Matthew R. Rantanen is the Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association (SCTCA) and Director of the Tribal Digital Village (TDVNet) Network/Initiative that was started in 2001 designing and deploying wireless networking to support the tribal communities of Southern California. He is also “Partnering and Business Development” for Arcadian Infracom, a fiber infrastructure company, drawing new lines on the map, empowering the unconnected. Matthew, of Finnish, Cree Indian, and Norwegian descent, has been described as a "cyber warrior for community networking." He is an advocatefor net-neutrality, broadband for everyone, and opening more spectrum for public consumption, always looking out for the unserved and underserved.
Matthew has served as Chairman of the Board for (2) terms and is currently Vice-Chair and Treasurer on the board of directors for Native Public Media (NPM). He was named to the FCC Native Nations Broadband Task Force by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and completed 2nd term, having been renamed to the task force by FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler. He also serves on the inaugural board of the American Indian Policy Institute (AIPI) at Arizona State University.
Matthew is on the Tribal Advisory Group which advises the California First Responders Network (CalFRN), California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) and the CA Broadband Council to the Governor, as well as the Long-Term Task Force to the CA Broadband Council. Matthew works with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and is currently the Co-Chair of the Technology and Telecom Subcommittee and Co-Chair of their Technology Task Force. Matthew is on the Broadband Advisory Group for the Western Governor’s Association. Matthew continues to develop policy and work with these partners in collaboration to get broadband deployed to the unserved and underserved communities.
