Professor of Telephony
Few men have bridged the gap between classroom theory and the hard realities of the business world with greater success than Donald Clinton Power, chairman and chief executive of General Telephone & Electronics Corp., the largest U.S. independent telephone system. An ex-professor of economics, hefty (5 ft. 10½ in., 194 Ibs.), round-faced Don Power, 60, stepped fresh into corporate management only nine years ago. Yet he has transformed a loose confederation of small telephone companies into a giant communications and manufacturing complex of 80,000 employees that serves more than 4,000,000 customers in rural and suburban U.S., where front-running Bell System does not reach, sells equipment to 4,000 other independent phone companies. Last week General Telephone got its 1959 report card—and for the first time made the honor roll of billion-dollar corporations. Sales and revenues rose to $1.1 billion, almost double 1958's total, and earnings reached a record $3.40 a share.
Don Power runs General Telephone as quietly and efficiently as a college classroom. He issues few memos, calls few meetings, likes to keep 9-to-5 hours so that he can spend time with his wife (they have two daughters) in their Manhattan apartment. He pores over every fact and facet of a business deal logically and dispassionately, then makes decisions about a $1,000,000 or a $100 million outlay with equal calm. He permits his subordinates wide latitude in running their departments, gives them pep talks in the "go-out-and-win" manner of a football coach. Said he recently to the newly promoted boss of an area: "I want only three things: high morale, good earnings and good public relations. If you achieve these, you don't have to bother to send me any other reports."
A graduate of Ohio State ('22), Power went on for degrees in law and economics. He taught economics at the university, and at the same time practiced with the law firm of ex-Senator John Bricker, ran three of his campaigns. Power so impressed a small, ailing holding company called Associated Telephone Utilities, when he won a rate case for a subsidiary, that A.T.U., later reorganized as General Telephone, invited him to take over all its Ohio rate cases. By 1946 he was handling all General's U.S. rate cases. When President Harold V. Bozell retired in 1951, Power took over.
Power had a mental blueprint all ready for General Telephone's expansion. To escape the long shadow of Mother Bell he set up a central advertising and public relations department to sharpen the company's independent identity, prefixed the title "General Telephone" to each of General's 30 domestic and five foreign subsidiaries. As the company became better known—it serves such important cities as Long Beach, Calif., Erie, Pa., Fort Wayne, Ind. and Lexington, Ky.—he used its growing reputation to raise capital needed for growth, has raised more than $1 billion.