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| | | Jim Prince, Stone Energy Corporation and Bill Fenstermaker, C.H. Fenstermaker & Associates | | |
"It takes geography out of the picture and allows you to communicate with your clients and coworkers as if they're in the next room," says Bill Fenstermaker, president and CEO of C.H. Fenstermaker & Associates, Inc., of Lafayette. "That allows you to run your business more effectively and more efficiently."
Fenstermaker says without a fiber optic infrastructure in Lafayette, he's been forced to move employees to the company's Houston office. He argues that if Lafayette Utilities System's dream of fiber optics for the future becomes a reality, those jobs and tax revenues would stay in the Lafayette area.
"Business doesn't sit and wait on on Lafayette to have this," says Fenstermaker. "If Lafayette has this, the city can go out and sell it. Since it doesn't, businesses are locating somewhere else."
There are roughly 20 communities throughout the country with systems similar to the one LUS is proposing. That technology has been a boon to economic development. Take for instance two cities in Iowa Cedar Falls and Waterloo. They are only 20 miles apart, yet Cedar Falls built its own fiber optic network and watched local business grow from 25 to 125. Waterloo did not capitalize on the fiber revolution and lost eleven companies to its neighbor, Cedar Falls.
"I believe if you build infrastructure, it will attract people and companies who are using computers," says James Prince, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Stone Energy Corporation of Lafayette. “A fiber optic network is the backbone of that infrastructure."
Prince says that Stone Energy Corp. would have approximately 50 fewer Lafayette-based employees were it not for the collaboration tools and the exchange of data that a fiber infrastructure provides. The recent addition of the LUS' existing fiber optic system to Stone's 625 E. Kaliste Saloom Rd. facility will allow the company to continue to grow its corporate headquarters without fear of outgrowing the city's connectivity infrastructure.
"High-speed data connectivity is the backbone of the collaboration efforts between our offices," says Dave Kennedy, I.T. director for Stone. "LUS could really help put Lafayette on the map by delivering high-speed data services to our homes and businesses."
Fiber optics is the key to allowing local business to compete in a global marketplace. With LUS' plan to run its fiber optic network throughout Lafayette, the city is poised to keep companies here at home, and entice new industries to call Lafayette home.
"While all the other major companies are leaving town, we've been hiring those people on board here at Stone," says Prince. "And we find that once somebody lives in Lafayette, La., they don't want to leave."
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