Russ Elliott is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Siskiyou Telephone Company, an independent telecommunications company serving Western Siskiyou County California since 1896.

Russ served as the first Director of the Washington State Broadband Office in the State’s Department of Commerce. The Broadband Office was established by the Legislature to develop and improve affordable, quality broadband throughout Washington state to drive job creation, promote innovation, improve economic vitality, and expand markets for Washington businesses. Russ led the work to achieve goals including serving the growing needs of Washington’s education, health care and public safety systems; industries and business; governmental operations and residents, and to improve broadband access for unserved communities and populations. Russ and his colleagues were the recipients of the FCC’s Inaugural Digital Opportunity Equity Recognition (DOER) Award for their compelling state wide drive in WiFi program in response to the pandemic. During his time with Washington, Russ served on the FCC Precision Agriculture Broadband Adoption subcommittee where he helped in writing a report on the state of broadband and agriculture.

Prior to Washington state, Russ served as Broadband Director for the State of Wyoming and developed Wyoming’s Broadband Plan, facilitated industry leading broadband mapping and analytics, implemented a broadband infrastructure grant program, and helped guide legislation aimed at expanding coverage throughout the frontier state of Wyoming.

Before his work in the public sector, Russ spent 11 years working to connect western Colorado and northern New Mexico rural communities to quality, affordable internet while serving as President of Brainstorm Internet. Concurrently, he served on the Colorado Innovation Council and Colorado’s Public Utility Commission Telecom Advisory Group and chaired the telecommunications committee for Club 20 of Western Colorado for seven years.