Company town: There's no escaping the consequences

0 Comments | USA TODAY, February, 2007 | by Kevin Maney

Q: Corning is 156 years old, and it completely dominates this small town in Upstate New York. You're the CEO. You go to the grocery store and everybody knows who you are. What's that like?

A: Being in the small town constantly reminds you the consequences of your actions, both good and bad. We don't work in New York City and then leave to someplace totally separate, like Greenwich, Conn., and have a life entirely separate from the people whose lives we impact. They're right there. So you go to the store, you see folks whose lives you're impacting. Your kids go to school with folks whose lives you're impacting. It makes you understand the consequences of what you do.

As an individual, that gets stressful after a while. But I've been there a long, long time. I...