Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
National Cable Television Association (NCTA)- Retired
Bresnan Award 2018: June Travis (6:45 Minutes in)
June Travis retired from the cable television industry in late 1999. Since 1994, she had served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Cable Television Association, the industry’s principal trade association based in Washington, D.C.
Prior to joining the NCTA, Travis was president and chief operating officer of Rifkin & Associates, a Denver-based cable television operator. Before that, she served in several executive positions at American Television and Communications Corporation, the predecessor to Time Warner Cable.
Recalling the days when cable was a much smaller business, Travis says the industry’s ethical core was apparent in the relationships between its leaders. The early entrepreneurs “were very competitive with one another, but if attacked from the outside, they circled the wagons and supported one another. The collegiality was palpable.”
Starting her cable career as a secretary, Travis noted the admirable leadership qualities she saw practiced by industry role models. “I kept thinking, ‘Gee, if I ever get into management, that’s how I would like to manage, that’s how I would like to be involved in the community, that’s how I would like to give back.”
Travis has served as an officer and board member of a number of cable television industry boards, including CommScope, NCTA, C-SPAN, Cable in the Classroom, TeleCorps and Women in Cable (now Women in Cable Telecommunications). She chaired the industry’s political action committee, CablePAC, for 9 years. She says such organizations made a tremendous difference to the industry’s employees.
She has been active in a number of Colorado organizations including the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Colorado Forum, the Colorado Women’s Forum, the National Jewish Center, Inter-Faith Community Services, Young Americans Center for Financial Education and the Dumb Friends League. She recently stepped down as chairman of the board of the Daniels Fund but remains on that board and also serves as a trustee for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Travis believes in business leaders’ responsibility to their communities. “It’s huge,” she says. “And it pays back a hundred-fold. If you are genuinely in the community, not for the recognition, but truly caring, and participating, and supporting the community, you can’t buy that kind of customer respect.”
