Word: kappel
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...Fred Kappel does not take kindly to such impertinent questions. He likes to think of A.T.&T. as a warm and faithful creature, and of anyone who does not like its predominance as something of an ingrate. He lists his own home-phone number in the directory -and so do the presidents of the 23 regional operating companies that...
...Kappel is convinced that life's biggest kicks and greatest challenges come from working in the large corporation. "This 'Organization Man' thing makes me disgusted," says he. "When someone talks that to me I say he doesn't know what he's talking about. Somebody who is really running a railroad must do his job and not be afraid about making mistakes. I've made all kinds of mistakes...
Percentage Player. Kappel has seen to it that he has been right more often than that. A barber's son who worked his way to an electrical-engineering degree at the University of Minnesota ('24), he joined A.T.&T. 40 years ago at $25-a-week. He was soon promoted from pole-hole digger to such jobs as "interference engineer" and "foreign wire relations engineer" and spotted by his superiors as a cool, unflappable fellow not given to snap decisions. Every night he took home a briefcase heavy with homework, and even when he went to the ballpark...
...Chairman Kappel now earns $271,667 a year and lives in a four-bedroom, six-telephone house in Bronxville, a New York suburb. He allows few ex pensive tastes to enter his well-modulated life. His wife does the cooking, except for parties. Kappel doesn't smoke, rarely drinks, and faithfully attends Bronxville's Dutch Reformed Church, whose 3,000 members make it the largest church of that denomination in the U.S. He does not openly participate in party politics ("I don't believe that I should"), but he likes to read books of a political nature...
Much Like the Army. Kappel is the prototype of the A.T.&T. executive, that particular type of U.S. manager whose training and abilities make the telephone company about the best-managed firm anywhere. One former A.T.&T. vice president wrote that the company's management system "is much the same as the Army's." A.T.&T. is a pure meritocracy, run by men who started at the bottom and worked up, step by step, winning the nod of many bosses along the way. The executives at A.T.&T. combine in themselves dedication, sense of service, awareness of public...