(March 23, 2017) Board members shot down an apparent attempted sales pitch from ThinkBig Networks during an Ocean Pines Association work session on Monday.
Director Doug Parks introduced the agenda topic “considerations for fiber optic in Ocean Pines,” when Sales Director Judy Morgan from ThinkBig, a Brooklandville internet service provider, asked to comment.
She made it about halfway through her first sentence before several directors labeled it a sales pitch and asked her to stop.
“This is a working session of the board of directors,” Board Vice President Dave Stevens said. “It’s for the directors and for the members of the association.”
“Why I’m here is to provide information on viable options to provide services and choices for the community members,” Morgan said.
“In my opinion, ma’am, that information is not relevant at this point in time to this meeting,” Stevens said.
Information packets from ThinkBig were handed out during the meeting. The final page asked Ocean Pines to “Provide an Easement for Construction to begin!!!”
ThinkBig and another company, FTS Fiber, made a similar sales pitch to install fiber optic cable lines during a public meeting in December. Interim General Manager and Director Brett Hill is the chief executive officer of FTS.
Parks, reached for comment on Tuesday, said it was a complete surprise to see ThinkBig representative at the meeting.
“Quite frankly, I was a little taken aback,” Parks said.
He said representatives from ThinkBig previously reached out to him, as well as Board President Tom Herrick. Parks heads a technology work group in Ocean Pines.
During a phone conversation with the company, Parks said ThinkBig representatives asked to make a presentation and he advised against it.
“It’s a work session. No decisions are going to happen. We’re not requesting any information from vendors whether it’s you or anybody else, so, quite frankly, showing up at the meeting, I’m advising you no … I was pretty clear about that,” he said.
“To see them show up, I’m looking at them going, ‘OK,’” Parks continued. “If that’s how you want to do business, you don’t know me well enough. You’re making an impression on me. If I’m going to be your customer, you’d better make a good impression on me. Quite frankly, them showing up yesterday did not make a good impression on me.”
Parks said the appearance of Morgan from ThinkBig, along with representatives from FTS in the audience during the meeting, caught him off guard.
“It’s out of left field. I’m scratching my head going, what the hell is going on here?” he said.
Parks said the intent of the agenda item was to convince board members to release a request for information on fiber optic vendors “from a number of different companies, just to see if this is even feasible.”
“I suspect that they must have caught wind of it,” he said. “They clearly knew it was a work session based on not only the emails, but the phone call I had with them. But my advice was very direct – do not show up. There’s no reason for you to be there. I was literally scratching my head going ‘why are these guys here?’
“If I can’t trust you to take my advice and you just chose to ignore me? OK. We can do that. I’ve been doing business a very, very long time. And if you make an impression on me like that, as they say, first impressions stick pretty long,” Parks continued. “I’m not annoyed – I’m more intrigued. Why would you take that course of action if you’re trying to woo a customer?”
Parks had a few theories.
“Maybe they’re trying to get their foot in the door,” he said. “Maybe they think, because Brett sits on the board, they don’t have to do the same kind of work any other vendor does.
“At this point, I’m basically going to ignore them,” he added.
Parks said he was still in the process of writing a request for information for fiber lines. That item will likely be on the agenda of the regular board meeting Saturday.
Specifically, he said it would look for vendors to connect so-called anchor institutions via high-speed lines.
“I’m not talking about residential right now. I specifically stated the anchor facilities. That’s what we’re looking at,” he said. “I’m not interested, nor am I focused on residential. It’s all about making sure the anchor facilities that run the business of Ocean Pines are connected in a reliable, consistent, high-speed manner so we can conduct our business operations.”
That falls under the purview of what FTS does – install the infrastructure. A company like ThinkBig would then lease or purchase the lines and sell access to residential customers.
Parks said there was an ethics inquiry into whether Hill’s company could be a part of the bidding process.
“Someone asked the question and it was given to the attorney,” Parks said. “The attorney said anybody can talk about anything. It’s when a business transaction begins is where you have potential problems.
“It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” he continued. “Even if it’s perfect, there’s still going to be some folks [who] assign some level of impropriety, conflict of interest, preferential treatment, call it what you want. We’re not going to get around that.
“I have to take that into consideration, but, thank goodness, it’s a board decision,” Parks said.
Morgan and Hill did not return calls for comment as of press time, Tuesday.