Hamilton building momentum in year of expansion

One year after announcing a new five-year strategic plan aimed at providing IT services across the state, Hamilton Telecommunications is reporting change and progress on several fronts.
In mid-March of last year the Aurora-based company announced a new marketing partnership with the University of Nebraska Athletics, with Hamilton becoming the official business IT partner of the Huskers. Exposure of the familiar blue-dot Hamilton logo has been visible at numerous Husker sporting events and venues, which is creating valuable leads and contacts, according to CEO John Nelson.
“In my mind, the biggest thing it’s doing is introducing us to another whole group of people that may not have had the exposure to who we are and what we can do,” Nelson said. “We have found that once we get across that bridge, our reputation does a pretty good job of demonstrating that we’re a good fit.”
The multifaceted partnership integrated Hamilton and the Huskers in a variety of platforms and athletic venues, including messaging across the Huskers Radio Network and its broadcasts, social media, and the official Huskers app. The core message has been focused on Hamilton’s line of IT services for businesses and communities across the state, including to Lincoln and Omaha.
“Most of our growth has been what we’re calling last-mile services, which is fiber to the home and all the services that we provide, whether it’s voice, video, high-speed and reliable internet or managed Wi-Fi,” Nelson said. “All of those services we are really considering in the last-mile bailiwick.”
Another factor prompting sizable growth is tied to Hamilton being awarded two Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) projects in nearby Howard County. (The BEAD program is a federal initiative created as part of one of the COVID stimulus bills — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.) The nearly $5.2 million award is to employ fiber to 328 underserved locations in rural Howard County around St. Paul.
“St. Paul is really similar in a lot of ways — same quality, community, size, those kinds of things — so we’re going to start building out St. Paul this summer as well, along with the BEAD construction of the rural areas that we will do with a really trusted contractor that we’ve used for several years,” said chief operating officer Molliconi, adding that St. Paul is directly adjacent to existing infrastructure and therefore a natural extension of Hamilton’s network. “We’re really excited about St. Paul and have a really good relationship with their community and their community leaders. We think both Ord and St. Paul are going to be really good places for us to grow into.”

Facility changes
Based in part on the three-year Husker Athletics marketing contract, the company announced plans a year ago to repurpose some of its existing building space here in Aurora. The north portion of the building across the street to the west from the headquarters facility has been renovated, with all or portions of the marketing department, sales department and Hamilton Business Technologies staff now utilizing that space. It had been utilized as a call center of the company’s large Relay service division, though many of those services are now handled remotely.
“Things were starting to get pretty crowded and we realized that if we waited until we’re completely overpacked it gets pretty difficult to make that move,” Nelson said of the facility changes. “So this is really a combination of making this move for the people we have and the people we’re going to add. This was about the best time, combined with some of the space being made available by moving our Relay services to 100 percent work from home.”
Nelson and Molliconi noted that many roles are changing within the company, providing opportunities for employees to pursue.
“Our growth overall has afforded an opportunity for growth for a whole bunch of internal employees and opened up new positions to bring a lot more in to fill their previous positions,” Molliconi said. “You know, a rising tide raises all ships, and that’s a little bit of what happens with our employees. As the company continues to grow, we continually have openings that we advertise everywhere from front desk customer service help up to fully managed services and those kinds of careers, all the way to cable installers to help us install Ethernet cable. We also have a real need for finding some really good sales people to help us continue to grow, so there is growth pretty much everywhere.”
Asked whether those jobs will be in-person or remote, Nelson said the reality is that from here on out the Hamilton workforce is always going to be a hybrid mix.
“It really comes down to job function,” he said. “There are some jobs that are just absolutely ideal for remote work and there are some jobs that can be done in the short-term remotely, but benefit from in-person interaction. Collaboration is just such a key to everything we do around here. And there have been some functions, last-mile in particular, where the location is pretty fixed to where the service is provided.”
“The reality is that remote work is an important component,” Molliconi added. “It really came alive with COVID. We learned how to manage it and how to live with it, and we’ve learned areas where it works really well and where it doesn’t. And really, what we’ve found is that the most critical point is having the right, qualified person with the right characteristics and culture that fit. Then we can make it work from there.”

Anniversaries
In addition to the IT-related growth, Hamilton has a lot to celebrate in 2026, marking two significant milestones. The company marks its 125th anniversary this year and is planning a celebration in June. Nelson also recalled that 50 years ago in early April an ice storm caused extensive damage in and around Hamilton County, taking down every utility pole in a 50-60 mile radius. 
“That forced our network into a future living design that is still serving us,” he said, noting the strategic decision made at that time to bury network cables. “We went from aerial copper that had been built as needed, so it was not always the most efficient, to not only all buried, but we took that opportunity co completely do a greenfield design of the network to ensure that everything was run with the shortest and most efficient path to the subscribers in place. That work really is what enabled us to get the DSL speeds that we’ve enjoyed in Hamilton County for a couple of decades, which then positioned us to start building a more fiber-centric network, which really set the stage for a complete conversion to fiber. It all kicked off with an unanticipated weather event.”