INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
International Women’s Day By Melissa Cogavin To mark another International Women’s Day we featured Zenita Henderson and Laura Baskeyfield in our March issue, and continue the theme in this issue with an interview with the inimitable Patricia Jo Boyers, of Boycom Cablevision in the Ozarks, Missouri, and another with the unstoppable Tiffany Shurr of Calix, based in Vancouver. Fascinating stories and truly inspiring women.
It was a pleasure hearing your stories ladies, thank you for your time.
#IWD2026
Patricia Jo Boyers President/CEO & Co-Founder, BOYCOM Patricia Jo Boyers is President and CEO and Co-Founder of BOYCOM Cablevision, a Missouri-based, woman-owned broadband provider serving rural communities across southeast Missouri. She has been with the company since its founding in 1992, previously serving as Executive Vice President and CFO, and brings more than 47 years of experience in the cable industry. Boyers is also the owner of Boyers Communications, an underground telecommunications construction company. ALTEL and other companies that don’t even exist today! We went from telephone, to custom solid rock bores, high pressure gas mains, then ultimately to CATV. We were awarded a huge fibre optic job for Triax Cablevision in Michigan; where we were required to go all the way across the state, from east to west. We were moving snow to start and moving snow when we finished. It was a two year contract. So in a roundabout way, that’s how we decided to build and operate our own systems. We wanted CATV at our farm! The local cable
A respected industry leader, she has served on the board of ACA Connects since 2007 and is currently its Chairman, becoming the longest- serving chair and only the second woman in the organisation’s 34 year history. She was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers in 2015 and into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2022. Boyers has been recognised by Cablefax as one of the industry’s Top 100 Players every year since 2015 and among its Most Powerful Women. She has also served on the FCC’s Communications Equity and Diversity Council and several industry board. company, which was about 12 miles from where we lived, not only said no, they said, HELL NO, we’re not going to build out there. So Steve said, you know what? Let’s do it ourselves. And we did! When we completed that Triax job, we were able to bankroll the construction of BOYCOM. We had the first 400 BOYCOM subscribers on before we ever had to borrow our first dime, a fact of which I am most proud.
Tell me a bit about your background, Patty. My husband Steve and I have been in the cattle business ever since we got married nearly 47 years ago. But we also started out over 49 years ago in the telecommunications business, on the contractor side of the house as underground contractors, burying underground cable for the telephone companies. We worked for BELL, GTE,
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MAY 2026 Volume 48 No.2
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