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Vanguard Awards are usually reserved for executives on the corporate level, not individuals working in the divisional hinterlands. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has made an exception for Jennifer Mooney, VP of public affairs for Time Warner Cable in Cincinnati. When Time Warner Cable's Cincinnati President Virgil Reed's division commissioned a study to determine where his customers wanted the company to commit its resources in the community, the overwhelming response was education. Mooney developed the city's Time to Read program into one of the largest of its kind in the US. Reed said the program's success is a shining example of what Mooney has done both for the community and the company.

Copyright Crain Communications, Incorporated May 3, 2004

Vanguard Awards are usually reserved for executives on the corporate level, not individuals working in the divisional hinterlands. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has made an exception for Jennifer Mooney, VP of public affairs for Time Warner Cable in Cincinnati.

"I cannot say enough about her; she's fantastic," said Virgil Reed, president of Time Warner Cable in Cincinnati. That kind of admiration for Ms. Mooney flows both inside and outside of Time Warner Cable.

Mr. Reed said he remembers when many years ago his division commissioned a study to determine where his customers wanted the company to commit its resources in the community, and the overwhelming response was education. Ms. Mooney took those results and identified adult illiteracy as a major problem in the Cincinnati region.

She developed the Time to Read program "from nothing," said Mark Dunford, the division's VP for operations, "and now it touches thousands of people in Cincinnati."

With Ms. Mooney's having developed the city's Time to Read program into one of the largest of its kind in the country, Mr. Reed said the program's success is "a shining example of what she has done both for the community and the company."

All the while, Ms. Mooney is "a complete professional who truly cares about people," said Mr. Dunford. "She treats people who cannot read the same as she treats public officials. She would help either of them equally."

Her work has helped not only Time Warner but the entire Ohio cable industry. During this past legislative session, the state's governor, Bob Taft, proposed a sales tax on cable television. Ed Kozelek, executive VP of the Ohio Cable Telecommunications Association, turned to Ms. Mooney to join his "kitchen cabinet," working to beat back the sales tax.

The proposal was defeated, in part, because Ms. Mooney helped to "educate the legislature on why the cable television sales tax would be bad public policy," Mr. Kozelek said. "She has such a passion for what she does. She is well respected at all three levels of government in Ohio," he said.

Peter Kiley, director of affiliate relations at C-SPAN, said Ms. Mooney maintains such "tremendous credibility and relationships in her community that she is able to take advantage of any programming initiatives for the benefit of cable customers."

One of C-SPAN's most successful programming initiatives remains the C-SPAN bus, a mobile promotional and educational tool that brings the inner workings of national government to locales around the country. When one of these buses rolls into town, Mr. Kiley said, he is always amazed at how Ms. Mooney rounds up local officials, members of Congress and the local press "so that the schools can take advantage of the bus' resources."

"C-SPAN spends a lot of time in Ohio, and Jennifer Mooney is always key. She is at the top of her game," Mr. Kiley said.

Ms. Mooney does not limit her professional efforts to Cincinnati. Mr. Reed said that "not only has she taken a lead in public affairs in our division, but she has been a leader for all of Time Warner Cable and in the national association."

Specifically, Ms. Mooney has assumed a leadership role in the national Cable Television Public Affairs Association. In 1999 she and Mr. Kiley served as co-chairs of the CTPAA's education conference. On Ms. Mooney's invitation, John Pepper of Procter & Gamble attended the conference, the first CEO of a major corporation to do so.

With that booking, she "set the standard" for all future CTPAA conferences, Mr. Kiley said. Now she has set a standard for aspiring Vanguard Award recipients well into the future.

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JUST THE FACTS

Title: VP, public affairs, Time Warner Cable, Cincinnati

In position since: 1993

Date of birth: July 17, 1963

Place of birth: Canton, Ohio

Who knew? Climbed Mount Rainier and the Grand Tetons in the 1980s