Spring
2003
Volume 96, Number 3
C L O S E - U P
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Saving jobs and a family legacy 
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| 53While
many people began the New Year watching celebrations around the world,
Richard A. Lumpkin found himself wearing a hard hat and being lifted
in a cherry-picker bucket to the top floor of the Consolidated Communications
building in Mattoon, Ill. To the sounds of the Rocky movie theme, “Gonna
Fly Now,” and many of the company’s 900 employees counting
down from 10 to 1, Lumpkin lit the new corporate office sign for the
first time. “The employees are the ones who deserve to be congratulated, because they are the reason Consolidated Communications is an asset worth owning,” said Lumpkin. The original company, Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company (ICTC), was started in 1894 by Lumpkin’s great-grandfather and had been owned and managed by successive generations—grandfather, father and Lumpkin himself—until 1997. Then, for a number of reasons, including what Lumpkin thought was an excellent opportunity to merge the business and see employment continue to grow, he sold ICTC to McLeodUSA. In spring 2002, McLeodUSA filed for bankruptcy, “a victim of its own success and the telecom meltdown,” according to Lumpkin. When it became apparent that McLeod was going to put its Consolidated Telephone Company on the market, Lumpkin recognized that potential buyers would be large telephone holding companies. “All of them were located out of state and they would be very likely to eliminate 80 percent of the existing jobs by consolidating and integrating the operation with theirs,” he says. The telephone company was among the largest employers in east-central Illinois. Selling it to an outside holding company would be a severe economic blow to the local economy. So Lumpkin, who lives in Mattoon, began to consider what he could do. “I had great confidence in the business opportunity and the future of the company,” he says. With two financial partners, he was ultimately the successful bidder. He bought the company back. Since the exuberant celebration in January, Consolidated Communications has done well. “Our company has a very strong culture of high quality customer service and also of giving back to the communities where we operate,” says Lumpkin. Financial support is given to a variety of local organizations that are essential to the lives of the company’s customers, such as hospitals, libraries and a local junior college. Volunteer efforts center around the annual Special Olympics Family Festival, created and organized by Consolidated employees for 1,000 Special Olympians throughout central Illinois. Lumpkin, who will be attending his 50th reunion at PA in June, holds a B.A. degree from Yale and an M.B.A. degree from Harvard. He also is one of many family members who have attended and been generous supporters of Andover. Among them are his father Richard Lumpkin ’17, uncle Charles F. Green ’32, nieces Susan Keon DeWyngaert ’78 and Margaret L. Keon ’80, and son Benjamin I. Lumpkin ’91. — Tana
Sherman
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