Fiber Broadband Association Awards Whidbey Telecom’s Gabe Renville for Fiber Workforce Advancement

Gene Scott Education Award presented at Fiber Connect 2025 to recognize excellence in fiber broadband workforce development

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at Fiber Connect 2025, the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) announced Gabe Renville, Resource Planning & Development Manager at Whidbey Telecom, as the winner of the 2025 Gene Scott Education Award. This annual award honors a person, community, or institution that made a significant impact on advancing FBA’s fiber technician education initiatives, especially FBA’s Optical Telecom Installer Certification (OpTIC Path™) program.

Renville has demonstrated exceptional leadership in workforce development and a commitment to growing a pipeline of skilled fiber technicians. Gabe and his team at Whidbey Telecom have actively supported the OpTIC Path program by traveling via ferry to Everett, Wash., where they teach a class at Sno-Isle Tech alongside Mr. Ted Rodriguez, Sno-Isle Tech’s primary instructor. In addition to his OpTIC Path involvement, Renville is a passionate advocate, actively recruiting other learning institutions and professionals from within the industry to get involved and contribute their expertise.

“Addressing the broadband workforce shortage is critical to the success of fiber deployment across North America,” said Mark Boxer, FBA Board Member, FBA Education Committee Co-Chair, and Lightera Technical Magaziner of Solutions and Applications Engineering. “Partners like Gabe bring a deep commitment and real results to this effort. Their work to support and scale the OpTIC Path program is helping bring broadband to communities everywhere. We’re proud to recognize them with the 2025 Gene Scott Education Award.”

The Gene Scott Education Award honors the legacy of Gene Scott, former Chairman of FBA’s Education Subcommittee and a driving force behind the creation of the OpTIC Path program. FBA is currently engaged with 40 states to roll out the OpTIC Path program, with 44 service providers and 70 community colleges and training institutions. The program is expected to graduate around 1,200 new fiber techs per year over the next five years as the need for skilled labor continues to grow.

To learn more about Fiber Connect 2025, visit the conference website here or subscribe to FBA’s Fiber Forward Weekly newsletter here to stay updated on the latest industry news. View the 2024 Fiber Broadband Association Award Winners here.

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 policy makers 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.