US Sprint, which will become the nation’s...

US Sprint, which will become the nation’s third-largest long-distance communications service--after AT&T; and MCI--announced key appointments to staff the new partnership announced last month by GTE Sprint and US Telecom. The joint operation awaits final regulatory approval.

US Sprint will be headed by an “office of the president” that includes Charles M. Skibo, US Telecom’s president in Kansas City, Mo.; Donald G. Prigmore, GTE Sprint’s president in Burlingame, Calif., and J. David Hann, president of GTE Telenet in Washington.

As with MCI, the venture’s operating divisions will be aligned within the same geographic boundaries and base cities as the seven regional holding companies created two years ago as a result of AT&T;’s divestiture. An eighth division in Atlanta will handle national accounts and government sales.

The Pacific division in San Francisco will be headed by Charles E. Brown from GTE Sprint’s current headquarters in Burlingame. The president of the Atlantic division, based in Washington, has yet to be named, but the other five divisional chiefs are Thomas E. Pardun of US Telecom (West, based in Denver); Richard S. Henderson of GTE Sprint (Midwest, Chicago); David M. Holland of GTE Sprint (Southwest, Dallas); Michael B. Fuller (Southeast, Atlanta), and John R. Birk of US Telecom (Northeast, New York).