AT&T; Picks Olson as Chief Executive, Consolidates Units
AT&T; on Wednesday formalized what has been predicted for months: James E. Olson, the 60-year-old AT&T; president who worked his way up from cleaning manholes 43 years ago, will succeed Charles L. Brown as chief executive.
Olson assumes the title--and the responsibility for steering AT&T; through the rest of its painful transition from regulated telephone company to sophisticated high-technology business--on June 1, three months before Brown, 64, takes mandatory retirement. On Sept. 1, he will also assume the chairman’s job from Brown.
At a press conference announcing the top management change, Olson quickly set what AT&T; watchers expect to be the tone of the Olson years: AT&T;, he said repeatedly, promises to be “a company that’s easy to do business with.” Customers, he said, “want a single point of interface” with a company regardless of whether they’re buying a computer or signing up for long-distance service.
Central to that strategy is a consolidation, also announced Wednesday, of AT&T;’s long-distance telephone operations with its information systems business.
Both now will be overseen by Randall L. Tobias, 44, who for 15 months has served as chief executive of AT&T; Communications, the company’s long-distance unit and the most successful of the communications giant’s businesses.
The reorganization, Olson said, is designed not as a cost-cutting measure but as a way to better serve customers instead of just sell products. While he could not be pinned down on whether the combination of these two businesses will result in further layoffs, he did say AT&T; expects “no major downsizing” through this move because the company will “need the unique skills” of both sales forces to make this work.
Responding to repeated questions--both from reporters and securities analysts later in the day--about the company’s computer business, which has been slower to grow than most AT&T; watchers expected and has been dragging down AT&T;’s traditional businesses, Olson conceded that the company has “not worked miracles.” But he said that computers remain a “crucial part of AT&T;’s strategy” and that in fact “we have come far in a very short period of time.”
Olson is regarded as a more outgoing and forceful manager than Brown, a reserved man who will be remembered for his decision to break up the Bell System in order to free AT&T; from the shackles of government regulation.
But analysts aren’t convinced that Olson, a 43-year veteran of the Bell System, is up to the challenge.
“The company is in a whole new game,” observed Bradford Peery, a San Francisco telecommunications analyst, “but Olson is one of the old guard.”
Aiding him will be a team of three vice chairmen and a president, all approved Wednesday morning at a 2 1/2-hour board meeting. Robert E. Allen, 51, currently chairman of AT&T; Information Systems, succeeds Olson as president and chief operating officer. Charles Marshall, Morris Tanenbaum and Tobias were named vice chairmen. Tanenbaum oversees AT&T;’s financial and strategic planning groups. Marshall directs the company’s external affairs and personnel operations.
Brown, in an interview Wednesday afternoon, said he has no regrets about the 1982 divestiture decision. In fact, if there is any way that “I’ve helped the company” in eight years at the AT&T; helm, it was by “clearing away the restrictions that were binding us.”
After retirement, he will take over as chairman of the Colonial Williamsburg educational institute in Virginia, and “I might even get a chance to improve my tennis game,” he said.
