Editor’s Note: last week we ran a brief summary, but this week we wanted to run the complete version of this story.
Retired Alliance Communications General Manager Don Snyders was inducted in the South Dakota Cooperative Hall of Fame on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the Holiday Inn City Center in Sioux Falls.
Here are excerpts from his nomination for the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Don Snyders succeeded Ralph Schreurs as general manager in 1989. His legacy to the cooperative was making the right decisions at the right time with one ultimate goal in mind: offering members the best services possible at affordable prices.
When Don started as general manager, the company served four communities and approximately 2,500 customers. Local phone service, calling features and cable TV were the company’s core services. In 2015 when Don retired, Alliance had 11,600 customers and served 19 communities. While Internet was the company’s top-selling product, most customers still subscribed to phone and cable TV services.
Through the years under Don’s leadership, board members and employees became rather accustomed to expanding into new service territories. Without these expansions, thousands of South Dakotans wouldn’t have access to the cutting-edge technology that they enjoy today.
The merger between Splitrock Telecom and Baltic Telecom in 2003 had the most profound impact on the cooperative and their members. Don had been managing each cooperative separately. By joining the companies together, the newly formed Alliance Communications was able to streamline operations, which provided new cost savings for the members and the cooperative.
More recently just prior to his retirement, officials from Rock County, Minn., approached him about expanding Alliance’s fiber-optic network into under served areas of their county. Don saw an intriguing opportunity to broaden and diversify the customer base. However, completing the project would only be financially possible with outside funding. The project became a reality after Don and staff pursued a $5 million grant from the State of Minnesota and $1 million from Rock County. Today, Alliance and its cooperative customers benefit from a new, stable revenue stream from 1,000 additional customers in an area with relatively little competition from other wireline or wireless providers.
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