The wild blue yonder

"I wanted to be in a growth business." - Rick Roscitt, incoming chairman and CEO of ADC

Name your battle-scarred cliche: Earned his stripes. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Once more unto the breach. Riding the storm out. Blood, toil, sweat and tears. Rode hard and put away wet.

Pick one, and chances are it applies to former AT&T executive Rick Roscitt, ADC's pick to replace Bill Cadogan as chairman and CEO. (OK, so that last one doesn't exactly make sense, but isn't it funny?)

It applies because Roscitt had a long and distinguished career at AT&T and a lot of experience helping to guide the company through good times and, most recently, bad ones. It applies because ADC, like other companies in its network technology and equipment categories, needs a strong and seasoned leader now more than ever. It applies because things are tough all over - and because only the strong survive. (There go those cliches again.)

The retiring Cadogan has high hopes for ADC, even after his departure. He has predicted in the past that his replacement will have the opportunity to expand ADC, which had sales of $3.3 billion in its last fiscal year, into a $10 billion company over the next several years.

That's a tall order for anyone, and it's made even taller by the across-the-board service provider spending slowdown that has drifted into the industry. ADC has already felt a bit of the burn: Last month the company warned of lower-than-expected earnings for the recent quarter and eliminated 400 jobs in its systems integration division to maintain profitability. Analysts say opening ADC's borders to international customer bases and shoring up earnings in the company's broadband access and transport division should be among Roscitt's highest priorities - and it's no secret to anyone how intense the competition in the access realm is.

All eyes are on Roscitt to see if he's the right man for the job. On a conference call last week, financial analysts questioned Roscitt about his lack of direct experience on the equipment side of the communications business. That's a non-issue. Roscitt managed 27,000 people in various units of AT&T Business Services and dealt with the carrier's highest potential - and, lately, highest risk - customer set, so clearly his experience is appropriate, and his understanding of service provider needs and trends is fine-tuned.

The only remaining question is whether or not Roscitt is a good guesser - that is, whether he will be able to accurately forecast the direction in which service providers' unpredictable spending cycles will meander and which categories of service provider customers will become the most lucrative so that he can shift ADC in those directions.

If Roscitt's comment above is any indication, his intuition seems pretty sound. The main reason for the widespread spending slowdown is that so many service provider sectors are bleeding, and because of AT&T's girth and the fact it plays in so many areas, it is bleeding profusely. Roscitt rightly saw the best opportunities for growth, however channeling, in technology development - particularly with a well-established, well-heeled, well-managed and technologically diverse development and manufacturing company.

In an interview with Telephony last year for a cover story on AT&T Business Services, Roscitt's own career predictions put him on a beach in Hawaii within five years. That seems more like part of Cadogan's future now. Unless his ADC tenure is short-lived, the only beach-related activity Roscitt will be enjoying is strengthening ADC's beachheads and trying to dismantle those of its competitors.