Amos B. Hostetter

Amos Hostetter is co-founder and trustee of the Barr Foundation and chairman and CEO of Pilot House Associates, LLC. In 1963, Amos co-founded Continental Cablevision and served as its chairman and CEO from 1980 to 1996. During this period Continental grew to become the third largest company in the cable television business. Renamed Media One in 1996 when acquired by US West, the company was subsequently sold to AT&T and then to Comcast.

During his cable years, Amos served continuously on the board of the National Cable Television Association and as its chairman from 1973 to 1974. He was a founding director and chairman of C-SPAN and of Cable in the Classroom, and he was a founder of Cable Labs. Amos also served on the Children’s Television Workshop (Sesame Street) board and was appointed by President Ford to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For his contributions to the cable industry, Amos has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the Cable Television Hall of Fame, and the Cable TV Pioneers. In addition, in 1993, he was recognized with the Walter Kaitz Foundation Diversity Advocate award for his efforts to increase diversity in the cable workforce, and in 2016 The Cable Center awarded Amos the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

Chair emeritus of the boards of Amherst College and WGBH, Amos is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and he has served on the boards of AT&T, Colonial Williamsburg Society, Nantucket Conservation Foundation, New England Medical Center, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Perkins School for the Blind, North Bennet Street School, and Belmont Hill School.

Amos earned a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, which recognized him with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1994.

Amos currently co-chairs (with the Mayor of Boston), the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, a council of business, institutional, and civic leaders convened in 2010 by former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, working to develop shared strategies for fighting climate change in coordination with the City’s Climate Action Plan. In 2012, Amos received the Norman B. Leventhal Excellence in City Building Award from A Better City, in recognition of leadership, innovation, and significant contribution to Boston in the area of the environment. In 2018, The Trustees of Reservation named Amos Conservationist of the Year with the Charles Elliot Award.