As the saying goes, “what you see depends on where you sit.” Let me describe “where I sit.”

I was born and raised in small towns in western Maryland by a wonderful Mom, Dad, and Grandma. I have one brother, 4 years younger. I am blessed with a wife who is simply a perfect partner for me … and the best possible daughter.

From my formative years, I probably suffer from both “oldest child” and “big fish in small pond” syndromes. My daughter accuses me of romanticizing life.  Sooner or later, you’ll figure out I’m old … a WASP (Episcopalian even) … and, as of February 2024, new to blogging.

 

Education:

I went to public schools mainly in Hagerstown, but did kindergarten and 1st grade in Frederick and most of 2nd grade in the Howard Park section of Baltimore. My family moved 3 times during my elementary school years and I went to 5 different elementary schools. That experience made me more comfortable with change and taught me how to “fit in” with new situations and people.  

I graduated from South Hagerstown High School:  the “academic” course, with slightly more than 400 classmates.  Among other things, I was senior class president, co-chaired the Leadership Conference Steering Committee, was president of the Parliamentary Procedure Club, and volunteered in our book store.

I attended the University of Maryland – College Park (BS, electrical engineering), Pace University (MS, management), and Harvard Business School (Advanced Management Program # 106).

Career:

As a kid, I delivered newspapers and then worked about 20 hours a week as a page at the Washington County Free Library.  Between high school and college graduations, I worked summers for the telephone company, one as a frameman wiring stuff in a central office and then several climbing poles to maintain and upgrade one of the Bell System’s 2 cable TV systems.

I worked full-time for almost 50 years, 35 at AT&T and its predecessors. Reed 1.0 was at The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland and the AT&T General Departments (the Bell System’s HQ) …. Reed 2.0 at AT&T Network Systems and Bell Labs doing network equipment and software… and Reed 3.0 at the AT&T internet, local, long distance, and wireless business. My assignments spanned engineering and operations, product management, strategy, R&D, marketing, sales, and general business management. I rose to senior vice president, chief network officer, and CIO reporting directly to AT&T’s President.

For the next 5 years, Reed 4.0 was President & COO of Cogent Communications, a start-up global internet service provider. 

Reed 5.0 was a senior intelligence officer and Deputy Director – Global Technology Strategy & Implementation at the National Security Agency (NSA) for the next 6 years. 

Reed 6.0 was then a senior advisor in Oracle’s national security group for 2 years.

I like to think my career path demonstrates adaptability and effectiveness in a variety of contexts:  Fortune 50 to start-up to federal government … technical to operations to strategy to business.  I also like to the think I was never a “suit.”

Paradoxically, the biggest tragedy I ever witnessed was also my most gratifying and challenging career accomplishment:  leading the 1,900-person team that re-built the network and restored service in Manhattan after the 9/11 attack.  

 

Also paradoxically, I was I was at the “eye of the storm” in planning and implementing the Bell System Divestiture, dismembering an institution I loved.  I was one of a small group that assessed the operational do-ability of divestiture a few weeks before the decision to proceed was announced.  And, I was one of the last 5 people to “turn out the lights” on the Bell System.

 

I led the turnaround of 3 large under-performing, if not failing, businesses with revenues of between $200M and $2B … and the design and implementation of a radical transformation of a 4th.  

 

I did 2 “roadshows,” helping to raise $160M from investors.  I served on several boards and advisory councils.

 

Thanks to fascinating and challenging work, the opportunity to learn new things, and fantastic colleagues, I loved every minute of it.  (Well, almost. There are always some supremely annoying days.)  And, because I loved it and had a very, very supportive family, I was a workaholic.  I was also lucky, benefitting from great bosses and lots of “right place, right time.”

Reed 7.0 (the latest version) is largely retired but does part-time consulting as founder and president of Antietam Strategy Partners, Inc.  I like projects where I get to work with really smart and passionate people.  My fundamental theses about business are: 1.) Customer-driven operational excellence drives break-through improvements in customer satisfaction and revenue & profit growth, 2.) A best-in-class cost structure is a powerful strategic weapon, giving you pricing flexibility and superior profit margins, and 3.) Execution trumps strategy. It’s difficult to have a “dumb” strategy. What separates the best-in-class from the also-rans is the ability to execute and implement.

 

Domiciles & Travel:

We’ve lived in Maryland, mostly New Jersey, a short stint in Massachusetts, and the Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. For the 8 years in LA, I was bi-coastal, continuing to work back east. I now split my time between Baltimore and the northern-most part of the Jersey Shore.

Business travel and vacations have taken me to 41 states and DC and 16 countries. 

It surprised me when I started to list places where we vacationed:  Antigua … Bermuda … Captiva Island, Marco Island and Palm Beach, FL … Hawaii … London … Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and San Francisco, CA … Paris … Rehoboth Beach, DE … San Juan, Puerto Rico … Torquay (in Devon, UK where wife Bunny’s expat sister has lived for decades) … and White Sulphur Springs, WV.  

I’ve also done golf “orgies” at Bandon, the Greenbrier, Kohler, PGA National, and Streamsong.  (A golf “orgy” is a dozen or so of my contemporaries following a daily regime of:  breakfast, 18 holes, lunch, 18 holes, dinner, sleep.)

I spent a lot of time working in the UK, western Europe, and Asia:  London, Harrogate … Madrid … Paris … Amsterdam … Frankfurt, Weisbaden … Sao Paolo … Tokyo, Misawa … Seoul … and Taipei.

Current Interests:

I think I was always there when my family and friends needed me. But, being a workaholic and road warrior, I probably neglected family and friends in day-to-day life. No regrets, but as a retirement-years priority, I’m trying to make up for that.

I work with students and faculty at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and its Dingman-Lamone Center for Entrepreneurship.  

I’m a lifelong learner.  In a strange juxtaposition, I completed both American Red Cross certification as a Lifeguard and the AI & Career Empowerment non-credit Course at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business in 2025.

I dabble in election reform, advocating for fully open primaries and ranked-choice voting.

I read extensively and broadly. I try to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. Most recently, I finished Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier, Mick Heron’s Why We Die, and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Revenge of the Tipping Point.  

I’m a member of the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs which hosts monthly lectures by great speakers.

I’m a lifelong exerciser. As a kid, I was on a YMCA swim team and a public courts tennis player, arguably the best in Hagerstown.   In retirement, I exercise almost every day: strength training and cardio twice a week at a gym, hiking (recently completed the 184.5-mile length of the C&O Canal with friends and now with the Mountain Club of Maryland), occasionally playing squash and tennis, sailing at Baltimore’s Downtown Sailing Center, and golfing twice a week. (I’m not sure golf is exercise; it’s more of an addiction for me.)