Kelly Zacrep
- Based in
- Minnesota
- Year started
- 2018
- Industry tenure
- 12 yrs
- Specialty
- Leadership and project management. Climb-crew background on major-carrier buildouts.
About Kelly.
I started in telecom in 2014 as a tower tech in the Midwest, servicing the major carriers. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint. In 2016 I moved up to crew leader and foreman. Moved over to the WISP side of the house in 2020, stepped up to construction and project management by 2021, and took the CEO role in 2024.
Leadership came to me naturally. Responsibility and problem solving are what pulled me into the work from the start, and they’re what I still enjoy most about it.
What I do here.
In my younger years, my specialty was Verizon buildouts. I ran tower tech and foreman roles across the Midwest for the big carriers. That climb-crew time shapes how I run projects today. I know what a crew is dealing with at the top of a 300-foot lattice because I spent years doing it myself.
Notable sites along the way: I’ve worked on the Texas Tech tower and the Nebraska Cornhusker tower, both sitting right next to their stadiums.
Certifications
- Safety LMS Competent Climber
- OSHA 10
Equipment operated
- Skid steer
- Excavator
- Telehandler
- Capstan hoist
- Front-end loader
- Anything not requiring a CDL or crane license
Streamline Internet in Hendry County, Florida. Streamline is a local WISP running a federally-funded grant buildout covering essentially all of Hendry County and its sub-communities: LaBelle, Port LaBelle, Felda, Fort Denaud, Montura, and Pioneer. Communities the big carriers had written off years ago. Over a thousand unserved households finally got real internet out of this project.
Vertical Axis is their tower contractor on the ground. We run the tower work that the Streamline radios sit on, and it’s the kind of project we got into the business to do.
Off the clock.
- Hometown
- Blaine, Minnesota
- Favorite NFL team
- Minnesota Vikings. Also a Wild hockey guy.
- Favorite college team
- Alabama Crimson Tide. Roll Tide.
- Favorite band or artist
- Tyler Childers. Saw him front row at Red Rocks.
- Hobbies
- Fishing and wildlife photography.
- Pets
- My dog Buddy. Goes by Bubbins.
- Tales from the road
We got mobilized to Tennessee for an emergency guyed-tower rebuild. We were already on our way to Missouri, but that client was gracious enough to let us postpone so we could help the Tennessee operator out. His core tower had collapsed in a storm.
About three-quarters of the way up the rebuild, we moved onto the next size of guy wire and realized the manufacturer had shipped the wrong preforms for that wire size. The right ones were backordered for weeks. Client was dismayed. Team was dismayed. We combed the market, no luck.
It clicked that I was pretty sure we had the correct preforms sitting in our own storage, twelve hours round-trip away. I mentioned it to the client, and he looked at me and said, “What if we could make that trip in four hours round-trip?” He had a Cessna. Without a second of hesitation, we drove to the airport, took off, grabbed the materials, and made it back in time to finish the build.
Bonus: I got to fly the plane myself for about two hours. Actually fly it. Dodging storm clouds the whole way home.
