LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

The first time I met Scott Ford, the chief operating officer of Alltel, I was surprised by how young he was. That was more than three years ago. Flashy dotcom outfits and energetic telecom upstarts were germinating, but youthful executives in the communications industry were still few and far between.

Alltel was in the early stages of a plan to integrate its wireless and wireline operations into a cohesive business. The carrier had enjoyed years of under-the-radar success, offering a range of services across a somewhat disjointed footprint of rural properties. But the image of Alltel as a staid, old-line rural telco was about to change dramatically.

The then 35-year-old Ford was concise, articulate and effusive in describing his vision of where he planned to take Alltel. “It was apparent that we had the organizations running separately for two reasons: history and lack of will to do anything about it,” he said at the time.

Ford quickly chucked historical precedent and strengthened will. In retrospect, it was classic Scott Ford style. As it pursued its convergent business strategy, Alltel went on an acquisition and integration bender that is still not complete today. Ford successfully invigorated Alltel despite some flak from other executives over the fact that he was brought into the company by his CEO father.

Ford is a study in contradiction. Because he's young and laid-back, you might think he lacks the intensity necessary to be a business heavy. He doesn't. Because of his high-level job at a business founded and still run by members of his family, you might think he's unqualified for his job. He's not. And because he's telco top brass, you might think you could guess one of his favorite pastimes. You couldn't.

Everything you don't know and wouldn't expect about Scott Ford can be found in the profile in this issue. In it, Ed Gubbins gets inside Ford's head to reveal what he's thinking, what he's plotting and how he operates.

I won't spoil it for you. Suffice it to say that Ford's qualifications, intensity and pastimes are all critical parts of who he is and where he wants to take Alltel. If he is successful in his pursuits — the most critical being the company's current attempt to acquire rural service provider CenturyTel — Alltel will take its rightful place alongside the likes of Verizon and Sprint and everyone else other carriers mention when they're talking about what keeps them up at night.