BOISE, Idaho — From Asia to the United States, and everywhere in between, Santa and his reindeer began their annual 'round-the-world journey to deliver presents Christmas morning and in true COVID-19 style, Santa is masked up this year.
For 65 years, NORAD has been tracking jolly Ol' Saint Nick as he makes his way around the world. Boise-based software, hardware and services company Cradlepoint has helped NORAD do just that.
“It brings us great joy to be able to participate in this program each year, we play a small role of course providing infrastructure and connectivity, but the real heroes are all those folks at NORAD who volunteer their time to put on the Santa tracker program," said Cradlepoint Chief Marketing Officer Todd Krautkremer.
This is the company's thirteenth year working on the program.
“The role that we play is, of course, NORAD, the North American Strategic Command, is a very, very secure place and to run this Santa Tracker from that facility, they have to have a completely isolated separate internet in which Cradlepoint provides over 4GLTE,” Krautkremer said.
With a year unlike any other, Krautkremer told KTVB, it makes programs like the Santa tracker even more special.
“This year has really brought a heightened sense of need for something like Santa tracker for kids to have some normalcy for kids to believe that Santa is unaffected by the pandemic that affects us all. That tracker program I think is even more poignant this year than it has been in previous years,” Krautkremer said.