Key figures from the past pursue different paths

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A number of notable figures in Rochester business over the past 15 years have moved on or taken a lower profile in the community. Here are some of those individuals:

Richard Aab
Richard Aab has had an impact on both Rochester and the telecommunications industry.
Aab was chairman and CEO of ACC Corp. which successfully competed in the competitive long-distance arena before being acquired in the early 1990s. ACC ultimately became part of AT&T Corp.
Out of ACC’s crucible of management were spawned both PaeTec Communications Inc. and Choice One Communications Inc. Dozens of former ACCers stock those two firms, including the founders.
Aab founded the North Carolina-based US LEC Inc. in 1996 and he remains chairman of the company, despite relinquishing the CEO chores.
US LEC, Choice One and PaeTec remain survivors in the embattled competitive telecommunications industry.
In 1999, the Pittsford resident-he bought George Fisher’s residence-and his family donated $5 million to the University of Rochester Medical Center. It helped establish the URMC’s research facility, now called the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences.

Paul Allaire
As Xerox Corp. chairman and CEO through most of the 1990s, Paul Allaire oversaw some of the document company’s highest and lowest points. He first announced plans to retire in 2000, but had to step back in after the board fired his successor, Richard Thoman.
In 2001, Xerox stock fell to its lowest point in years, and the company endured a liquidity crisis serious enough to fuel talk of bankruptcy. It also endured a two-year Security and Exchange Commission probe into alleged accounting misdeeds. The SEC investigation ended this year with Xerox paying a $10 million fine, restating three years of results and admitting no wrongdoing.
After leaving Xerox in January, Allaire has continued to live in Connecticut, keeping a low profile. He no longer sits on Xerox’s board, but serves as a director of Sara Lee Corp., Priceline.com Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc. and the Ford Foundation. He does not plan to stand for re-election to the Sara Lee board.

John Buck
John Buck manages to follow his dreams. After co-founding advertising agency Buck & Pulleyn Inc. in 1982, Buck spent 10 years there before he sold his share to partner Chris Pulleyn.
He quit the ad world to focus on volunteer work for an environmental protection group called Earth Watchers. In 1995, Buck moved to North Carolina where he worked as a photographer for a lifestyle newspaper for $10 an hour. He spent two years in the South, before the call of academics prompted him to move to Columbus, Ohio. Buck enrolled in a graduate program at Ohio State University’s College of Arts.
Although Buck enjoyed the classroom atmosphere, he missed a fast-paced work environment. He relocated to Rochester in 1999. He now works as an independent art director and photographer. His principal client is Eastman Kodak Co.
Buck spends time on individual projects for Kodak from creating DVD presentations to capturing images for the photo giant’s Web site. His travels take him around the world. Buck is planning a trip to Thailand. He continues to support environmental preservation through his role on the board of the Mendon Foundation, a non-profit agency whose goal is to preserve open space.

Barber Conable
Fifteen years ago, Barber Conable Jr. had retired from Congress and was president of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., promoting economic growth among developing nations.
He retired from the World Bank in September 1991.
Conable, a Republican, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1985, serving on the Ways and Means Committee for most of those years.
After leaving the World Bank, Conable served on an advisory committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the boards of the Museum of American History and the Museum of the American Indian. He also was a member of the board of Cornell University, his alma mater.
Conable currently serves as chairman of the executive committee of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution and chairman of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Locally, he serves on the board of the Genesee Country Village & Museum. A native of Warsaw, Conable resides in Alexander, Genesee County.

Daniel Gill
Many credit Daniel Gill with growing Bausch & Lomb Inc. into a billion-dollar company. Others recall his commitment to the Rochester community and his role in building a palatial world headquarters for the firm.
Gill joined Bausch & Lomb as group vice president in 1978. Three years later, he was promoted to president and CEO. Gill was soon chosen to take the helm as chairman and CEO, a role that lasted 13 years.
Under his leadership, Bausch & Lomb grew from a $250 million ophthalmic and scientific instruments business to a $2 billion firm focused on health care and optics. Gill’s diversification strategy transformed Bausch & Lomb into a global operation.
He also played a key role in the Greater Rochester International Airport renovation as well as in ensuring completion of the stalled Hyatt Regency Rochester.
Bausch & Lomb’s promising future in 1994, however, became clouded under a series of reports in national media over allegations of faked sales numbers by Hong Kong executives and by top managers of its contact-lens division.
Gill resigned as chairman in December 1995 after 17 years at the company. He now lives in Brighton for most of the year and spends summers at his home in Canandaigua.

Michael Hone
Increasing sales at a firm remains Michael Hone’s forte.
A regional sales manager position at PSC Inc. brought Hone to the area in 1981. He gave up a job at 3M Corp. in Ohio to push bar-code scanners in the market. Hone played an instrumental role in developing the company’s scanner business. He took over as president and chief operating officer in 1988, became CEO in 1989 and added the chairman’s title three years later.
PSC revenues were $8 million in 1988 when he became president, and surpassed $200 million in 1996. Hone resigned in 1997 after he and the board of directors decided he was not the person to lead the company in a new direction. The company moved to Oregon three years later.
Hone then served as president and CEO of Boston-based Centennial Technologies. He was brought in to turn around the beleaguered company hit by delisting and indictments. He was instrumental in pushing the company to profitability and orchestrating its sale to California electronics manufacturer Solectron Corp.
Last December former PSC colleagues, now at medical imaging firm Lucid Inc., lured Hone back to Rochester. As president of Lucid, Hone is helping to move the firm from a research and development focused company to a product-oriented organization.

Frank Horton
Back in 1987, Frank Horton represented the region in the House of Representatives, continuing a tenure that had begun in 1963.
The Republican would serve another six years, retiring after 30 years in Congress in January 1993. He chose not to seek re-election when his district was redrawn, which would have pitted him against incumbent Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Perinton.
He served on the Government Operations committee, as well as the Post Office and Civil Service committee.
Before his election to Congress, Horton was a member of the Rochester City Council from 1955 to 1961. He worked as president of Rochester Community Baseball Inc. from 1956 to 1961. And he was executive vice president of the International Baseball League from 1959 to 1961, also serving as attorney for the league.
He is a resident of Rochester.

David Kearns
As chairman and CEO of Xerox Corp. in the 1980s and early 1990s, David Kearns led a successful turnaround effort in which the document company took back copier market share from Japanese rivals that had grabbed some 70 percent of U.S. sales in the 1970s.
His post-Xerox career largely has focused on education. From 1991 to 1993, Kearns served as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. He is now chairman emeritus of the New American Schools Corp., a non-profit devoted to improving U.S. education.
Now mostly retired from corporate boards, Kearns has served as a director of AOL Time Warner Inc., Ryder Systems Inc. and the Ford Foundation. A University of Rochester graduate, he is a UR trustee. Kearns has written three books, one on Xerox and two on education. Most recently published is “A Legacy of Learning,” co-written with James Harvey. Kearns lives in New Canaan, Conn.

Barry Keesan
Barry Keesan is still the local honcho with soul.
As the founder and CEO of Logical Operations Inc.-now Element K LLC-he guided the computer training and publishing company from start-up in 1982 to Inc. 500 status. More important to local workers, though, was Keesan’s commitment to the employees, and a belief in concepts such as working from home, flex time, group decision-making and comfortable clothing.
Ziff-Davis Inc. bought Logical Operations in 1991. Keesan used the cash to buy a large piece of Germaine Knapp’s business, WordSmart Inc. WordSmart focused on teaching communication skills. Keesan changed the name to WorkSmart Learning Systems Inc.
The company also added organization and career development services to its repertoire, including courseware development, workplace assessments and leadership training.
Keesan, a Zen practitioner, specializes in leadership development and the Enneagram, a geometric figure that outlines nine basic personality types and how they relate. Workplace consultants can use the graphic as a tool for analyzing individual and group relationships. Keesan has written a book, “The Enneagram of Leadership: Nine Tenets of Wisdom and Power.”

Thomas McDermott
Be it eye care, pumps or plastics, Thomas McDermott enjoys the challenges of running a business.
A former Army officer and FBI official, McDermott entered the business arena through a corporate security job at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. in Manhattan. Next came another security post at rival pharmaceuticals firm E.R. Squibb & Sons Inc. in the late 1960s.
At Squibb, McDermott moved into human resources and worked at the firm until he came here to join Bausch & Lomb Inc. as vice president of human resources. In 1980, after spending two years at the eye-care company, McDermott’s desire to move to an operational management role took him to General Cinema Corp. in Brookline, Mass. But the job did not work out as expected.
When friend and colleague Daniel Gill became president and CEO of Bausch & Lomb, he wooed McDermott back to Rochester. In 1981, he returned as senior vice president of human resources and became group vice president in 1983. A series of jobs later, McDermott took over as president and chief operating officer of Bausch & Lomb.
McDermott left the company in 1993. He spent six months playing golf and started a one-man headhunting firm before grabbing the opportunity to become chairman, president and CEO of Goulds Pumps Inc. McDermott replaced Stephen Ardia and instituted a plan to cut costs and boost growth.
Shortly after Goulds’ sale to ITT Industries Inc., McDermott in 1997 stepped down from his role as chairman.
Today McDermott is chairman of Forbes Products Corp., a vinyl products manufacturing company based in Rush. He and his three sons manage the firm. McDermott continues to remain enthusiastic about being active in the business world. He is on the boards of Constellation Brands Inc., Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester Medical Center and others.

Peter McWalters
As superintendent of the Rochester City School District from 1985 to 1992, McWalters oversaw what some considered radical changes, and planned to make Rochester a model in urban education.
He envisioned a district run on sound business management techniques-decentralization, team building and entrepreneurial spirit.
Through some thought-provoking union-management discussions, city teachers negotiated salary increases that made them among the highest-paid teachers in the nation. Experts hoped higher pay would result in a higher quality of teaching and better graduation results.
Aiming for a less cumbersome district administration, McWalters wanted to create schools that responded more quickly to the students’ needs. Not all city residents approved of the new approach.
“There is a cultural block that says, ‘That’s not the way we do things here,'” McWalters told Rochester Business Journal in August 1989. “Unlike any other business, everybody is an expert (on education) because they all have been to school.”
McWalters has been the Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education since 1992.

Lawrence Peckham
Xelus Inc. is the area’s oldest software business. It was founded in 1972 as LPA Software Inc. by Lawrence Peckham.
Peckham, a self-described perfectionist, created the company as a way to pay for his graduate studies at SUNY College at Brockport. It was a one-man show for five years, but eventually hit some 170 employees at its peak in 2000.
Peckham built the company into a leading provider of applications for service inventory management.
“We have our software in every country in South America,” Peckham told Roches-ter Business Journal in March 1993. “There have been times we’ve had so much work in South America, we’ve had Spanish classes in our conference room on Wednesday mornings.”
In late 1998, Peckham hired a new president and CEO, Michael Fabiaschi, who was expected to direct the company’s growth. Peckham became chairman. He stepped down as chairman in October 2000. The company’s named was changed to Xelus that year.
But the name LPA is back. In February, Xelus spun off its custom software systems division. The new company’s name is LPA Systems Inc.
Peckham is retired and lives in Webster.

Mary Quin
Former Xerox vice president Mary Quin achieved worldwide fame in 1998 after her 15-person tour group was kidnapped by Islamic radicals while she was vacationing in Yemen.
Quin, who stands 5 feet 2 inches tall, grabbed an AK-47 from a captor and made a successful dash to freedom. She called the experience “life changing.” Quin quit Xerox in 1999 with plans to write and look for new business opportunities. After the Yemen ordeal, Quin started to research Islamic fundamentalism worldwide, meeting with Islamic radical groups in London.
She also worked with Afghan women, helping to draft a declaration of essential women’s rights, which could become part of Afghanistan’s new constitution. Quin currently splits her time between Alaska, where she moved last year, and her native New Zealand.
A book she is writing about worldwide Islamist movements is targeted for publication in 2003. Quin returned to Yemen in August to interview her now-imprisoned former captors. In Alaska, she makes her home with life partner Ray Kaufman, an executive who e-mailed her after reading about the Yemen kidnapping. She is learning to fly-fish and hunt.

Richard Rose
Richard Rose, Rochester Institute of Technology’s seventh president, oversaw an era of dramatic growth and development. During his tenure from 1979 to 1992, RIT boosted its technology-based offerings with programs in microelectronic engineering, telecommunications, computer engineering and biotechnology. New buildings sprouted up on the Henrietta campus to accommodate the added programs and their students.
Rose, however, probably will be most remembered here because he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. His affiliation with the agency was never covert. But neither was it public knowledge-until 1991.
Rose announced he was taking a four-month sabbatical to work on national policy and procedures in Washington, D.C. A local reporter tracked him to the CIA’s offices.
The ensuing furor lasted several months. It was discovered the CIA had exerted influence on some of RIT’s programs and services, including the Center for Imaging Science and the Rochester Research Corporation.
In June 1991, after graduation ceremonies marred by protests, Rose said he would sever all personal ties with the CIA. He stepped down as president the following year.
Rose is retired and was named a president emeritus of RIT in 1995. He reportedly lives in the Finger Lakes region.

Richard Thoman
Richard Thoman’s ill-starred career at Xerox Corp. began in 1997, when he was recruited as heir apparent to Xerox chairman and CEO Paul Allaire. Things started to go sour for Thoman in 2000 after he was named CEO.
His plan to restructure the direct sales force went badly awry, and deep problems with Xerox’s billing systems surfaced. With the sales force in continuing disarray, revenues slid.
In May 2000, the company’s board fired Thoman after 13 months in the CEO slot. Opinion in business-press analyses and business-school case studies has remained split as to whether Thoman’s failure resulted from heavy-handed insensitivity to Xerox’s culture, or whether Allaire undermined his efforts to jumpstart a calcified Xerox bureaucracy.
Thoman today serves as a supervising director of DaimlerChrysler AG, and is a senior advisor to Evercore Partners, a venture capital, private equity and financial consulting firm in New York and Los Angeles. He lives in Stamford, Conn.

Herb Washington
A man of many talents, Herb Washington was the prominent owner of four area McDonald’s restaurant franchises.
Many, however, remember Washington, president of HLW Fast Track Inc., more as an All-American runner and professional baseball player than a businessman.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Washington was a four-time All-American at Michigan State University. He won one NCAA title and seven Big Ten titles, and tied or broke the world record in the 50- and 60-yard dash several times.
In his senior year in 1972, Washington was drafted in the 12th round by the Baltimore Colts in the NFL draft. In 1974, he was signed as a designated pinch runner for the Oakland Athletics.
Later that year, he played for the A’s in the World Series, which Oakland won, 4-1, over the Los Angeles Dodgers. He ranked seventh in stolen bases that year.
Washington appeared in 105 games in 1974 and 1975, stealing a career total of 31 bases.
Now residing in Youngstown, Ohio, Washington is a businessman and active in community service activities. He is a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce.
He owns more than two dozen McDonald’s restaurant franchises in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Washington is a member of the board of the United Negro College Fund Inc. He also is a former member of the board of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Eugene Welch
In 1995, attorney Eugene Welch was the Democratic opponent to incumbent Republican County Executive Jack Doyle, who was seeking his first full term.
Earlier that year, Welch became a partner with the law firm Harris, Chesworth & O’Brien, where he continues to practice. He focuses on federal and state litigation and governmental issues.
Before his foray into electoral politics, Welch served as the assistant attorney general in charge of the New York State Attorney General’s regional office in Rochester from 1979 to 1995. Before that, he was an assistant U.S. attorney for eight years.
Welch, who lives in Greece, is chairman of the board of the Greece Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the 1990s, Welch was affiliated with the Monroe County Bar Association, serving in various capacities. He also served as chairman of the board for Sojourner House for Women.
A 1962 graduate of McQuaid Jesuit High School and a 1967 graduate of St. John Fisher College, Welch is a member of St. John the Evangelist Church in Greece.

Christine Whitman
When profiled in Rochester Business Journal in 1991, Christine Whitman was chairman, president and CEO of CVC Inc., a supplier of thin-film process equipment used to manufacture disk drives and semiconductor devices.
After going public, the company was acquired in 2000 by Veeco Instruments Inc., where Whitman served as president and COO through October of that year.
Whitman today is a management consultant for several business clients and is the fundraising co-chairperson of the Greater Rochester Enterprise Inc., a five-year, $14 million, public-private economic development partnership.
She is a trustee of Rochester Institute of Technology, Al Sigl Center, the Rochester Museum & Science Center, and the United Way of Greater Rochester Inc.

Donald Zabkar
For a time, Donald Zabkar made the foot-long weenie with chunky hot sauce more famous than upstate’s perennial white hot.
From 1981 until 1988, Zabkar and members of his family fed the public via their company, Zab’s Backyard Hots Inc.
The mini-empire began as a small restaurant on Jefferson Road. The hots came in regular and foot-long sizes, topped with fixings that included a spicy salsa.
Within two years, Zab’s had six locations, four in Rochester, including a tiny bungalow on Park Avenue at Oxford Street, and two in Syracuse.
“Wanna go for a Zab’s?” became as common a local question as “Wanna go for an Abbott’s?”
Although Zab’s had shown consistent losses since it opened, the public was enthusiastic. Even the New York Times made note of the hots.
Zab’s went public in 1985, owning 10 locations, and began selling restaurant franchises. Then, they began selling franchises for Zabcarts, sidewalk hot dog carts. Packages of Zab’s hots and bottles of Zab’s hot sauce were sold in grocery stores.
However, the company still posted losses totaling in the millions. Zabkar filed for bankruptcy in 1988.
“Looking back, vision is very clear,” Zabkar said to Rochester Business Journal in August 1988. “You can see so perfect: We shouldn’t have put up big stores; we should only have concentrated in upscale areas. …We should have kept our menu limited.”
Zabkar now lives in Roswell, Ga. Through a company called Suburban Franchising Inc., he sells franchises for a propane delivery service called Suburban Cylinder Express.

10/11/02 (C) Rochester Business Journal