Cablefax The Magazine - July 2017 - 26

2017 TOP OPS AWARDS
INDEPENDENT LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Richie Arnold
The average person changes jobs more than 10 times. Richie
Arnold, who retired May 31 as CEO of Conway, is decidedly not the
average person.
As a young numbers guy, Arnold took his fi rst job at the Conway,
Arkansas-based electric utility company as an accountant in 1978
and rose through the ranks and the decades before ascending to
CEO in 1998. His nearly 40 years at Conway have mirrored the
evolution of the company's video services offerings-from the introduction
of video in 1980 to the launch of broadband to the premiere
of 1 gig residential service just last December, the latter among his
most salient recent accomplishments.
Looking back, Arnold says he never imagined the rapid-fi re pace of
technology advances he was stepping into. " I'm old enough I can
remember the fi rst IBM PC we bought and I could not believe what a
great tool it was, " Arnold says. " The change from analog to digital, and
how that opened up so many things... how our customers and consumers
use our products over their smart phones, and the connectivity
we have now. It's astounding me how much has happened even in
just the last 15 years; it makes me think about what's to come. "
Another thing he readily admits he didn't see coming was a career
lifetime at a single company. But there was something that resonated
with him about the culture at Conway, a utility founded in 1929 as a
means to spur higher education and economic development in the
largely agrarian town that was hit hard by the depression.
" It's all about service. We are so connected to the customers we serve, "
Arnold says. " When you get into a role here-and I don't care what role
it is-you start off with the customer in mind from the very beginning
and it's very rewarding. Beyond compensation or any of the other needs
we all have, you want to know what you're doing is important and it's
valued. When you have a job where you're appreciated by customers-
that is rewarding. It's been that way for me my whole career. "
" Richie has been such a tremendous asset to Conway Corp for so many
years. We at NCTC will miss his leadership but we are proud to have
worked with him for so many years and wish him all the best in retirement, "
said Frank Hughes, svp of member services for the co-op.
Indeed. Among his many roles within the indie realm, Arnold was a
principal player in the Mid-American Cable Association, serving on the
organization's board of directors for numerous years. He also was an
instrumental industry voice working with to both the ACA and NCTC.
At Conway, Arnold was known as a fi scally cautious- " Listen, I am
an accountant at heart. We tend to be conservative with money, " he
deadpans-but forward-looking leader who balanced innovation strategies
with return on investment. He also focused on building a successful
team of executives, including CTO Jason Hansen and CFO Bret Carroll,
who replaces him as CEO.
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" Good people make you or break
you, there's no question about
that, " Arnold says. " You have
to look fi rst for the aptitude,
that they can do the job you're
looking for. And then you have to
train people and part of that is
not only training in the technology
aspects of the job but also
about the culture-getting them
to learn the organization and the
community we serve. Then it's
attitude. If they've got a good
attitude and you've properly
trained them, the last thing I say,
is give them some direction and get out of their way. "
What's ahead for Arnold now that he's stepped away from the C suite?
For one, he'll have a role with the new Arnold Innovation Center that's
being erected in a Conway building. " The whole idea behind it is to encourage
entrepreneurship-that's becoming something of a lost art, "
he says. " And at the end of the day, it's about economic development,
which is what we've always been about. "
And retirement? " I'm a note taker, and I sat down one day and started
making a list of things I wanted to do I my retirement, " he says. " And
then I said, 'Wait, you know what? I'm treating this like a job.' So I'm not
going to go into it that way. I'm hopefully going to learn to be a retiree. "
As for the legacy he hopes to leave, Arnold again returns to his
connections within the company and community. " I would hope
people will remember I tried to be fair-minded and fair with all of our
employees, and I enjoyed the successes we had as a team. I hope I
developed a good team to carry on the legacy I inherited in 1998, "
he says, then pauses before espousing his preferred slogan: " 'He
kept things moving forward.' Yeah, that's as good as it gets. "
- Cathy Applefeld Olson
FAST FACTS
uArnold started his career at Conway as an
accountant in 1978.
uConway launched video services in 1980, and broadband
in 1997
uArnold in 2011 was named a Cable Pathfinder, an award
that recognizes an elite group of cable industry professionals
who actively participated for at least 20 years and
made a significant impact on the industry during that time.
July 2017
Cablefax: The Magazine
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Cablefax The Magazine - July 2017

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