Billion Dollar Baby, Part 1
September 29, 2009
I want a billion dollars.
Seriously.
Last week I had an opportunity to get together with a few friends from my past–over 450 of them.
This Rochester get-together reunited past employees of Rochester Telephone and Frontier Communications. It was organized by Bill Hammond who was my CFO during my Presidential stint at Frontier Communications. (Shameless plug for Bill’s business: http://www.baseisloadedmarketing.com).
It was great to reminisce about a great period of growth and expansion. Those were great days and great people. Plenty of mutual respect and deep talent in that room. Many firsts in our industry that were accomplished came from the people in attendance.
To give you an idea on that talent, since the Communications Act of 1996, you can track many telecom firms of different shapes and sizes that not only survived the telecom meltdown, but also thrived and remain viable growth engines today. Many of these companies have a spattering of CEO’s, CFO’s and senior management whose roots came from Rochester Telephone/Frontier Communications. In some circles, we are referred to as the “Rochester Telecom Mafia”. Even Wall Street analysts/pundits–and well before Jack Grubman et al and the Real Smart Guys (RSGs) crashed the telecom market–referred to Rochester, New York as “Telecom Alley.” There is plenty of optical and telecom talent dripping around Rochester – VC’s should take a greater interest in the Rochester area.
With the exception of two (2) bankruptcies, of the 1200+ firms that melted down back-in-the day; many firms with Rochester Telephone/Frontier Communications leaders or management are still standing and operating … some survivors have been acquired as a happy event, not a fire sale event.
Why such success? I contribute it to three things.
First: The water here tastes great.
Second: Upstate is conservative when it comes to business so we do not have a tendency to piss away investor or debt dollars.
Third: Rochester Telephone/Frontier Communications was a Telecom University – it taught employees focus, patience, execution, what to measure, teamwork and managing risk. In addition, employees learned about accountability to results and were rewarded for results. The fastest way to find your ass out the door was ethics or cultural integrity violations.
Performance was another.
Stick around for more of this post coming up…
Written by Dave Rusin - Telecom Executive
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