In today’s corporate world, it is impossible to imagine any top executive staying with his or her company for their entire work life. Indeed, the new norm seems to be more like staying less than five years or run the risk of being considered a loser.
This is a profound change in business culture. Some have suggested this has been the response to companies pushing short-term performance rather than long-term sustainable goals. But what sometimes get lost in the discussion is the legacy of some those corporations who succeeded in the marketplace while retaining the faith and confidence of its customers using the old model.
And one of those legacy companies was C & P Telephone (later AT&T). Over several decades, the Baby Bell demonstrated time and time again that Americans could trust their phone company. More importantly, Bell was well known for grooming their leadership from within the corporation.
Perhaps the most well known coming out of this system has been Baltimore’s William Ellinghaus, the AT&T president who started as a Bell line worker. But another, a bit closer to home, is Oxford’s John Dillon.
Dillon joined C & P Telephone immediately after serving in Vietnam, where he received three Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry for courage on the battlefield. And for the next thirty-two years, John would learn to successfully navigate in one the largest and most complex corporations in America’s history.
It is fair to say that John Dillon’s experience at the phone company has given him a strong conviction that large institutions can and do accomplish great things. In heading up the company’s Eastern Shore office, then the Maryland Division, and later directing the corporation’s external affairs, Dillon embraced Bell’s intensive culture of customer care, collaborative strategic planning, and community engagement.
It is also fair to say that John has used those same values after his retirement in his board leadership of the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health since he became involved with Easton’s Memorial Hospital in 2002 and later when he was elected Chairman of the Shore Health System Board in 2004.
In his Spy interview, John talks about his experience in the private sector as well as the current strategic planning process that will determine Regional Shore Health’s future.
This video is approximately eleven minutes in length
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