Inland Northwest telecommunications entrepreneur Greg Green is modeling his latest fiber optic investment company, Spokane-based Tahoe Network Infrastructure LLC, after Fatbeam, the Coeur d’Alene based company he co-founded in 2010 that was acquired by U.K.-based Basalt Capital last year for $235 million.

Unlike Fatbeam, however, Tahoe is targeting markets in the Midwest and beyond. Its website shows aspirations to grow within a 13-state swath, ranging from North Dakota and Minnesota in the north and Texas and Louisiana in the south.

“I might have a problem,” Green, 60, jokes of his drive to grow yet another telecom business.

He says his two adult children, Kellen Green and Kayla Green-Castles, urge him to get a hobby that’s not work-related.

“I just like what I do. I thoroughly enjoy putting together a business plan, seeing it come to fruition, having success, and then putting a smile on my face when all those people who work so hard get their payday.”

Green currently has homes in Coeur d’Alene and Las Vegas. Tahoe maintains an office at Ignite Northwest, at 518 W. Riverside, in Spokane.

“I’m very proud to be from the Spokane area. I’ve built fiber networks in Spokane three times now,” he says, naming Fatbeam LLC, OneEighty Networks Inc., and Nextlink Communications Inc., some of the telecom companies he has led here.

“If you were to make a phone call in Spokane, there's probably an 80% chance that you would be calling over a network that I built,” he claims.

The Journal last reported on Green early last year, when Tahoe acquired Wisconsin-based fiber and wireless provider E-Vergent for $11.2 million with plans to invest another $10 million expanding its footprint.

Green says Tahoe’s strategy is to acquire other small, fiber-based internet service providers like E-Vergent.

“Two weeks ago, I was in Memphis, Tennessee, looking at an acquisition opportunity,” he says. “We haven’t decided on it yet."

Under the Fatbeam model, Tahoe aims to expand its networks through a federal program commonly known as E-Rate, which supports infrastructure for internet access for schools through a universal service fee charged to companies that provide interstate or international telecommunications.

While the E-Rate program will reimburse Tahoe for installing such infrastructure, the schools will use only a small fraction of the fiber it will carry. Tahoe will be able to use most of the fiber to provide service to other customers, such as businesses, hospitals, and internet service providers.

“Essentially, building a school network is the start of us launching a new market,” Green explains.

Tahoe currently has 24 employees, 20 of whom are based in the E-Vergent office in Franksville, Wisconsin. The other four, including Green, are Tahoe executives who work remotely in the Pacific Northwest.

Green says he imagines that Tahoe’s holdings will be acquired eventually by a larger company.

“I’ve probably had 15 to 20 companies, and probably 12 of them were very successful,” he says.

“We build companies, and we try to take really good care of our employees,” Green says of his executive team. “We want people to have a good life, and when we go and sell a company, we share in that.”

While telecom remains Green's main gig, he says he’s been diversifying his interests. For example, Green says, he’s invested in an artificial intelligence application, a robotics company, and ministorage development. He's also a longtime investor in the Spokane Angel Alliance, as well as the stock market.

He's currently developing affordable housing in the Las Vegas area.

“It’s my first subdivision,” he says. It will consist of 70 to 80 cottages, each with 500 to 800 square feet of living space “so that people can have a nice, clean, affordable, safe place to live.”

Green founded the Greg Green Foundation in 1996, initially as a scholarship fund, although it has grown to support other philanthropic causes. He estimates the fund has awarded about $500,000 in scholarships so far.

In that vein, Green says he’s beginning to ponder his legacy.

“Is it going to be telecom, or are there better things for me? If I were to die tomorrow, I’m not prepared to tell the Big Guy that I did everything I could,” he says. “Writing checks is easy. There's something more out there that I need. And maybe that's the hobby my kids are teasing me about.”