Key Executive at GTE Resigns Post Abruptly

James L. Broadhead, president of GTE Corp.’s telephone operations and a top-ranking executive of the telecommunications giant, has abruptly resigned although he was in the midst of completing a national restructuring.

The Stamford, Conn.-based corporation said Broadhead, 52, resigned in order “to pursue other interests.” GTE officials refused to elaborate. Broadhead was unavailable for comment.

In March, Broadhead, a corporate senior vice president, was put in charge of consolidating GTE’s seven local phone companies--including GTE California in Thousand Oaks--into four regional offices and a central headquarters. The company has said some of the 80,000 employees in the telephone group will be laid off during the consolidation, which is designed to cut costs.

On Wall Street, some analysts speculated that Broadhead had been forced out by GTE Chairman James L. Johnson because the consolidation has taken longer than expected.

“As soon as the employees recognized the restructuring was fairly drastic, there was a downturn in enthusiasm because people recognized their jobs could be in jeopardy, too,” said Robert Morris, an analyst with Goldman, Sachs & Co. investment bank. “Planning started bogging down.”

But a GTE spokesperson said the company’s cost-cutting efforts are proceeding as planned and that the final consolidation will be announced in November. Analysts expect that the new central telephone group headquarters will be located in the Dallas area.

Broadhead was one of five top executives at GTE and was considered a leading candidate to fill the position of president, which was vacated when former president Johnson was named chairman and CEO in April.

“I think we can make our corporation and all of our operations significantly more cost-effective,” Broadhead said in a May interview. “We’re trying to ensure we are going to be a cost-effective corporation.”

GTE’s common stock closed up 75 cents Thursday at $43 a share.