Behind the Board: A Conversation with Derrick Bulawa, CEO

Each month, the Beacon introduces you to the people who guide the cooperative you own. Throughout the past year, you’ve met every member of BEK Communications Cooperative’s Board of Directors. This month, we’re introducing someone new: BEK’s CEO, Derrick Bulawa.

Derrick's path to BEK began far from North Dakota. He was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, at Keesler Air Force Base, then grew up on a beef ranch in northern New York. He went on to earn a degree in Engineering Technology from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Columbus, Ohio. That technical foundation led to a career spent solving communications problems in some of the most demanding environments imaginable.

Derrick has worked in satellite ground station engineering and operations, cellular systems design and operation, and television station design and operation, and he’s built fiber network service businesses along the way. His work has taken him well beyond rural North Dakota; he has delivered communications technology into some of the most underdeveloped parts of the world, helped developing countries solve their own communications challenges, and even brought American television programming to 53 countries across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Derrick and his wife Brenda have three children, all of whom live in North Dakota, along with nine grandchildren.

He joined BEK in January 2006 and has served as CEO for the last 20 years, guiding the cooperative through two decades of growth and technological change.

Ask Derrick what he likes most about the job, and the answer comes quickly: bringing advanced communications services and technology to our rural communities. It’s the same mission that has driven BEK since its founding — and, after a career spent connecting some of the hardest-to-reach places in the world, it’s one Derrick knows well.