An exploration of how telecommunications' greatest competitive advantage lies not in infrastructure, but in building a workforce culture rooted in trust, integrity, and respect between leadership and field teams.
Her Story
About Tricia
Tricia Feeney is the Associate Manager for OSP Construction at TDS, with an emphasis on fusion splicing, a role she has held for the past year while also conducting inspections to ensure community restoration and collaborating with city officials. She has 12 years of experience in the telecom field and 16 years in project management. Her career began after serving as senior buyer at Gaiam, where she managed projects for media launches in health, yoga, and natural products through the Inner Balance Catalog. This led to a transition into telecom, starting with double duty as a project manager and field engineer on outside plant, followed by three years in inside plant. She then spent eight years on turnkey telecom projects involving permitting, planning, engineering, construction, and permit closeouts, including high-profile work with the Southern Ute Tribe in Colorado. After moving to Montana, she worked as a project management and construction manager for CEC facility groups before joining TDS. Feeney holds a PMP certification from years ago and maintains affiliations with ISE and the Project Management Institute. She graduated high school in 1997 and completed some college without obtaining a degree.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tricia
01What do you attribute your success to?
If you ask me what I attribute my success to, it comes down to two things: relentless drive and the incredible people I’ve stood alongside in the trenches.
My path wasn't built on a traditional roadmap or a piece of paper—it was built on adaptability, trusting my gut, and proving every single day that hands-on capability beats credentials every time. I earned my way up by learning on the ground and taking ownership of every opportunity.
But when you build your career from the ground up, you realize very quickly that success isn't a solo effort. It’s earned day after day through mutual trust, hard work, and the team that stands with you when the pressure is on.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
If I could pass along one piece of advice, it’s to build your foundation on four unshakeable pillars:
Lead with unyielding integrity. Do what is right, keep your word, and let your character speak for itself.
Never let anyone else define your limits. Walk into every room with your head held high—you are the only one who gets to set the boundaries of what you can achieve.
Never lose your empathy. Deep compassion and kindness aren't weaknesses; they are your greatest connectors.
Stay endlessly curious and sharp. Look for patterns, question the status quo, and use critical thinking to uncover the deeper truth behind how things work.
When you blend strong morals, self-belief, genuine compassion, and a sharp mind, you create a standard of strength that no external circumstance can break.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The greatest opportunity in telecom right now isn't just technology—it’s leadership. The real work is transforming the culture by helping field technicians shift from a 'punch-the-clock job' mindset to a true 'career' mindset. Building that kind of engagement takes genuine trust, and earning that trust is where personal strength comes in.
Coming from a desk background and stepping into a male-dominated, field-heavy industry, you can’t fake authority. You have to walk into every room with your head held high, unbothered by anyone trying to set your limits. You build credibility by staying grounded in unyielding integrity, bringing deep empathy to understand what your crews face on the ground, and using sharp pattern recognition to solve complex problems.
When you lead with both technical logic and fierce compassion, you don't just earn respect—you change how people view their own potential and elevate the entire team.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunities in the telecom industry are shifting from raw physical expansion—like rapid fiber rollouts and infrastructure builds—to operationalizing workforce capability, network monetization, and long-term retention.
My biggest challenges are shifting field technicians from a short-term, "punch-the-clock" job mindset to a long-term, high-craft career mindset, while earning authentic trust as a woman coming from a desk background in a traditionally male-dominated field. My biggest opportunities are bridging that gap between office management and field execution—using unyielding integrity, deep empathy, and sharp operational logic to build a loyal, high-performing team that takes pride in network precision, stands by leadership, and elevates the standard for our entire market.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For me, it always comes back to four personal pillars that form my bedrock: integrity, self-belief, empathy, and sharp critical thinking.
First, unyielding integrity is non-negotiable. Doing the right thing when no one is watching and keeping your word builds the foundation of all authority. Second, limitless self-belief. Coming into a field-heavy, male-dominated space from a desk background, I learned you can’t wait for permission to belong. You have to walk into every room with your head held high and define your own ceiling.
Third, deep empathy. You cannot lead people effectively if you don't take the time to understand the real, daily grit of what they face on the ground. And finally, sharp logic and pattern recognition—staying curious, asking the right questions, and connecting operational data to real-world execution
Her Content Hub
Articles by Tricia
Beyond the Network: Why Telecom’s Greatest Frontier Is Its People
How Leadership Built on Trust and Earned Credibility Transforms Telecom's Workforce Culture and Infrastructure Future
Why Telecom's Greatest Frontier Is Its People
By Patricia Feeney
In telecommunications, progress is usually measured by physical metrics: miles of deployed fiber, fusion-splicing precision, signal quality, and multi-gigabit speeds. Yet as our industry drives nationwide fiber expansion to meet unprecedented demand, we face a clear reality: the strongest network in the world is only as durable as the culture of the workforce building it.
The critical bottleneck facing telecom today isn't hardware. It's bridging the operational divide between desk strategy and field execution while transforming a short-term, "punch-the-clock" mindset into a long-term, high-craft career mindset.
Bridging Desk Strategy and Field Reality
A persistent divide has long existed between the data-driven planning that happens behind a desk and the complex realities of the field. Bridging that gap requires leadership built on earned trust rather than rigid authority.
Stepping into a field-intensive, historically male-dominated industry from a desk-based background teaches you quickly that authority cannot be mandated—it must be earned. You build credibility by walking onto every job site with confidence, refusing to let external expectations define your potential, while maintaining deep respect for the technical expertise of field crews.
When teams see that leadership brings operational structure without sacrificing respect for the realities of their day-to-day work, genuine alignment begins to take root.
Precision, Purpose, and the Future of Fiber
This foundation of trust is the catalyst for the future of our digital infrastructure.
High-density fiber deployments leave virtually no margin for error. Network reliability is ultimately determined in a splicing van by a technician working through severe winter weather, extreme heat, or other challenging conditions.
When workforce culture elevates that technician from an isolated worker to a skilled craftsperson who takes personal pride in network integrity, deployments scale more effectively, failure rates decline, and infrastructure delivers value for decades.
Retaining that level of talent comes down to four unshakable pillars:
- Unyielding Integrity: Doing what is right, even when no one is watching.
- Limitless Expectations: Refusing to let anyone place limits on your potential—or your team's.
- Active Empathy: Leading with genuine compassion for the realities crews face in the field.
- Sharp Operational Judgment: Applying pattern recognition and critical thinking to solve complex operational challenges.
A Blueprint for Everyone Rising in the Field
Beyond the blueprints and fiber lines, true leadership is about proving that you never have to diminish who you are to earn respect in a demanding industry.
For every woman stepping onto a job site feeling out of place—and for anyone navigating self-doubt or a steep learning curve—remember this:
Your background is not a barrier.
It is your perspective.
Getting people to care isn't about issuing directives from behind a desk. It's about proving you have their back.
When field crews know their leaders are invested in their safety, growth, and long-term success, "just a job" becomes a lifelong career.
And that's how we build not only stronger teams, but a stronger industry that endures.
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