The History of Pencor Services, Inc.
Pencor Services, Inc., (Pennsylvania ENtertainment, COmmunications and Recreation) with its corporate home in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, is the provider of a wide variety of telecommunication services. They are the result of the vision of its founder, Claude Reinhard, and his sons, Donald and Fred who have followed in his footsteps.

Claude's dream was to make television signal reception available in Palmerton.

In 1951 Claude Reinhard, with the financial help of a few investors, founded the Palmerton TV Signal Corporation. An antenna was erected at the top of the Blue Mountain and a pole line was built from the mountaintop to the Sokol Hall on Lehigh Avenue in Palmerton, where Philadelphia channels 3, 6, and 10 were demonstrated to the public for the first time. From this initial cable event, the company, Blue Ridge Cable Technologies, Inc. has evolved into one of the top 25 cable providers in the United States, with service to 179,000 subscribers in 15 counties of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania.

The company further expanded its interest in communications when it purchased the Palmerton Telephone Company in 1955 and the Blue Ridge Telephone Company in 1956, which now provides 13,000 access lines to subscribers in Palmerton, Bowmanstown, Kresgeville, Kunkletown and surrounding areas.

To keep the public informed about enhancements in cable TV and its programming, Cable Grams, a weekly publication, was established in 1967. With his interest in the newspaper business piqued, Reinhard purchased the Jim Thorpe Times News and within two years added the circulation of the Lansford and Tamaqua daily newspapers. In 1987 a weekly newspaper was purchased in Emmaus and since then six other weekly newspapers were started serving school districts in the Allentown area. TN Printing, a commercial sheet fed and web press printing division, grew along with the newspaper business.

Staying ahead of the curve with technology, Pencor invested in several wireless ventures in the early 1990's and became a long distance carrier when Palmerton Long Distance was launched.

In 1994, an Internet service provider partnership, PenTeleData, Inc., was formed and now serves over 91,000 dial-up, cable modem and commercial customers over a large area of Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey. The partnership operates the largest privately owned fiber optic and cable network in Pennsylvania and was the first in the country to offer high speed internet service over cable.

In 2005, the creation of an eighth weekly paper, the Bethlehem Press, was introduced to meet the needs of the residents of Bethlehem.

As the public interest in purchasing telecommunications devices exploded, Pencor Superstore sites were opened to meet the needs of customers for cable, telephone, Internet, cellular, paging equipment and associated services.

Today, Pencor Services and its subsidiaries employ more than 1,000 people who continue to grow the vision of Claude Reinhard and his pioneering spirit.