INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
boring rigs. We were a one-stop-shop. We had a whole division of our construction company that did custom road bores. I’m talking custom, like blow a pit out with dynamite, set your machine down in a solid limestone to granite pits and bore with tungsten steel bits across a road that was solid rock. That’s how we were able to build 400 customers before we had to borrow our first dime because not a lot of people have a Class A Explosive License.
So you are a Rancher, an ISP and Chair of the ACA. Tell me about your role there. Back 1992, ACA was called the Small Cable TV Business Association, formed up to fight the Cable Act of 1992. It was formed up singularly for those issues, but as ACA found its voice for small independent operators, the uniquely rural issues continued. We became charter members. The ACA represents about 450 small to medium sized rural independent operators. There is no other association out there fighting for our unique issues; day in or day out. I have always been active with ACA Connects. In the early years, while I was boots on the ground for our small company, as well as raising our only child, I took a backseat to leadership roles in the Association. However, when our son reached college age, I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in head first. How is Boycom involved in the BEAD funding programme? BOYCOM is a successful applicant and recipient of the BEAD programme in the state of Missouri. There are approximately 40 more companies in Missouri that have been successful. Upon completion we will go from 17 homes per mile pass to eight! Even more rural than ever! The new green field build areas of our projects will be FTTH. Anyone else out there past that 8 homes per mile passed, Starlink can have those folks! What are your thoughts as you look back on all this? God’s been good to me and Steve and to our family. I’m not going to say that we’ve made it. But when I look back over my shoulder, 47 years, almost five decades in this industry, it’s a lot to be proud of. Our company, BOYCOM was incorporated in 1992. And prior to that, it was our construction business, Boyers Communications Incorporated. So we took the B-O-Y and the C-O-M and made BOYCOM. We stayed in the construction business for about 10 years after we initially built BOYCOM. Where we live, 85% of our plant is aerial as we live in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, which are a rare combination of limestone and granite. It is a challenge to go underground. Back in those days you didn’t have directional
they say necessity is the mother of invention… So it was in 1992 that I got my first taste at what it would be like to be involved politically - my favourite part of the of the process - getting involved in the policy and and regulation that affects little bitty folks like us. It turns out that the reason incumbent providers in town were so reluctant to build out to our farm was because we had to cross some established federal conservation land. Permits and easements across federal lands are an act of God with a capital G. Steve said, I’m going to drive around and see if there’s enough homes and farms to make it feasible to build our own network - throw up a couple of satellites, pick up some businesses and we’ll have our own cable network. That morphed into what we are today. BOYCOM is located in five rural counties in Southeast Missouri, maintaining over 424 miles of rural aerial and underground plant, serving approximately 5,000 RGU’s with just 17 full time team members. My husband is a true entrepreneur. He has never worked for anyone else in his entire life. While BOYCOM maintains a physical office, my office is at home on the farm, which is on about 180 acres in Butler County. Our main cattle operation is in the next county over. We raise registered Black Angus beef cattle, about 250 head of mama cows on 650 acres of prime Missouri pasture land in Ripley County. What’s been your experience of running an ISP in your area? We live and serve in an extremely impoverished area of southeast Missouri. Four of the five counties in which we provide service are deemed perpetually impoverished due to the low to moderate annual household income and and have been since the 1960 census. We also have lots of federal lands in the Ozark Mountains; state parks, federal parks, protected riverways, US Forestry and all sorts of things that require permits. We built our own systems through this. We are first generation MSO’s (multi-service operator). It became abundantly clear to me early on that we needed to find some way to make our small rural voices heard above the noise of the big guys, for we are NOT the same; That’s when I found ACA Connects (America’s Communications Association).
I admire your graft and partnership.
It really is relentless hard work because Steve comes up with the ideas, then he walks away from them, ready for the next deal. We’ve always said he has his head in the clouds, standing on my shoulders with my feet on the ground. I put feet to his ideas and that’s how we have worked so well together for almost 50 years. What have you learned from this? It’s not necessarily the jobs that you bid on and DON’T get that keep you up at night - it’s the jobs that you bid on and get! However, every time we’ve been able to come back and land on our feet; it is brains, balls and borrowed money, not necessarily in that order! How have you found it in a very male dominated industry? What has your experience been as a woman, especially going back as far as 47 years? I heard some terminology in Germany last June at ANGA COM. I was speaking on two different panels. One was a woman’s panel about women in the industry and it was a profound experience for me. One of the panelists said let’s talk a little bit about “imposter syndrome”. Imposter syndrome? Never heard that term in my life! I stopped and I looked at Camilla Formica from The Syndeo Institute and she could tell I was baffled. I said, I’m sorry, ladies. I don’t know what that is. So they start telling me. I said, you’re kidding me. That’s a thing? Camilla said, “I cannot believe that you’re telling me you’ve never experienced being in a room that you didn’t feel you were qualified to be in.”
Volume 48 No.2 MAY 2026
49
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