Bluebird Network's new CEO is a telecom vet

Bluebird Network, the Columbia company building a high-speed broadband network across northern Missouri, tapped a 30-year veteran in the telecommunications industry as its new CEO.

Michael Morey of St. Louis took the reins at Bluebird before this month, and he said the company, less than two years old, is poised for growth. With the "explosion" of wireless data demand and cloud services, Bluebird Network's high-fiber infrastructure will be then-positioned, he said.

Morey most recently served as president and CEO of Voxitas, a St. Louis company that provided Voice over Internet Protocol services for businesses, Morey said. Voxitas merged with Appia in the summer of 2010, and Morey worked there until getting hired at Bluebird.

Last year, Bluebird merged with Missouri Network Alliance, which had been providing network services in northern Missouri. The merger gave Bluebird access to MNA's in broad outline 3,000 miles of fiber and existing clients.

Bluebird's network construction is supported with a $45.1 million federal grant aimed at building broadband infrastructure in rural areas. The grant is supporting 809 miles of new fiber- optic lines. About 300 new miles of fiber are done, and the company is getting close to being able to connect users to the new network.

The "middle-mile" network Bluebird is building is a connection between the main Internet backbone and the connections built by Internet service providers just as CenturyLink and Socket. By the summer of 2013, Bluebird hopes to be finished with the grant portion of the network.

The task of building

Morey said the task of building and managing a fiber network is a job he's quite familiar with, having overseen similar projects at other companies. "I feel like I've been here a year, and today's my 14th day," he said.