologies in 2024 and as soon as construction was able to begin, within four months, Grant Township was 75% signed up for services.   This grant award brought new meaning to the public-private partnership and deemed it as a rural broadband infrastructure project success.  “We want to thank Mosaic Technologies for their efforts in providing services in northern Dunn County.  They are great partner to work with.” Dan Dunbar, Assistant Dunn County Manager stated.  The level of participation across the township in communicating the broadband need to signing up neighbors during construction made this partnership and project successful.  Today, Mosaic Technologies proudly activates internet services within Grant Township to support residents and businesses with future forward infrastructure and capabilities to scale the network up to 10 gigabytes with symmetrical speeds.  

For more information about the Fiber Broadband construction process, visit www.ExperienceFiber.com 

###

Mosaic Technologies
401 S 1st Street
Cameron, WI 54822
www.ExperienceMosaic.com