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"Just good enough" isn't in the vocabulary at East Ascension Telephone Company Inc. because it's rapidly becoming the biggest little phone company in America, according to Charles M. King Jr., executive vice president and general manager of the company.
Somehow, the image of a backwoods telephone company no longer fits this thriving telecommunications firm based in Gonzales. In its place are excellence and a commitment to technology and the future. "We've really begun to hit our stride," said King. "Our management decided years ago that we were not only going to keep up in the technology race but that we were going to get ahead."
The 1983 breakup of the Bell System sent every phone company in America scrambling to survive. The intervening years have been marked with uncertainty. But King said that EATEL-despite being a dark horse over the last 20 years-has suddenly emerged from the pack and is vying for the lead with some larger and better-equipped firms.
In the past few years-with a multimillion dollar explosion of computerized equipment and digital technology-the company has found its way from its own drawing board to the boardroom of nearby industry.
In the Vanguard of an Industrial Revolution
EATEL's storybook success tale began as a barbed-wire phone company with 35 customers in the depression-racked `30s. In an area with no phone service, Fred and Anona Banker founded EATEL. For many years, the small company needed little more than a one-page cover on which to list all of its customers.
Albert Banker, current president of EATEL and son of founders Fred and Anona Banker, helped build the tiny company...