As Midco moves into downtown office, company builds on innovative upgrades for the future

This paid piece is sponsored by Midco.

Midco is back to where it all began in Sioux Falls.

This month, its corporate office moved downtown to the Lumber Exchange building, just blocks from where the company operated for decades.

Additionally, Midco is making improvements to its technology campus at 4020 W. Cayman St.

“If you walk in the Sioux Falls offices, they are a jovial place to be. I think everyone enjoys being there. It’s fun,” said Shea McAdaragh, vice president of strategy and growth.

While Midco’s history spans 92 years and a variety of business ventures, the one constant is Sioux Falls, he added.

“We’ve done 25 or 30 different businesses, and all of them somehow, some way, retain the operating core of the Sioux Falls metro area.”

Talk to people in town long enough, and they remember the days when Midco owned and operated KELO-TV and radio, he said.

“So we’re used to transforming and becoming something different, and our goal is to provide the latest, most advanced products and services at a reasonable price with excellent customer service.”

Today’s Midco is essentially an internet company, one that is committed to making big investments to stay the provider of choice in Sioux Falls and beyond.

“We put forward a sizable initiative to upgrade 100 percent of our system by 2028 – all our facilities, all our wires, everything,” McAdaragh said. “We committed to it in 2020, figured out how it was going to work in 2021, put the training wheels on in 2022 and took them off in 2023.”

In the past year, 100,000 serviceable locations throughout Midco’s five-state service area saw significant upgrades to internet service, “which is a massive amount of construction,” he said. “We’re not going into your house, but we’re going right up to your yard. This is the latest technology, all brand-new.”

Here’s a snapshot of Midco’s key 2023 achievements:

• Expanded owned and operated fiber network to over 15,000 miles – that’s more than 2 million fiber strand miles.
• Upgraded 100,000 homes and businesses across five states.
• Added 8,000 total broadband subscribers.
• Midco and the Midco Foundation contributed almost $12 million to communities.
• Was honored by Women in Cable Telecommunications as one of its PAR Best Companies for Women to Work.

Customers – homeowners, apartment residents and businesses – will notice improved reliability in addition to the ability to increase speed.

“This will allow Midco to provide multigigabit speeds by 2028,” McAdaragh added. “We’re still in the testing process, but we’re setting up all the facilities to do this.”

The average home now has more than 20 connected devices – things like locks, thermostats, cameras, appliances, cameras and speakers – in addition to computers, televisions and smartphones, he said.

“That’s going up every year,” he continued. “So we call this a future-proof upgrade. Anything we can see over the next 10-year horizon, we believe we’ll be more than capable of handling.”

This isn’t necessarily the industry standard, by the way.

As a privately held, family-centered company, Midco has a unique ability to invest in upgrades without being beholden to shareholder pressures.

“We’re the only one that’s saying 100 percent of our plant is going to be upgraded,” McAdaragh said. “But the difference goes beyond that. We are in the communities we serve. We personally handle our customer service. We believe that if every person in Sioux Falls has access to the best internet possible and the best service they can get, Sioux Falls is going to thrive.”

Midco’s key initiatives for 2024 include:

• Upgrading 400,000 homes and businesses and introducing multi-gig speeds with unbeatable upload speeds for all.
• Adding more than 10,000 new passings in Wisconsin.
• Executing 10 broadband grant projects throughout Minnesota and South Dakota, bringing best-in-class internet services to almost  2,500 underserved locations.

The growth of Sioux Falls supports the growth of Midco. As the city adds more homes, apartments and businesses, Midco is able to expand its customer base. In the past two years, the company has added service in Brandon and Hartford and now is built-out in the four-county metro area.

“If Midco is around 92 years from now, I almost guarantee the single consistent thread will be Sioux Falls and the Upper Midwest,” McAdaragh said. “Will we provide internet service in 92 years? I don’t know, but I guarantee whoever is in my role will be thinking about how to serve this community and region.”

McAdaragh has the historical context for that kind of vision. His father, Pat, serves as Midco’s chairman and CEO and has been with the company for more than 40 years. His uncle, Tom, serves as president. His own career includes management roles at Cargill and The Kraft Heinz Co.

Today, his role is “100 percent” focused on the future – and positioning Midco to meet it.

“We have a slate of products to come out. We have a road map,” he said. “We’re focused on a lot of innovation around Wi-Fi, allowing the best possible in-premises experience. We have a robust pipeline for the multifamily industry exploring opportunities in ‘smart’ apartments, and we’re very focused on businesses. There is a long list of things we want to have in the market for businesses.”

That all takes talent. And, as Midco settles into its new downtown office space, there’s room for more people.

“On the corporate level, we’ve had success in hiring,” McAdaragh said. “On the engineering side, we’re a very specialized industry, but we have a lot of bright, smart, homegrown talent.”

To learn more about opportunities at Midco, click here. 

“This is an exciting time for us,” McAdaragh said. “We’re setting ourselves and our communities up for the future, and it’s a great time to be part of Midco.”