Steve Smith

By Roby Brock
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Steve Smith says integrating Alltel Corp.’s overall work force of 18,000, folding nearly 14 million customers into a national service footprint and blending two corporate cultures are the easier parts of his job at Verizon Wireless.

The 44-year-old upstate New Yorker – now a Little Rock resident – is the new South Central Region president for Verizon Wireless, located at the former Alltel campus on the Arkansas River near downtown Little Rock.

Smith is a 17-year veteran of Verizon and has held posts in the strategic planning, international finance, regulatory and business development divisions of the Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based telecom. It is the largest wireless provider in the U.S. with more than 80 million customers.

Smith worked extensively on the $28.1 billion blockbuster deal that brought Little Rock-based Alltel into the Verizon fold. He says external forces – the credit markets – were the biggest challenge in pulling the acquisition and integration together.

“The first thing that would come to anybody’s mind in the timing of our purchase here would have been what’s gone on from a financial standpoint,” Smith said in an exclusive interview with Arkansas New Bureau business columnist Roby Brock, host of Talk Business. “Clearly, the dynamics of the market changed during the process.”

While much is happening behind the scenes, Smith repeats a consistent and previously stated time frame for Arkansans to see visible signs of a change between the two companies.

By the third quarter of this year, he said, signs will come down from buildings bearing the Alltel name and Verizon Wireless signs will replace them, including retail stores, the former Alltel campus and Alltel Arena.

Alltel customer bills will transition to the Verizon name during that time.

“Stay tuned,” is the most specific Smith would get, though he added, “You will see things in the very near future. I’d like to give you specific dates, but I’m not going to do that today, but stay tuned. There will be a lot coming down the road.”

Job security for the company’s Central Arkansas work force, which stood at around 3,100 at the end of 2008, is a concern that Smith recognizes carries particular sensitivity. When the Verizon-Alltel merger was consummated in early January, commitments were made for certain job levels in the Little Rock area, but a number of lower level employees are still in a holding pattern.

“We’ve been consistent in terms of talking in the range of 1,300 or so jobs that would definitely stay here in Little Rock,” Smith said. “What we’ve told employees and anybody else is, we are focused on growing our business and the key to keeping jobs here in the Little Rock area is the pace at which we continue to grow our business.”

Last year, Verizon Wireless officials named Little Rock as a regional headquarters to cover territories in all of Arkansas and Oklahoma, and parts of Mississippi and Tennessee. At the time, they also announced plans for a sizable call center operation in Little Rock that would expand the former Alltel call center of 800 workers.

Smith appeared encouraged that despite a smaller work force locally, prospects for employment will exist for many Arkansans within the Verizon organization.

“There will be plenty of opportunities for former Alltel employees within Verizon Wireless,” he said. “Some of those opportunities will wind up being in Little Rock. There will also be opportunities that are elsewhere.

“We’re fortunate in that we’ve got a lot of talented folks on the team. It’s just a matter of finding the right spots for them.”

Smith also said there is an open door to meet with another group of influential Arkansans, former Alltel top executives and Arkansas natives Joe and Scott Ford.

“They have made it very clear that they are resources for us to rely upon as we navigate our way around,” Smith said.