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'Edward E. "Ed" Whitacre, Jr.' (born November 4, 1941 in Ennis, Texas) is a former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of AT&T Inc. He served as national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 1998-2000.
Whitacre began his career with Southwestern Bell in 1963 as a facility engineer. The following year, he graduated from Texas Tech University with a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering.
In October 1988, Whitacre was made president and chief operating officer of Regional Bell Operating Company, Southwestern Bell Corporation. Two years later, Whitacre became chairman of the board and chief executive officer. In 1995, Southwestern Bell Corporation changed its name to SBC Communications. Whitacre led SBC through a series of mergers and acquisitions in building the largest provider of both local long distance telephone services and wireless service (through its Cingular division) in the United States. These acquisitions included Pacific Telesis (1997), SNET (1998), Comcast Cellular (1999), Ameritech (1999) and AT&T (2005), from which the post-merger company took its name, as well as the 2006 acquisition of Bell South.
On June 23, 2006, he and the CEO of BellSouth were brought in under the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee following the AT&T-BellSouth merger. Most questions to Whitacre were regarding possible customer information leaks to the NSA.
On April 27, 2007, at the AT&T annual stockholders meeting, Ed announced his intent to retire as Chairman of the Board and chief executive officer at AT&T Inc., effective June 3. The Board of Directors elected Randall Stephenson to succeed Ed as the new CEO and Chairman of the Board. On June 4th, 2007 Ed Whitacre retired with Randall Stephenson taking the helm the following morning (June 5th, 2007).
It has been reported that though the CEO of one of the largest and most influential names in telecommunications and its surrounding technology, Ed did not use email or have a computer in his office. It has also been reported that Whitacre offered Stephenson three words of advice via text message when the executive change was announced: "Give 'em hell".
It was announced June 2007 that AT&T's San Antonio headquarters building will be named "Whitacre Tower" in recognition of Whitacre's 44 years at the company, 17 of which were spent as chairman and CEO.
On June, 28, 2007, the City of San Antonio placed Ed Whitacre on the San Antonio River Commission.^[1]

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1. http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=6731010&nav=3w6y