Randall Stephenson's Influence On Dallas, Golf

Profiled by David Gelles and Michael J. de la Merced in a compelling New York Times profile Randall Stevenson, AT&T's CEO, as scrutiny of the proposed purchase of Time Warner begins.

Stephenson is all in on golf and Dallas, something that seemed apparent last week and is made clear in the story:

Upon assuming the role, Mr. Stephenson did something unexpected: He moved the company headquarters about 300 miles north, to Dallas from San Antonio, a decision he called in a recent interview “the hardest I’ve made as C.E.O.”

But the reasons were simple. “First and foremost, to get our people access to great airports,” he said. (Dallas has two international airports.) Also, he said, Dallas had one of the best labor markets in the country for engineers, sales personnel and managers.

Less than a decade later, AT&T has made a big impact on the city. AT&T is the lead sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys’ futuristic football stadium, and has its name on the city’s main performing arts center.

“It’s been amazing for Dallas,” Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, said in an email. “The jobs. The improvement downtown.”

Among Mr. Stephenson’s favored new projects is the development of the Trinity Forest Golf Club, which is designed to lure a big golf tournament back to Dallas.

He professes to be bad at the game himself — “I stink,” he said recently — although he has a 13 handicap, according to the United States Golf Association. But it’s a “thinking man’s game,” he said. “When you spend three or four hours walking 18 holes, you get to know somebody.”