Aaron Anderson: […] in these eight years, these tremendous changes and different types of changes, would you see a . . . what elements of leadership have you seen strategically at Bellsouth that has allowed us to manage during this time? What have you seen that maybe we have done better than others, maybe not, but at a strategic level, where have you seen leadership go during this time?

Marty Dickens: Well, as you know Aaron, Bellsouth is a conservative company; the Bell system was a conservative industry and entity, and that has been one of the things, or maybe the central element of who we are that it has allowed us to weather this storm as well as we have. Not as well as we wished, but as well as we have, and I think it will allow us to be a survivor. There's things that I believe made the difference; we didn't lose focus on who we are. We have always built our name, our brand, our success based on service. Now there are days we stub our toe on providing service to someone, and they would like to kick us in the shin, in fact, they think we didn't stub our toe, we broke out leg. But, those things happen, and I don't mean to make light of it, but when those things happen, we regret it tremendously, and we try to take steps to change that. But, along the way we have tried to focus on the fact that look, technology is changing so fast that anyone who thinks they've achieved it, they understand it, they are the losers before they can get that sentence out of their mouth. So we have always tried to focus on the fact that anyone can get the technology, and the technology is going to change on us. What we have to make sure we do is 1. we stay abreast of technology, and we implement technology, and we change the business that way, but we never forget that the most important element, outside of our employees, are our customers, that element of customers, and providing them the very very best service that we can.

Aaron Anderson: So we have not been reactionary in our leadership in the highest levels, we have maintained I would say, a steady course, as you mentioned, navigating these changing seas, that's the analogy there, we have maintained a steady course, having a vision of where we want to go, and not just wavering with the latest technical advance or idea.

Marty Dickens: Or, the getting in the frenzy of acquiring other companies for the sake of getting bigger. You know, we are located, our service area from the service standpoint is the nine Southeastern states, North Carolina to Florida , and Kentucky down to Alabama , Mississippi and Louisiana . So we have those nine states. Well it's a high growth area, it's a great area to be in business, and at the time of the breakup of the Bell system, Bellsouth was the largest . . .

Aaron Anderson: 1984.

Marty Dickens: 1984. Then in '96 after the rewrite of the act, you could get off into other segments of business or acquire other entities, a lot of our brethren went out and did that, and that is not finding fault in what they did, but we, the way we conduct ourselves in business and where our strengths are, our strengths were here in the 9 southeastern states, so we said we have to be the very best we can be where we are planted, okay, we have to do that. That doesn't mean that as we get an opportunity, we don't want to be in long distance, we don't want to provide those services anywhere, but there is a lot of capacity out there to provide long distance, there's a lot of plants, a lot of facilities out there, so we don't have to have a physical presence in Oklahoma, to provide long distance to a customer that needs to be able to communicate there. What we need to do is make sure that our network, in our 9 southeastern states, is the very best that it can be, and that it's not only best that serves our customers, they want to use us, we offer them great products at very competitive prices, but that our competitors that want to use our network, that is, from a wholesale standpoint, they want to buy elements of our network, and then sell it to you and I as a customer, but they want to use our network. So that means we've got to keep that network at the top of its game, and we've got to service that customer, whether it be a consumer, or a competitor, we have to service them the very best that we can. That service differentiation, we realized is what is going to allow us to weather the storm, succeed in the long run, and be here when the smoke clears. So that's how we have focused on quality service, and being the very best that we can be, never forgetting that we can't look beyond where we are today, and say “well you know we've got the best network around, so we're fat and happy and we are going to do ok”. If we do that, we've lost. So, we've continued to modernize the network, continued to try to get the very best service that we can, and kept our focus on the core of who we are: we are Bellsouth, we are in the 9 southeastern states, and we are going to try to be the very best telecommunications company in the 9 southeastern states.