VERMONT TELEPHONE COMPANY, INC. (VTEL) ANNOUNCES SHARON COMBES-FARR AS NEW DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

 Combes-Farr, a Vermonter, Brings to the Company More than 15 Years of Marketing Experience

 Responsibilities Include the Sales and Marketing of the Company’s Brand New Broadband and Wireless Open World—“WOW”—Service, Following VTel’s Receipt of More Than $100 Million in 2010 Federal Grants

 (Springfield, VT) – May 17, 2011—Vermont Telephone Company, Inc. (VTel) announced today the appointment of veteran telecommunications professional Sharon Combes-Farr as the company’s Director of Marketing, effective immediately. Combes-Farr is a Vermonter who brings with her more than 15 years of telecommunications and international marketing experience primarily with Qwest Communications and Delphi Automotive Systems.  

 At VTel, Combes-Farr will spearhead all sales and marketing, as well as branding and regulatory initiatives for the company—which made national headlines last year when it was awarded more than $100 million in federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grants to enable what the company is calling, Wireless Open World (WOW). WOW will deploy a 4G/LTE wireless broadband network in Vermont’s under served areas and extend GigE fiber connections to VTel’s existing customers, which U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy called a “game changing network” for Vermonters.

 “We’re thrilled to welcome Sharon to VTel, where she will bring her unique telecommunications marketing expertise to our company,” said Justin Robinson, President, Vermont Telephone Company.  “She joins us at a particularly exciting and critical time for our company, our customers, and the State of Vermont.”

 Combes-Farr will be responsible for promoting VTel’s state-of-the-art commercial and residential products—including its fiber and wireless Internet, voice, and video network—throughout the state of Vermont and parts of New York, and New Hampshire.  In addition, she will oversee the company’s growing Southern Vermont Yellow Pages book, manage regulatory relations and supervise a team of Vermont-based customer service representatives and Internet support technicians.

 “After spending most of my marketing career outside the state, it was a great joy to return to my home state of Vermont a few years ago—where my parents have owned and run an inn for over 32 years!—and now to begin a new phase of my career with VTel,” said Combes-Farr. “It’s particularly exciting to bring 21^st-century technologies to Vermonters with the help of these federal grants, enabling the under-served to have equal access to high-speed communications, as well as contributing long-term economic benefits to this state.”

 Combes-Farr boasts more than 15 years of marketing experience, more than ten of them specifically in telecommunications marketing. She comes to VTel after 11 years with Qwest Communications, where she played a key role in developing Qwest's consumer retention and customer loyalty strategy.

 Previously, she spent five years with Delphi, formerly a division of General Motors, where she began her marketing career in their Beijing office heading up the company’s marketing, advertising and PR activities across China.

Combes-Farr has a B.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University, and two M.A.s, one in Applied Economics, and one in East Asian Studies (China), from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

An avid volunteer and community leader, Combes-Farr is the treasurer and a board member of the Black River Academy Museum & Historical Society in Ludlow.  She graduated as valedictorian of Black River High School in 1986 and currently lives in Ludlow with her husband, writer Bruce Farr.