Fiber Net Inc.

The state insures Fiber Net under its workers'-comp class for underground utility line construction, which matches the public-works record: buried conduit and fiber for broadband authorities, public utility districts, ports and transit. Agencies on that list include Jefferson County PUD #1, the Spokane Regional Broadband Development Authority, the Port of Clarkston, Lincoln County, Hood Canal Telephone Co. and Clover Park School District. The crew runs in the range of seven to ten workers. The company dates to 2002, and the state lists Jim Hereford and Elizabeth Fitzgerald as principals since that year, with Diane, Charles and Jed Hereford added in 2003. This is a trade-to-trade outfit. Most of its work comes through general contractors, utilities and public agencies, and it gets jobs through referrals and repeat customers rather than advertising. That makes it a fit for a general contractor or agency that needs an underground subcontractor on a broadband buildout, a utility corridor or a transit project. A homeowner looking for a short trench to a shop or a single-house internet hookup is a different kind of job than the municipal infrastructure this firm is set up for. Spokane's housing stock runs from early-1900s neighborhoods on the South Hill and in the older north side to newer subdivisions out toward Liberty Lake, Mead and Airway Heights. Older areas often carry overhead lines and crowded, poorly mapped buried services, while newer developments tend to be built with conduit already in the ground. For any underground work near a home, call before you dig so existing lines get located, and expect the frozen ground of a Spokane winter to shape when trenching makes sense.