By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
Customer service. That was the role which began one young woman’s career in telecommunications. Now she is leading that same company which is serving customers’ technology needs in new and innovative ways.
Catherine Moyer is chief executive officer of Pioneer Communications, a rural telecommunications company headquartered in Ulysses. She grew up in Ulysses and went to college in Vermont. Her first job was at Pioneer Communications, where she worked as a frontline customer service representative.
Pioneer is one of many local telephone companies formed across rural America in the 1940s and ’50s. Some say the rural telephone business began with a farmer stringing a copper wire from one fencepost to the next. Cooperatives and local companies were formed to offer and expand service. Pioneer Communications was founded in 1950 as the Pioneer Telephone Company. Continue reading “Catherine Moyer, Pioneer Communications”
