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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
AOL’s Parsons to revisit
UH stomping groundsThe incoming chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc. will be incoming to Hawaii Friday to deliver commencement addresses at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Richard Parsons' face is already here, on the cover of the May 19 edition of BusinessWeek magazine. The in-depth profile explores whether Parsons, the company's chief executive and a UH alumnus, can save the company.
"I had personally hoped for a little more focus on the company, it's a hell of a company, and less focus on 'can he or can't he,' but net-net-net I thought it was OK," Parsons said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Internally and externally the mood and feeling about AOL Time Warner is turning more positive, he said. The company's annual shareholders meeting is Friday.
Some of the businesses are "up and flying solid all the way, and we've gotten out of the blocks in pretty good shape this year," he said.
Nevertheless, tumult over the board, and the struggling stock price, continues to follow AOL. The company lost $98 billion last year, and has changed much of its senior management since the 2001 merger of the two companies. In addition, federal investigators are looking into the books of the America Online unit.
"My sense is that while we are still kind of wrestling with some of the upset of the last couple of years, we'll get through the shareholder meeting, listen attentively to what the shareholders have to say to the management and the board, and crank that all into our thinking in moving the company forward," Parsons said.
"I think you can't undo the past," he said, but considering the situation he sees indications of increasing value for shareholders. "That's what our job is."
AOL's stock price has fallen 70 percent since the merger.
Parsons' speeches on Sunday won't be terribly long, he said, because the graduates "have got a lot of stuff to do."
"This is the last class that started its education in the 20th century," he said.
He will address the "different world they're coming into from when they started.
"The economy was rolling along, the Internet was changing the world, there was peace around the world ... everything was good," Parsons said.
In contrast, today there is a sort of global recession, the Internet juggernaut has stalled and the country is at war with terrorism, he said.
"There's no peace, no security, no jobs. What's up with that?" Parsons said. "We'll answer that question for them."
Parsons attended UH Manoa from 1964-68, leaving before graduation. He went on to be valedictorian of his law school class at Union University. He was named a UH distinguished alumnus in 1997.
Unable to attend the awards luncheon, he sent a revealing statement about his days at UH, to be read in his absence. The honor brought back a flood of memories and regrets, he said.
Parsons summed up his academic career at UH by paraphrasing Julius Caesar: "I came. I saw. I partied," he wrote.
Taken with the people, place, sunsets, surf and the "blue expanse of Pacific sky," he said, "a glance at my grade point average for those years is a reminder that the honor paid me as a distinguished alumnus in no way reflects my academic achievements as an undergraduate."
Still, he views his UH years as a turning point. It was at least two turning points, as he met his wife, Laura, there.
"I met her cheating off her in English class," he laughed.
"She spotted me but did not cover up her paper. I thought, 'this is a woman I have to cultivate,'" Parsons said.
Did she know he was a Rainbow basketball player? "I don't think so, she just thought I was a poor soul who didn't know the answers," he said.
Each passed the English exam.
They were married by the Rev. Guy Piltz in a nearby chapel, he said.
"The best years of my life were spent in Hawaii at UH," he told TheBuzz. "I had more fun than you could shake a stick at. You learn not just about the world around you, but about yourself."
Among Parsons' first steps after the graduation ceremony will be into President Evan Dobelle's house, College Hill, where he and his wife will attend a commencement dinner. Monday morning it's back to the mainland.
On Monday, the cousin of AOL founder Steve Case, U.S. Rep. Ed Case, will address graduates of the William S. Richardson School of Law.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
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