Industry: Telecommunications

Wallace R. Bunn

  • October 25th, 2021

In 1941, all Wally Bunn wanted was a summer job with his local telephone company.

He wound up instead with the career of a lifetime.

Wallace R. Bunn was born October 26, 1922, in Durham, North Carolina, to parents Wallace Raikes Bunn and Alda Beck Bunn. In high school, the man who would eventually serve as director of the Hall of Fame Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama, from 1980-1983 was an athletic youngster who became an all-state end in football, served as captain of the basketball team, ran track, and was sports editor of his high school paper. He was also student body president; participated in the chorus, Boys State, and dramatics; and was voted most handsome and most popular. The real high school interest that stayed with him through the years, however, was one Miss Margaret P. Seegers, a dark-haired beauty who caught his eye early on and became his bride on December 19, 1942.

But it was before Wallace and Margaret were wed that he took that first job out of high school, a summer position with the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company as a coin telephone collector in Charlotte, North Carolina. His original plan was to enter Davidson College in the fall of ’41, but World War II loomed ugly on the horizon, and the money Wallace was earning with the phone company, he decided, would help make entry into college somewhat easier financially if he postponed matriculation for a year. The threat of war did become reality, and Wallace was sent by the telephone company to work with defense installations in a neighboring state. Southern Bell later wrote a letter canceling the position’s military deferment so young Bunn could join up with the U. S. Coast Guard, with which he served from 1943-1946.

His country served, Wallace Bunn returned to the Tarheel State to find that Southern Bell had a job – and work credit of five years – ready and waiting for him. Years later he would talk to an Alabama newspaper about his decision not to take advantage of GI Bill tuition assistance and

pursue his college degree then, saying, “If someone wants to go to college, I would advise them to go. But if you don’t have the desire, then don’t go. I have regretted not going to college, but there are times when I can say I’m glad I didn’t … I got my education the hard way, and you appreciate it more when you get it that way.”

Thus began, for the second time, a career in telecommunications for Wallace Bunn – a career that would culminate in the 1980s when he oversaw the creation of one of the largest companies in the United States after the divestiture from American Telephone and Telegraph Company of two operating companies covering nine Southeastern states.

In 1948 Wallace and Margaret were blessed with the birth of their first son, Rodney. Son Russell would join the Bunn family in 1958, and in between the family would live in Shelby, Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as Wallace began his climb up the Southern Bell company ladder, working as a manager, a district commercial

supervisor, and a district manager. Another promotion, this one to division manager, came in 1959, and with it a move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But Wally was not all work and no play; during this time, he also became involved with the Boy Scouts as a Scoutmaster and a trustee. His involvement with numerous civic activities would last through the decades and be one of the reasons cited for his induction into the State of Alabama Academy of Honor in 1984.

Over the years the Bunn family would live in fourteen different cities, with their patriarch serving in increasingly more responsible management positions with each change in locale. They would first call Alabama home in 1962 when Wallace was named assistant vice president of Southern Bell. After a move to Nashville, Tennessee, he would return to Birmingham in 1969, when he was elected a director of South Central Bell and appointed vice president of operations for its five states.

Then came a shift of coastal proportions; Wallace was transferred to Seattle, Washington, as president and a director of Pacific Northwest Bell, in 1973. While in Nashville and Seattle, he served as president of the Chamber of Commerce in both cities. He would return, again, to Birmingham in 1978 as president and a director of South Central Bell.

“There’s a story about us coming back to Birmingham so much,” the business executive once told a reporter. “I had an application in for the Birmingham Country Club for a long time and they finally took me in. I paid my initiation fee and everything. Then I was transferred to Nashville, and I didn’t think I would be coming back, so I gave up my membership. Then I came back to Birmingham and had to pay my initiation fee all over again to get back into the country club. And when I was transferred to Seattle, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back to Birmingham, so I gave up my membership again. Then when I came back the last time, I had to pay the initiation fee all over again – for the third time.

“I tell my wife when I die, to keep a non­resident membership in the Birmingham Country Club. I may come back.”

From 1981 until the historic breakup of the Bell System January 1, 1984, Wallace Bunn was one of the top twelve Bell System officers involved in the planning and execution of the complete divestiture of the Bell Operating Companies from AT&T. Until his formal retirement, he served in Atlanta, Georgia, as the first chairman of the board and chief executive officer of BellSouth Corporation, the largest of the then-newly created “Baby Bells” and the fourteenth largest corporation in the nation, with 125,000 employees at the time. In 1985 he relinquished his position at BellSouth but remained on its Board of Directors through April of 1991 – fifty years after a summer of shaking the nickels out of coin telephones.

Over the years the gentleman named Young Man of the Year by the Hattiesburg Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1958 has served on twelve corporate boards, including those for such companies as AmSouth Bank, Holiday Inn, Morrison, Incorporated, and, currently, Altec Corporation. Civic and philanthropic affiliations have included Chambers of Commerce in many cities, the Salvation Army, Junior Achievement, Urban League, United Way, Rotary Club (including a still long-running stint as Poet Laureate of the Birmingham club), St. Vincent’s Hospital, Baptist Medical Center, and numerous economic development and governmental advisory bodies.

In 1988 this leader in his career field was honored by BellSouth with the creation and endowment of the Wallace R. Bunn Chair of Telecommunications at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The chair provides leadership for the university’s Center for Telecommunications and Education Research, and Wallace Bunn – who spends his days now golfing, fishing and painting, the dark-haired beauty still by his side – believes that is vital.

“The hallmark of this business is that the progress has never stopped,” he says of his life’s professional work. “I pray it never will.”

Sidney McDonald

  • October 4th, 2021

Sidney McDonald has been a major force in bringing the people of Alabama and the Southeast the latest technologies in telecommunications.

Born in Springville, Ala., and educated in Arab, McDonald graduated from the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration at The University of Alabama in 1961.

He assumed the presidency of Brindlee Mountain Telephone Company, a family-owned enterprise, and became a leader in adapting technologies that enabled him to capitalize on opportunities in the communications industry.

The company was the first rural telephone company in the country to offer its customers an alternative to AT&T’s long-distance service.  Brindlee Mountain Telephone Company was sold to CEA Capital Associates of New York in July 2000.

McDonald, along with Olin King of Huntsville, co-founder of CSI Systems, Inc., also created Deltacom which offered an alternative to AT&T throughout the Southeast.  Deltacom is the largest Alabama-owned telecommunication company and operates in Alabama and eight other states.

The company implemented ground-breaking technologies that allowed Deltacom to enter markets far ahead of its competitors.  It was acquired by ITC in the late-1990s and subsequently taken public by the acquirer.

McDonald then turned his attention to Intergraph, a software development and services company whose stock had dropped to less than $5 per share.  McDonald joined the board of directors, and along with two other outside board members, forced the resignation of the founder and several other top-level managers.  He became chairman of the board and led the search for a new CEO.  After several years with McDonald as its chairman and under the new CEO, the company was sold for approximately $40 per share.

McDonald also was co-owner of the Huntsville-based group that purchased Pentastar Corporation from Chrysler in 1995, which designed and built complex testing systems for the Department of Defense.  After the purchase and re-negotiation of a union contract, the company became very profitable and was sold 18 months later.

In addition to his business career, McDonald has a distinguished record of civic affiliations.

He was a member of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education when it was first created in 1970 and served on the commission until 1978.

He also served in the Alabama House of Representatives for two full terms starting in 1966.  He was then elected to the Alabama Senate in 1974 serving as chairman of the Senate Education Committee.  He served as the State Finance Director from 1980-1982.

“Sid’s impact on the state of Alabama goes well beyond the telecommunications industry. He shared his business expertise with the state, devoting his valuable time and energy to serving as State Representative and one term as a State Senator,” said Dr. Robert Witt, president of The University of Alabama.

In 1992, McDonald was named to The University Of Alabama System Board Of Trustees.

“In a time when higher education has become a major generator of economic growth, Sid McDonald’s expertise will be an important resource for the faculty, students, and staff of the University of Alabama System,” Trustee Yetta Samford, Jr. said at the time of McDonald’s election to the board.

McDonald served two terms as president pro tempore of the Board and chaired the Executive Committee, while also sitting on other key committees.

McDonald became a member of the Alabama Space and Rocket Center Commission at the request of Gov. Don Siegelman during a time when the commission had engaged in numerous questionable financial affairs.  He helped lead the effort to save the organization and headed the search for a new CEO.

McDonald resides in Union Grove, Ala., is married to the former Jane Plunkett of Cullman. Together they have five children and 12 grandchildren. The whole group enjoys “Big Daddy’s” New York apartment.

Alma Gates Scroggins

  • September 28th, 2021

In high school, Alma Gates Scroggins’ father thought she was too tenderhearted to fulfill her ambition of becoming a social worker. Believing she wouldn’t be able to say no to people, he talked her into becoming an accountant instead. Yet as CFO of CNN, Scroggins had to say no to some of the media’s most familiar faces – far from the role her father might have envisioned.

Scroggins is a native of Greensboro, Alabama, graduating from Greensboro High School in 1965. She went on to graduate magna cum laude from The University of Alabama’s College of Commerce with a degree in accounting in 1969.

Scroggins was in the Alpha Chi Omega sorority, serving as chapter president. She credits this as being her first experience with running a business. In recognition of her hard work and academic aptitude, Scroggins was tapped for Alpha Lambda Delta, Beta Alpha Psi, and Beta Gamma Sigma.

After working for a year at Dudley, Hopton-Jones, Sims & Freeman in Birmingham, Alabama, Scroggins left the accounting firm to work for Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in Atlanta, Georgia. When she started, the company had 300 employees, one TV station, five radio stations, and nine outdoor advertising plants. Being involved at the ground level of Turner and being exposed to Ted Turner’s vision of growing a company and leveraging its assets, Scroggins received invaluable training and insight to help continue its success.

When CNN launched on June 1, 1980, there were doubts, particularly in the eyes of the accountants, as to whether it would succeed. When Scroggins was called in from the Turner side and named vice president of CNN Financial Administration in late 1981, CNN was facing costs far beyond original projections Working with journalists to consider cost alternatives to covering news, Scroggins became a trusted colleague and stabilizing influence. With cost controls and procedures in place, and the network’s growing acceptance in the news industry, CNN became profitable in 1985. Promoted to CFO and senior vice president, Scroggins was the first female member of the CNN executive team. She served 30 years, retiring in 2000 as executive vice president of the CNN News Group, which in her 18 years at CNN had grown to encompass CNN, Headline News, CNN Radio, CNN International, CNN Newsource, CNN Airport Network, CNN/Sports Illustrated, and CNN En Español.

Scroggins received several awards honoring her accomplishments. In 1993 she received the Media Award from the Culverhouse College of Commerce. She was appointed to the inaugural UA’s President’s Advisory Board in 1999 and received The University of Alabama National Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumna Award in 2003. Scroggins is a lifetime member of the Board of Visitors for the Culverhouse College of Commerce and is one of the initial members of its Faculty Enhancement Foundation.

Scroggins served as the chair of Buckhead Christian Ministries, a consortium of churches reaching out to the working poor. She was treasurer of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church and chair of their Board of Trustees. She is a founding partner and treasurer of a Christ-centered nonprofit women’s charity, One Hundred Shares, Inc. Created in 2007, OHS has awarded more than $1 million in grants in Atlanta, with a vision of expanding this concept to other communities.

Scroggins currently serves on the executive team of the Women’s Initiative at Peachtree Road. The organization provides restoration in the form of housing, medical and counseling needs, spiritual encouragement, and education to women facing reentry into society from incarceration and from the sex trafficking industry.

She is married to Lee Andrew Scroggins, Jr., has three stepchildren: Elizabeth, Lee, and Charlie, and seven grandchildren.

Samuel Ginn

  • September 28th, 2021

Samuel Ginn, considered a pioneer of the telecommunications industry with more than four decades of experience, is a 1959 graduate of Auburn University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. Ginn also holds an honorary doctorate degree from Auburn and was awarded a Sloan Fellowship to the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1969. He is the namesake for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University.

Following a brief service with the Army Signal Corps, he began his career as a student engineer in 1960 at AT&T He rose through the ranks in management and operations, becoming vice president of network operations for AT&T Long Lines in 197 7, and was appointed president and CEO of PacTel, a regional Bell operating company in 1988. While with Pac Tel, Ginn led the company’s networking of the Los Angeles Olympics with cellular phones, which was one of the most extensive cellular projects to date during that time.

In 1994, Ginn launched AirTouch Communications, an early cellular phone company and a spin-off from PacTel, which became the third-largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in U.S. history. He grew the company to develop in both domestic and global markets, eventually pushing it to become the second-largest global cellular company. One by one, AirTouch won cellular licenses in growing overseas markets, and by 1998 it had more than 20 million customers abroad. The company sold for $65 billion in 1999 to Vodafone, where Ginn assumed the position of chairman in the United Kingdom. During his tenure, Vodafone merged with Verizon to create Verizon Wireless. Ginn retired from Vodafone in 2002.

Presently, Ginn serves on the board of directors for The Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, and is also an overseer at Stanford Hoover Institution. He created the Ginn Family Foundation in 2005 and serves as chairman of the board. He is the founding director of OnDot, a startup company positioned to reduce credit card fraud.

Ginn has served on the corporate boards of Franklin Templeton, CH2M Hill, First Interstate Bank, Pacific Telesis Group, Safeway, Transamerica Corporation, Vodafone, AirTouch Communications, Chevron Corp, and Hewlett-Packard. He also served as chairman of the California Business Higher Education Forum, and the California Business Roundtable. Ginn is an angel investor and adviser to multiple Silicon Valley startup companies.

In 2001, he donated $25 million to Auburn University, which was used for the development of the wireless engineering degree program that helped vault Auburn into the nation’s elite wireless research and teaching institution. Auburn named the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering in honor of his gift. Ginn was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree in 1998 from Auburn and served on the university’s board of trustees from 2005 to 2013. The university also presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 1992 and in 2014 was inducted into the Wireless History Foundations Hall of Fame-one of the industry’s highest honors.

Ginn is a native of Anniston, Alabama, and is married to Ann Vance Ginn, and together they have three children and six grandchildren. The couple resides in Hillsborough, California.

Lonnie S. McMillian

  • August 17th, 2021

Lonnie S. McMillian was a visionary serial entrepreneur who led a series of companies aligned with telecommunications and biotech – and helped make Alabama a home for innovation.

His interest in tech was sparked while studying radar technology as a member of the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. After the war, he attended Georgia Tech, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1955. He then embarked on a wide-ranging career in electronics that included co-founding a computer manufacturer, Systems Engineering Labs, joining SCI in Huntsville as chief engineer, and working at Universal Data Systems as vice president of engineering.

In 1985, he co-founded ADTRAN, a telecommunications firm, which today is one of Huntsville’s largest non-public employers.

While the beginning and middle of McMillian’s career was in the tech and telecommunications sectors, the latter portion was in biotechnology, an area in which he had developed a passion for. In 1993, he was introduced by a mutual friend to Jim Hudson, who ran Huntsville-based Research Genetics. Following his retirement from ADTRAN in 2001, he and Hudson founded the non-profit HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in 2005 to bring together experts in genetics, education, and entrepreneurship to accelerate innovation in the field. The Institute opened its doors in 2008 and quickly got to work.

By July 2017, its economic impact stood at $1.8 billion. The team of scientists in its genomic medicine division has discovered genes responsible for breast cancer and ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and have given answers to those with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed diseases. Researchers in its genome sequencing center are busy analyzing the genetics of our food crops to discover insights that may make them more productive or resilient to drought.

Furthermore, HudsonAlpha has an extraordinary outreach and education arm that, among many different initiatives, brings genomics into the classroom to inspire future innovators or offering free genetic testing for cancer risk to North Alabama residents. All told, over 5.5 million people have been positively impacted by the Institute’s efforts.

McMillian was a generous philanthropist and lived out his commitment to improving the human condition through the support of educational, scientific, and other charitable causes.

In 2014, he was recognized by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama with its lifetime achievement award for his career-long commitment to innovation and work to advance the state of Alabama.

Along with his degree from Georgia Tech, he graduated from Presbyterian College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

McMillian passed away in December 2018. He is survived by Helen, his wife of 64 years, daughters Barbara, Emily, and Sue, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

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