Hodgen Mainda joined EPB in January as government relations and community development director just as the city-owned utility prepares to potentially play a key role in Tennessee’s legislative debate in Nashville about how to expand high-speed internet service into rural communities that lack broadband connections.
EPB, which developed the first citywide, gigabit-per-second internet service in the Western hemisphere, is eager to bring its lightning-fast broadband to Bradley County and other neighboring rural areas that still lack any broadband service. But state law now limits municipal utilities such as EPB from expanding outside their power service territory.
Mainda, who came to Tennessee two decades ago from his native Kenya to study politics and play rugby in college, will likely need both his political training and competitive skills to convince lawmakers to remove such territorial limits against the wishes of major cable TV, telephone and other companies.
EPB’s newest executive appears ready for the expected political battle. Mainda, whose father was a former financial advisor to Kenya’s president, left his Nairobi, Kenya, in 1997 to play rugby at Middle Tennessee State University and studied political science. He has worked in government relations and business development jobs in Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga for a law firm, a physicians practice and, most recently, for Noon Development and River Branch Strategies in Chattanooga.
After moving to Chattanooga in 2008, Mainda met his future wife and decided to put down his roots and have a family in Tennessee rather than return to Kenya.