NEK Broadband, a nonprofit organization working to bring reliable high-speed broadband to the Northeast Kingdom and the town of Wolcott, has hired Marc Hughes as operations project manager and Erik Townsend as geographic information system specialist and project manager.

Hughes joins NEK Broadband from Verizon Wireless, where he served as operations manager. An Army veteran and former E-3 senior airman in the 282nd Combat Communications Squadron, he brings more than three decades of telecommunications experience to the organization.

Sandrine Kibuey, director of statewide housing advocacy at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, has been elected to the board of directors at the Public Assets Institute, a Montpelier-based independent research organization on state budget, tax and economic issues.