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From: hakanson@cse.ogi.edu (Marion Hakanson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Whatever Happened to the Telephone Pioneers?
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Date: 18 Oct 90 06:32:31 GMT
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In article <13612@accuvax.nwu.edu> Jim Haynes <haynes@ucscc.ucsc.
edu.uucp> writes:

>I got to wondering what happened to the Telephone Pioneers
>organization after the great Bell System breakup.

>[Moderator's Note: They are still around in the local operating
>companies, and at AT&T. There was some question back in the early
>. . .
>them lately however. They used to do a lot of very good work with
>handicapped people here; building special telephones for them, etc. If
>anyone reading this is a member, how about an update from your chapter
>of the Pioneers?  PAT]

I'm not a member, but I'm the next door neighbor to the real thing.
My neighbor worked for AT&T, and now works for USWest (he still says
AT&T once in awhile by mistake, though :-).  He calls his group
"Telephone Pioneers of Oregon" (note that USWest covers a lot more
territory than just Oregon), and indeed describes it (and his
involvement) as organizing fund-raising events for charities, often
related children and the handicapped in some way.

I get the impression that these folks are pretty committed to whatever
cause they choose for their one big event each year.

I can relate an anecdote he shared with me.  It seems that in downtown
Portland there is a pair of buildings which used to be owned by AT&T.
If I've got the story straight, the former Pacific NW Bell (now
subsumed by USWest) resided in some part of one of the buildings, and
there was apparently a substantial underground tunnel between the two,
to facilitate the convenient sharing of heat and cooling, and of
course for electrical and foot traffic as well.  When the breakup
came, the tunnel had to be filled in, and a new energy system had to
be installed in the orphaned building.  That's some demarc, eh?


Marion Hakanson         Domain: hakanson@cse.ogi.edu
                        UUCP  : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!ogicse!hakanson