TRUSTEES: Bob Kleinert

New Jersey Business, Jun 01, 2004 by Prior, James T

Robert W. "Bob" Kleinert, the former president of New Jersey Bell, AT&T Long Lines and AT&T Communications, has a million stories about his 45-year career with the Bell System, but the one that has made the most indelible mark is the 1983 decision by Judge Harold Brown to break up the system.

A small group of us, including our chairman, went to see Judge Brown, who said, 'AT&T is too big, has over a million employees and I'm going to break it up.' He was saying that we were too successful," recalls Kleinert. "It was a big mistake."

Kleinert, who is director emeritus of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, Trenton, and NJM Insurance Group, West Trenton, tells the story that in 1940, at the age of 17, he joined Bell of Pennsylvania, but was too young to be an installer. So, he became a messenger for the Philadelphiabased phone company.

Bob's father, Edward, who had emigrated at age nine from Germany, worked in a hosiery mill in Philadelphia until labor strife in the '30s closed it down. The senior Kleinert then worked as a wallpaper hanger, and the young Bob Kleinert, at 14, worked with his dad. "I'm still a great wallpaper hanger," he chuckles. However, he was only working a few days a week. He noticed his next door friend went off every morning to work for Bell of Pennsylvania. The prospect of steady work appealed to the younger Kleinert.

He worked for a year as a messenger at Pennsylvania Bell and, a year later at 18, became an installer. His father, still remembering the Great Depression, wanted him to have a steady job, while his mother Eleanor, a graduate of Temple University, wanted him to get an education. He did both working days, and going to school at night. He moved to AT&T Long Lines in 1942. Then, it was off to World War II, serving in the Army Signal Corps for three years, 2-1/2 of them in the South Pacific in such places as New Guinea, Leyte, Luzon and Okinawa.

Upon his return, Bob Kleinert was able to land the midnight to 8 a.m. tour at Bell and attended Drexel University during the day "So, I was able to combine my father's and mother's goals," he muses. He earned a BS degree in electrical engineering in 1951 and he began his climb up the management ladder in 1958, when he became a division plant superintendent for Long Lines.

During his early career, he was promoted from division plant superintendent to sales manager, general managergovernment relations and general manager of the southern area. He worked in Washington, D.C. three times, as well as Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati and White Plains, New York. He had married a Drexel University student, Jane, in his senior year at college. "We moved 10 times in 15 years," he remembers. "We had three sons, Richard, Robert and Jack. When we lived in one place longer than usual, I remember one of them asking, 'When are we moving?' "

In 1965, he was appointed vice president at AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph). A year later, he returned to Long Lines as operating vice president. In 1970, he was named president of New Jersey Bell.

New Jersey Bell handled more telephone calls than any other state or country at the time - 1,042 calls a year for every man, woman and child in the state. His then office, 540 Broad Street, Newark, is now home to Verizon New Jersey - one of the four surviving companies of the original seven Baby Bells (independent regional telephone companies) set up in the wake of judge Brown's decision.

His next promotion came in 1978, when he was named president of AT&T Long Lines. "For the first two years at AT&T Long Lines, I did nothing but fight with lawyers about the breakup," he recalls with some discomfort. "We had to divide all the assets, equipment, offices, everything.

We had to devise a system to put part of the Long Lines business with the seven Baby Bells. In some offices, we painted some equipment orange for one company and green for another." It was at this time, 1983, that he had a heart attack. "The doctors did a great job," he recalls. "They literally saved my life, because my veins had collapsed."

That year, because of the breakup, he became president of AT&T Communications, the surviving company of Long Lines. Two years later, in 1985, he retired at 61.

Over the years, Kleinert had served on a number of committees, including the executive committee of the Governor's "Jobs" Conference, the Governor's Committee on Management Improvement, Governor William Cahill's Tax Policy Commission, the New Jersey State Energy Council and general chairman of the Triennial Fund Drive of the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity. He ran the Bonds "Yes" campaign for higher education and the Green Acres campaign, both of them successfully, while other bond issues throughout the nation were failing.

Bob was also New Jersey chairman of the Industrial Savings Bond Committee and president of the Essex County 200 Club, as well as treasurer of the New Jersey Bicentennial Commission. In addition, he had served on a long list of other entities for governmental, business and educational efforts.