Chief Executive Officer
Arcadian Infracom
Dan has over 25 years of global operations, strategy, finance, regulatory, and legal leadership experience in telecom infrastructure, data center, cloud, medical device, and biotechnology companies.
Arcadian, a digital infrastructure development company, builds long-haul fiber, purposefully routing fiber through rural and tribal communities to help bridge the digital divide in the U.S.
Prior to Arcadian, Dan was vice president of corporate strategy at CenturyLink serving in various legal, operational, and executive roles for 15 years.
He earned his B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana,
J.D. from St. Louis University, and executive MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.
How can telecommunications technologies help humanity?
Low cost, scalable digital infrastructure is the key to economic development in all communities. Telecommunications technologies can help humanity by providing opportunities such as: raising the quality of life through more efficient and accessible remote learning, access to improved medical care through telehealth applications, and improved overall economic productivity by accessing the untapped potential of people, businesses, and resources located in remote rural markets.
If one thing should be redeveloped within the telecom and related industries, what should it be?
We should reconsider how we balance the two important public policy priorities of improving access to affordable, scaled, reliable broadband access and protecting the environment during the installation of fiber/broadband network facilities. Both are important policy priorities on their own merit. Current permitting rules, processes, and governmental resources dedicated to protecting the environment should be reformed to accelerate broadband permitting timelines and lower permitting costs to better align with federal and state broadband policy funding rules and priorities.
What network-related development will have the greatest impact in our industry?
The expansion of middle mile fiber network assets to lower the cost of bringing high-capacity broadband to Tier 3 and smaller rural markets will have a great impact on our industry. Additionally, the emerging AI-enabled tools and processes will require significantly expanded data center infrastructure and fiber transport capacity between data centers. This expanded transport capacity and new data center infrastructure configurations/locations will require new scaled capital investments in these network infrastructure elements that are optimized to meet the unique needs of an AI technology-driven IT stack.
What value does PTC hold for you/your company?
PTC holds value for Arcadian as it provides a broad and reliable platform for Arcadian to reach its key customers, vendors, and financing partners. That pool of industry talent is key to Arcadian’s growth.
What vital piece of information should people know about PTC?
The most vital piece of information people should know is that the PTC Annual Conference, with its unique location in Hawaii, helps ensure the attendees are predominantly key industry decision–makers, bolstering the decision to attend the Annual Conference.
What advice would you share with current and future graduates interested in this field?
The digital infrastructure space is experiencing a renaissance of capital investment and asset creation due to the simultaneous emergence of both: 1) Very significant federal and state public funding sources for new asset creation, and 2) A class of infrastructure investors who have recognized that physical digital infrastructure assets have investment characteristics that meet their need for long–lived, hard infrastructure asset platforms with high quality, reliable revenue streams that perform similarly to traditional infrastructure assets like roads, bridges, airports, and ports.
What industry mogul or up-and-coming leader have you followed or are currently pursuing, and why?
I find Elon Musk to be a fascinating leader with a unique, long-term vision for how to strategically and synergistically align efforts among the broad variety of component companies within the SpaceX family. His style is also fascinating and at times purposefully entertaining to watch.
What is something that not that many people know about you?
I started out my professional career as an engineer and financial analyst.
Recreationally, I was an avid skydiving and paragliding fan earlier in life before family obligations required that I find a safer means of getting the adrenaline rush that comes from jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or running off the edge of a cliff.
About Arcadian Infracom
Founded in 2018 by seasoned communication industry leaders, Arcadian Infracom is a digital infrastructure development, construction, and operations company. Arcadian builds diverse, lower latency long-haul fiber routes connecting major data center locations for its cloud and content customers while providing low cost backhaul to digitally stranded rural and tribal communities for its telecom, cable company, ISP, and enterprise customers. Arcadian purposefully routes its fiber through remote rural and tribal communities to help bridge the digital divide in the U.S. Arcadian currently has six long-haul fiber routes under development in the Western U.S. that when completed will add 3,500 route miles of critically needed new fiber infrastructure.
