D’Agostino leaves large shoes to fill for FirstNet

“What happened?”

That was the question of the day yesterday, when FirstNet General Manager Bill D’Agostino resigned just days before his first anniversary on the job, forcing the FirstNet board to launch a nationwide search for a replacement

According to a FirstNet press release, D’Agostino resigned “for personal and family reasons.” I don’t know any of D’Agostino’s personal or family situations, but there is little question that the travel schedule he and FirstNet Deputy General Manager TJ Kennedy have been keeping would put a strain on any family relationships, even before you consider the workload and stress that is inherent in those jobs.

This travel schedule is just one of many reasons why finding a suitable replacement for D’Agostino could be challenging for FirstNet. Finding someone with similar attributes certainly will be difficult. Not only did D’Agostino—a former network executive for Verizon—have the experience of running a broadband network, he quickly gained the trust of the public-safety community, which is no small feat.

The good news for the FirstNet board is that the organization should have an idea about many potential candidates, because it completed a nationwide search for the position just a year ago. At that time, board members applauded the quality of the applicants and expressed hope that some of them eventually would become part of FirstNet in other roles.

A year later, the job of general manager is open again. There is no need to rush the search process, but it would behoove FirstNet to replace D’Agostino as quickly as possible to ensure (1) that Kennedy—who already has more than a full-time job as deputy general manager—does not get burned out trying to fill the responsibilities of two roles at the top of the organizational staff chart and (2) that recent momentum from the approval of a program roadmap is not derailed significantly.

The bad news for the FirstNet board is that many of the candidates that applied to be general manager last year may not be available during this search process. In addition, the job has changed considerably in at least one way: During the previous search, there was no FirstNet staff at all, so one of the potential attractions was the opportunity to build a staff as desired from a blank slate. Today, many FirstNet staff positions have been filled.