![my at and t phone died my at and t phone died](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4d6eMACumuA/hqdefault.jpg)
Ellinghaus was named president and chief operating officer of AT&T in 1979, and over the next eight years he was deeply involved in strategies to defend the company against competitors and government litigation. Ellinghaus as “a model of the most desirable blend of government-private sector expertise working together for the common good.” Ellinghaus was named vice chairman of AT&T in 1976, he resigned from the Emergency Financial Control Board, citing “the heavy demands of my new assignment.” Gov.
![my at and t phone died my at and t phone died](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/x9RcVTJTT-A/maxresdefault.jpg)
The board imposed severe cuts in city services and spending and closed some hospitals, libraries and fire stations.įederal loan guarantees were eventually worked out, banks deferred maturity on some bonds, investors returned, and, after several years, the crisis faded.Īfter Mr. Ellinghaus was named chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which was created to contain the crisis, and was later appointed to the Emergency Financial Control Board, which took over city fiscal affairs. Concurrently, as president of the New York Telephone Company from 1970 to 1976, he coped with service problems that had plagued that subsidiary for years.īut in a plan devised by the state, Mr. He resolved a phone workers’ strike in 1971 that halted installations and repairs in New York for weeks negotiated rate increases with the state and, in 1975, restored service to 173,000 telephones after what at the time was Bell’s worst fire crippled a Manhattan switching center.
![my at and t phone died my at and t phone died](https://cdn.totalsororitymove.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/75b4dd14054c8e0d91e4848a48cf9334.png)
Ellinghaus became a man-in-the-news troubleshooter. In New York business and government circles, Mr. In that post, he dealt with technological advances, competition from other carriers, and pending federal antitrust litigation that threatened the culture and direction of the behemoth parent corporation. He became a Chesapeake vice president in 1960, an AT&T vice president in New York in 1965 and, in 1970, president of the New York Telephone Company and AT&T’s vice president for rates, planning and government relations. He worked as an installer, a repairman and an office and district manager for nearly a decade before starting his rise through the management ranks. Ellinghaus returned to his telephone job. He became an installer of the black rotary-dial telephones that were widely used at the time, considered a luxury by those who could afford them.Īfter three years in the Naval Reserve during World War II, Mr. Straight out of high school in Baltimore in 1940, he was hired for an entry-level job by the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company, a regional company that served Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. He received 10 honorary doctorates from leading colleges and universities, although he had never attended college. Ellinghaus became the executive vice president of the New York Stock Exchange chairman of the New York-area PBS station WNET and chairman of the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In settling a longstanding government antitrust suit, he oversaw the divestment of the company’s regional Bell System into independent telephone companies, in exchange for entry into lucrative new telecommunications markets.īesides helping to rescue New York City from near bankruptcy in the 1970s, Mr. Ellinghaus was president and chief operating officer of AT&T at the height of its power, near the end of his 44-year career in the telephone industry. He was 99.Ī gregarious executive known for his community service and his support of the arts, Mr.
![my at and t phone died my at and t phone died](http://woulfefamily.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/leo_virginia_25th.64114350_std.jpg)
Ellinghaus, who as president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the world’s largest corporation, helped preside over its breakup in the early 1980s - and who a few years earlier had been instrumental in saving New York City from default - died on Tuesday at his home in Bronxville, N.Y.