Rod Fleck
City Planner, Forks, WA

Tucked away on the western edge of the Olympic Peninsula, the small town of Forks, Washington is a four-and-a-half hour drive west from Seattle.  But in one sense, it is a world away from Seattle’s legendary engine of job creation and the city’s always-on, always-wired culture.  Forks, with a population of just over 3,000 people, for decades was reliant upon logging and lumber.  By the mid-1990s, however, our natural resource-based economy was drastically changed as we lost many, many timber-related jobs due to a restructuring of that industry and the designation of millions of acres of old-growth forest as protected areas.

In an effort to diversify the local economy, many local residents began to focus on harnessing the potential of the “Information Age” by becoming a high-tech community linked to the globe through broadband services.  The Forks experience holds great promise for the economic development of rural areas all over America.

Coming together as a community, residents of Forks identified a number of areas where broadband could spur investment and revitalization.  Broadband was seen as a conduit to reduce the geographic isolation of Forks, a historic impediment to the community’s ability to attract outside business.  Additionally, increased educational opportunities through e-learning technologies for young and old were seen as a necessary enabling factor to our growth.  And, with the adoption of telemedicine tools, Forks was convinced that it could show that rural health care is “world class” health care.

With broad consensus on what must be done to revitalize Forks, the community harnessed the expertise of a variety of professionals. Local collaboration between the school district, the city and the hospital resulted in the build-out of broadband infrastructure throughout the Forks community.  This public-private partnership was essential.

The build-out of this system began with the installation of a digital backbone along the coast of the Olympic Peninsula.  Deployment of DSL services began in Forks in January 2001.  The community remodeled a building into a tech center and set up a nonprofit organization, making the city eligible to receive foundation grants.  At the same time, Forks networked clinics and hospitals to integrate patient data.  The local hospital acquired a CT scan machine and began the process of developing telemedicine applications and hired a radiologist who could read scans/films completed elsewhere.   Local colleges even began studying what types of economic development and enhancements could be undertaken when the broadband infrastructure was in place.

All of these efforts were consistent with the community’s vision that nobody should have their education, business, health care or recreational opportunities limited due to a zip code. 

Let me be clear that there is still much to do, but the Forks community is on its way to joining the global broadband community.  We learned how to take a public-private approach using the business, government, education and health industries and the broadband service providers to develop a plan that fits our community.  Our residents are already reaping the benefits and will continue to do so for many years to come.