GTE Picks Site in Texas for U.S. Phone Headquarters
providing local telephone service in scores of communities from Hawaii and Alaska to New England and Florida.
The new headquarters will be staffed by 3,000 employees drawn from local phone companies, including GTE California. An additional 1,000 employees will be hired in Texas.
GTE California’s sprawling headquarters in Thousand Oaks had been a contender for the national office along with Dallas; Tampa, Fla., and Westfield, Ind. Thousand Oaks also is the new headquarters for GTE West, which supervises local phone operations in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
Part of Streamlining
“We really don’t see any immediate impact on the size of our staff,” said GTE California spokesman Larry Cox. GTE California has 21,200 employees, and the West area also includes 4,560 employees in Hawaii and 5,800 in the Pacific Northwest states.
The move constitutes a major element in GTE’s previously announced plan to streamline phone operations by folding seven telephone subsidiaries into four regional areas and trimming about 7,000 employees by 1992. Another 7,000 jobs are expected to be eliminated as computer-controlled communications technology reduces the need for maintenance and service personnel.
The choice of Irving, Tex., as national headquarters for telephone operations resulted from an evaluation of a number of criteria, the company said. These included the elements of a “good quality of life”--such as well-regarded schools and parks, and affordable housing--as well as nearness to a major operating unit and easy accessibility.
Irving, in Dallas’ western suburbs, is near Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, and about 400 GTE employees already work in the area, which also is headquarters for GTE Southwest and home to GTE’s directory publishing business.
Good Quality of Life
“The cultural amenities of the area, its fine educational facilities, opportunities for recreation and strong sense of community will ensure a high quality of life for our employees and a healthy business environment for our company,” Kent B. Foster, group vice president for GTE telephone operations, told a news conference in Irving.
A 1-million-square-foot corporate “campus” is to be built on a 112-acre site by the end of 1991, Foster said. During construction, the headquarters staff will be housed in leased office space in four nearby buildings.
Telephone operations, which include domestic and foreign phone companies, makes up GTE’s largest business, generating annual revenue last year of almost $12 billion. GTE Corp., based in Stamford, Conn., had combined revenue of $15.4 billion derived from its three core businesses--telecommunications, lighting and precision materials. It employs 161,000 people in 44 states and 38 countries.
