Imagine waking up to find the snowy tracks of a polar bear outside your house, and upon a closer look, you discover — paw print by paw print — it had tracked you home from work last night. It might sound like something out of a Werner Herzog film, but in rural Alaska, it’s just one of the surreal ways the landscape uniquely reminds you of where you are.
For rural support agents (RSAs), scenarios like this are the backdrop of the work. The role of the RSA is a unique one, and a unique approach from one of Alaska’s internet providers, GCI. Rural and remote go hand in hand in Alaskan communities, so to help keep them connected to the internet, these part-time RSAs support network issues in their local towns.
Originally, the approach from GCI started as a more casual pursuit of community helpers with issues like power outages, but it progressed into a formal workforce to more intimately understand and serve local needs. Today, there are around 120 RSA’s helping across the vast state.
In areas where GCI has no facility or full-time employees, RSAs are like the “first line triage” for network issues, as Senior Network Technician Bob James explained to us.
From checking power supplies or inspecting a remote shelter after a storm, they coordinate with field technicians hundreds of miles away to troubleshoot a signal drop. “The size and the vastness [of Alaska] is unreal... people don't realize the vastness, the logistics and the need for these rural support agents,” said James. “They're our eyes, ears and feet to get us the information we need."
The polar-bear scenario isn’t just a tall-tale story hook — it’s an actual RSA’s anecdote shared with us by the RSA program manager, Sarah Coe. That’s why these part-time workers are essential to understanding specific area needs.
“You're the expert in your community,” Coe said regarding RSAs, “about the elements, about wildlife, about what is feasible. So we rely on them to communicate that back.”
The internet has gone from a nice-to-have service to an essential utility for many rural residents, so having friendly neighborhood support — familiar with the people, land and local rhythms — maintains a connection that runs deeper than the cables.
Learning local
To further strengthen this growing local workforce, GCI partnered with Bethel Native Corporation (BNC), a Tribally-owned development group, and Yuut Elitnaurviat — a regional training organization focused on creating high-wage careers for local residents. GCI and BNC have previously partnered to build the Airraq Network — an ongoing effort to bring fiber-optic connections to 13 communities across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Now along with Yuut, the three hosted a training program in Bethel, bringing in RSAs from across the state to work hands-on with GCI technicians and field experts.
“Many of these folks wear multiple hats in their communities,” explained Coe. “They sometimes work for the electric company, the airport or they're on Tribal council. So this training is really trying to hone in what their primary responsibilities are.”
The weeklong program blended classroom instruction with fieldwork — covering everything from first aid and CPR to tower light inspections and preventative maintenance.
With RSAs being local-area experts, the training helps hone the technical side of what’s already deeply invaluable to field teams — especially those without direct eyes on the ground or a sense of the area’s specific challenges.
“We talk all the time about being Alaska born and raised, and wanting to be good neighbors in these communities,” Coe detailed. “But for some of our folks in urban markets, if you haven’t been out there, it’s hard to visualize what it’s actually like.”
That disconnect is part of what the RSA program helps address. “If someone’s sitting behind a desk and there’s an alarm going off, we’re trying to bridge that communication gap,” she said. GCI encourages RSAs to share community news, stories and photos. “It really helps employees who haven’t had the opportunity to go out there understand the impact of the work they’re doing — and how it affects the rest of Alaska.”
Alongside bridging communication gaps, it also allows RSAs to develop their technical skills and stay rooted in their communities. That can be hard to come by in remote Alaskan towns.
One current field technician, Maurice Teret, told us he originally applied to be an RSA but stepped directly into technician work instead. The RSA position originally appealed to him because “you get to stay in your home community, the hours can be pretty flexible and there’s good potential to use RSA as supplemental income. It’s also an opportunity to meet and work with others traveling to your home community.”
And for cases like Teret, it can actually present opportunities for full-time work in the field as well.
'This is what makes me happy'
Mitchum Ivanoff, a field operations supervisor at GCI, helps service communities across nearly all of rural Alaska — from Barrow to Adak — so RSAs can play a key supporting role.
When a ticket comes in, Ivanoff will assess whether the issue is something an RSA can help with. “If there’s someone in the village, I’ll reach out and ask: Can you take a look? Most of the time, they’re willing to help,” he said. And sometimes, he will help coach them through a basic troubleshooting process to see if they can solve it without a full-time tech.
But in high-priority instances where more knowledge is required, Ivanoff or the closest trained technician is out there to solve the issue. He knows RSAs don’t have the full training of a technician, so he doesn’t expect too much, but they help manage the local sites and communicate the community’s various needs as he looks to solve issues.
He knows when to guide and when to go — and it’s solving real problems for real communities across the vast Alaskan terrain that’s kept him around over the years. “I love this type of work,” Ivanoff reflected earnestly. “Every time I’ve worked a cable job, I’ve enjoyed it... I just knew this was what I wanted to be doing. This is what makes me happy.”
He described the satisfaction of helping a new resident, fixing a tough issue and seeing the problem-solving process through. “You have that sense of fulfillment. There’s just no comparison for me.” And whether starting out as an RSA or coming fresh into the industry, the opportunities within the field are as expansive as the regions Ivanoff covers.
“This isn’t just a job,” he concluded. “If you put in the work, you’re gonna be recognized.”
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