While
at St. Lawrence, Betsy Bernard '77 was one of the
first participants in St. Lawrence’s Kenya
Semester Program. It was through this experience that she
learned the value of “the notion of operating outside one’s
comfort zone.” While there, she received an offer for
an internship at AT&T Long Lines, and after she accepted, her
career path was straight to the top.
Betsy credits her “fantastic liberal arts education”
with developing skills that have been invaluable in her career. St.
Lawrence taught her how to read, write, analyze, synthesize and critically
evaluate information and gave her strong written and verbal communications
skills. Another valuable lesson which Betsy learned at St. Lawrence,
through her involvement in athletics (she was on the
alpine ski team) and student life roles, was how to be part
of a team and how to be an effective leader.
After she graduated from St. Lawrence with a
degree in government,
Betsy began her career at AT&T and held various positions in
sales, marketing and operations. She became vice president of the
Business Market Group at Pacific Telesis, then vice president of
the Business Market Group at Pacific Teles, and later executive vice
president of USWest. She returned to AT&T and was its
president until she decided to focus on other career goals in 2003.
She is now a director of Principal Financial Group.
The lifelong lessons and other experiences she gained at St. Lawrence
qualified her to become one of the highest-ranking female executives
in the telecommunications industry. One main lesson that Betsy
learned in her 25 years in the telecommunications industry is how to
“treat every experience as an opportunity to learn.”
Betsy was awarded a 2002 Alumni
Citation “for long-term and exemplary service to the University
or for exemplary professional accomplishment or community volunteer
activities.”
Amazing
Alumni