Last week an auction took place that marked an end to an era.  Most people didn’t know that it even took place except those who were affiliated at one time or another with the company whose remaining assets were up for auction.

The company was Nortel.  When I first joined their ranks back in 1986 they were known as Northern Telecom.  Nortel was a Canadian based company.  Its roots date back to when Alexander Graham Bell was forming the Bell System.  Alex had turned over 75% of the Canadian telephone patent to his father.  Pop Bell was responsible for promoting his son’s new fangled invention throughout Canada.

After several changes of ownership, the companies that eventually formed mirrored, somewhat, the Ma Bell System here in the states.  When the break-up of the Bell system began in the early to mid 80’s, Nortel’s head honcho was a man by the name of Edmund Fitzgerald.  The name will sound somewhat familiar to music weenies like me, as it should.  Gordon Lightfoot had a huge hit, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  That particular Edmund Fitzgerald was the father of the “Nortel” Fitzgerald.    How did his dad get his name that was on a ship whose wreck became folk lore?  Well, pops owned the Milwaukee ship building company who built it.

Anyway, back to Nortel.

Because of the divestiture of the U.S. Bell System mandated by Judge Green and his famous “MFJ” (“Modified Final Judgement”), Nortel benefited because, a) Judge Green told the Baby Bells, basically, “thou shalt buy more than x% of telephone gear from your estranged ma, AT&T”; and, b) Nortel had, at that time, the only digital multiplex “switch” on the market.  The result was Nortel swooping into the states and making a killing. 

A “switch” is what the gear was called that made a phone call happen.  It provided the dial tone, it deciphered the digits one dialed to make a call, it set up and routed the call to the desired destination and it would give you a busy signal if the receiving party was busy on the phone.  Eventually, call waiting, caller ID and other features were added and sold to make one’s telecommunication experience more efficient if not enjoyable.

I benefited from this sudden burst of business because Nortel needed anyone that could walk and chew gum to install these new fangled switches.  So, after practicing real hard to walk and chew gum and the same time, I had my interview, got the job and travelled the U.S., installing these switches which were really massive main frame computers. 

I quit the company once and was laid off twice, the last time back in 2008, having just wrapped up my aggregated tenure of 19 years.  In those years, I travelled the continent, finished my undergraduate and graduate work, moved from Phoenix to Dallas to Northwest Arkansas and back to Dallas.  I held a variety of very interesting positions that taught me a lot.  I made lots of friends from all over the world and gained an education in many areas of business that could never be learned a formal classroom.

All of these memories came flooding back last week as I learned that a consortium consisting of Microsoft, RIM (“Blackberry”), Apple, Ericsson, and others beat out Google in a hotly contested battle for Nortel’s intellectual property.  I thought of all the folks I knew – brilliant people – who contributed in very real and tangible ways to the success of the company.  Many people went on to work for Nortel’s competitors.  Other lives were forever changed – both positively and negatively – from the destruction of this once globally respected company.  I can’t complain.  While I did experience some very dark times as a result of my roller coaster ride with Nortel, I have that company to thank for a lot of things so I choose to think good things about that company.

So long, Nortel. Thanks for the memories, the friends and the education.