VP Rotary welcomes recent guests

Submitted by Heather Bogard on Fri, 01/17/2014 - 16:42

January 7, Meeting
Rotarian Benny Fontenot welcomed Andrew Dugas, Kim Colby and John Dreher with CenturyLink to the January 7, meeting of the Ville Platte Rotary Club, where they gave a brief history of the company, from its humble beginnings in Louisiana to the present day international corporation it has become.
The company began in 1930, when Clark Williams bough Oak Ridge Telephone Company for $500. The company originally had 75 customers, but through a series of acquisitions, the business grew to 600,000 customers. In 1972, the LaCrosse Telephone Company in Wisconsin was purchased and in 1997, PackTel in the Midwest was also added to the growing and expanding company, giving them customers in 12 states. In 2009, Embark was purchased, and then Quest was purchased, which grew the company into 37 states with 230,000 miles of fiber optic cables. The company has also expanded internationally.
He added that CenturyLink is currently the third largest telecommunications company in the U.S. only behind AT&T and Verizon.
The company recently purchased Savvis Communications in order to couple the companies’ network and data capabilities. Colby noted that many Fortune 500 companies use Savvis for their networking needs so this is a wonderful partnership for CenturyLink.
Dugas stated CenturyLink is focused on three primary areas, voice, television and data services. He noted that data hosting and the Internet is a huge business for the company and the partnership with Savvis will help better serve their customers. He said Savvis can host hardware back up on the web or store hardware and software in a secure data center for protection. They also offer a “cohabitation” and can do both for businesses needing to protect vital data with various plans and packages to choose from. By doing this, a company can focus on their business and not data management.
CenturyLink, an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company headquartered in Monroe, currently employs 36,000 people world-wide. The Ville Platte location employs 15 people at its retail store.

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