We meet thousands of people over the course of our lifetime…maybe tens of thousands? But how many of them leave an indelible mark upon you as a person? The rural broadband industry lost someone this week, way before his time, who left a legacy with every single person who knew him, Timothy Evan Owens.
Even as I type this, I am grappling with the fact that I will never see Tim’s lanky frame loping down the hallway at an NTCA meeting with a wonderful goofy smile lighting up his face. This year has already been a tough one but the loss of Tim is another notch.
Tim, the President and owner of Cronin Communications, a standout in the telecom consulting space, was a young 55 years old at his passing but he certainly packed a great deal into those short years. Tim really found his love for the RLEC industry through his time at NTCA where he was the first Director of our Foundation for Rural Service. A number of us on staff, but mostly Andy Brown, had a vision for what a philanthropic arm of a trade association could do on behalf of rural America but Tim took that vision, grew it and made it his own. He focused on rural youth, appreciating that they would be the future leaders for their communities and developed programs to help them not only treasure their rural roots but ensure that they understood how vital communications services were to the prosperity of their communities.
After leaving NTCA, Tim took the knowledge he had gained at NTCA to run Cronin Communications where he worked with broadband leaders across the country to improve their teams and their operations. I always enjoyed sitting down with Tim once or twice a year to compare notes on what we were both seeing in the field and trends in the industry. You know his reach was untethered when I had folks from the rural electric cooperative world reaching out today to share their sorrow. His touch knew no boundaries.
More importantly? Tim was wise and insightful. He also took the time to dig below the surface. He was smart as a whip and yet never threw his intellect in your face. And he was kind and funny and loved new adventures. You worked with him on a project once and he was a friend for life. My last chance to really work with Tim was at our FRS Gala celebrating 25 years of our foundation at our annual meeting in New Orleans in 2019. We had asked Tim to be the MC for the black-tie affair and I was so surprised that he was caught off guard with that invitation. Who else could we have possibly asked to take the lead to celebrate the foundation he had grown from infancy? And he looked rather dashing in his tuxedo as well.
But aside from his professional work, Tim supporting an amazing array of arts and was a long time classical musician himself. From the symphony to the ballet – Tim was a right brain/left brain kind of guy and always put his time and effort into things he was passionate about…and that included his many dear friends in this industry as well as David, his husband of 31 years.
Tim will be put to rest at Arlington National Cemetery when the opportunity presents itself in our time of Covid but I know all of us will find ways that we remember him before that can take place.