'If there was a telephone Mount Rushmore, you’d be on it.’
— Teddy Solomon to Roger Futch
When Roger Futch spoke, people listened. And it was no more evident than in the conference room.
“We would be in the middle of trying to solve an issue — whether it was technology or funding or staffing or community relations — and Roger would always start with, ‘I’m just an old country boy’ and then he’d go ‘but ...’ and we would all listen because we knew he was fixing to drop some wisdom on us,” said Rob Brooks, CEO of Relyant Communications. “Then we would agree, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do, this makes sense.’
“This was despite the fact that there were on that board 20 other people with similar experiences, backgrounds and knowledge of the telecom industry,” he continued. “He was always that guy who, when we’d be arguing about something, would say ‘Why don’t we try this?’ and it would be a good solution — nine times out of 10 it would be the right answer. When we had a disagreement, he was the peacemaker and could get us calmed down and back on track.”
Futch, 78, passed away last week after a distinguished career in the state and local telecommunications industry and also as an orchardist. He and his wife, Ann, have operated R & A Orchards, and their son Andy now runs the orchard and farm market. Their daughter, Rhonda, also followed in her father’s footsteps and is executive director of the Georgia Rural Telephone and Broadband Association. Roger Futch was an integral part of Ellijay Telephone Company (ETC) for 47 years, and retired in 2015 as chief operating officer.
An obituary in this issue of the newspaper notes, “(Futch) always credited his accomplishments in the communications industry to his service as a Naval Reconnaissance Navigator flying in the Skyraider Battalion from 1963 until 1966.”
Rhonda Futch called Dennis Lewis “one of his best friends and colleagues in the industry.” Lewis said he’s known Futch since 1984 through the fledgling Georgia Telephone Association.
“Roger and I talked a lot about what was going on in the industry,” he recalled. “He could always look over the horizon — and we discussed among ourselves what we believed was going to happen next — and that was critical, he was very good at that. He was well-respected, and everybody wanted to hear his opinion. They may not agree with him — and I didn’t always agree with him, but we all wanted to hear what he had to say. There’s no telling how many hours we spent on the phone talking. We’ve been through about three generations of technology, and we grew through time through three or four generations of business relationships, and our companies survived.”
Lewis said Futch, though being from south Georgia, was trusted by the Harrison family at ETC and helped guide it through myriad changes in technology and business that included heavy regulation of the telecom industry.
Blasting holes for poles
Bob Ragsdale noted he and Futch were actually adversaries back in the day when Ragsdale represented BellSouth.
“But despite the fact that we were on opposite sides of the table, he was a very easy person to work with, he was smart and was very well respected by other members of the (GTA),” he said. “So you could work with Roger. He never tried to pull the wool over your eyes, but he had the respect that if you could get Roger on board, he could get the other leaders in the industry on board.”
Later, Ragsdale worked for a consulting firm that had ETC as a client.
“When he made up his mind to get something done, he could find a way to get it done,” he pointed out. “We actually became very good friends. We’ve been to conventions, and my wife and I would go out with Roger and Ann and our children, and it was just a wonderful experience to deal with him over the years, for sure. He was a great person, very smart, very dedicated, and not just at (ETC) but around the state. I never met anybody that didn’t like Roger Futch. Our families are close friends.”
Ragsdale said Futch — who began his career with AT&T Long Lines — told him his grandfather said he was crazy to quit his job and go to Ellijay.
“Then we saw some guys climbing poles, and he told me one of his first jobs at (ETC) was using dynamite to blast holes in granite to set telephone poles in,” he said.
Eddie Swing said he began calling on Futch at ETC back in 1990 as a telecom supplier out of Memphis.
“We did a lot of business together, and spent a lot of time together,” he said. “Roger was always a very forward thinker, and had a vision of where he wanted to take the company. He was a very futuristic type of guy, and a good Christian man. He believed in his people. He tried to serve the community the best he could and take care of the company as well. He was an innovator and just a good, all-around, down-to-heart family man. You just don’t find them like that much anymore.
Swing noted that when Futch got “a little stressed out,” Cora Payne of the ETC Foundation would call Rhonda and say, “Can you bring the girls up here and let your daddy play with the girls a little bit? He’s stressed out.”
“And she would bring them up there and just drop them off — they were about 3 or 4 years old — and you’d see them in there on his lap and on his desk, and he’d be drawing on the white board for them,” he said. “That was Roger; it just took the pressure of the real world off him. Roger is just a down-to-earth, great person, and (ETC) is just a great bunch up there, wonderful people.”
‘Always calm and firm’
Teddy Solomon said he and Futch and other companies built a ‘fiber ring’ around rural Georgia to carry broadband traffic 27 years ago that was ahead of its time. He remarked, “Roger Futch was one of the best people I know.”
“We worked together, and there were a lot of challenges,” noted Solomon. “What those challenges made me see was what a leader he was. He was very intelligent, and as a leader he was always calm. Some of us would maybe cuss a little bit or get agitated about something when you can’t think as good as you ought to, but he was always calm and firm. I heard another guy said about him, ‘He was a good somebody’ — and I thought, ‘That’s Roger Futch, a good somebody.’”
At Futch’s last meeting with the GTA, Solomon told Futch, “’Roger, if there was a telephone Mount Rushmore, you’d be on it.’ That’s what I think about him.”
Manny Staurulakis is vice chairman of a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., that has worked with ETC for decades.
“Roger was an incredible individual, nice and friendly, and his talents are hidden because he doesn’t talk about them, he pointed out. “He had a folksy personality and calm demeanor, but was the go-to person throughout the industry in Georgia. Everybody knew he took everything in, and then we were all waiting for his response to industry issues and for the benefit of all the companies in the state. He was a big, big help to moving the industry forward there in Georgia. He was a very respected voice in the crowd, and put everything in perspective so everyone else could understand. He and his wife Ann are great people, you couldn’t help but like them and want to be around them all the time. The world’s going to miss him.”
Stephen Kraskin’s involvement with Futch also goes back decades to the old GTA, which became the Telephone and Broadband group.
“Roger walked into that meeting with a large basket of apples which he passed out to all his colleagues and the other meeting attendees, including me,” he recalled via email. “I quickly learned what a great apple grower Roger was! Nearly as quickly I learned much more — how Roger was a great company executive at (ETC), a great innovator and thinker, a great contributor to his employer, his industry and his community. And what a great family he has!”
After being introduced to ETC founder Albert Harrison, Kraskin remarked, “I was struck by the mutual respect and loyalty that forged a bond between Roger and Mr. Harrison and his family. From the outset, Roger expressed his intent for (ETC) to provide quality service at reasonable rates throughout the Ellijay community that equaled and surpassed those available in urbanized areas like those where I lived … his contributions to (ETC), the Georgia independent telecom industry and the entire Ellijay community were immense. I was blessed to have him as a friend and teacher.”
Brian Sullivan works for a consulting firm that specializes in accounting and regulations, and noted Futch’s hand in helping ETC expand in the region and also initiating cable TV service.
“He clearly wasn’t about just helping the company make more money,” he said. “What was cool about Roger was he knew every detail — he had a printout of operations that was probably 8 inches thick, covered with sticky notes.”
Sullivan said the company not only broadened into cable but also created its own station, ETC 3, with a studio “to actually film live TV that was focused on their actual town.”
Even with his position in the ETC hierarchy, Kraskin said when they were driving in the area and Futch saw a sign in a yard showing a residence had ETC service — but the sign was askew or fallen — “he would stop the car, get out and put that sign back right, then we’d keep going.”
Rhonda Futch said that as she’s traveled around the country in the telecom industry and people learned whose daughter she was, they would remark, “Wow, Roger is a legend in this industry.”
“Many times recently I would share with him who I had met and called him a legend, and he would get the biggest smile and say, ‘I loved what I did, and modern technology is the most important innovation ever — keep the change going, it helps so many people!’ … he was honest, fierce, passionate, competitive, a mentor and a leader.
“I am so proud to be his daughter.”
Local voices extol Roger Futch
Roger Futch was a phenomenal leader in Ellijay Telephone Company’s growth and expansion through the decades, and was also respected in what became known as “agri-tourism” through his ownership of R & A Orchards with his wife, Ann. Those who work and live in Gilmer County and interacted closely with Roger Futch were more than happy to share their insights and memories after his passing last week.
Cora Payne at ETC became Futch’s assistant in 1998.
“Roger was a great teacher, and we learned by doing,” she said. “He allowed his staff to identify challenges and be part of the solution, and he taught me about the telephone industry.”
Payne added that Futch was a “visionary” and loved the challenges of ETC expanding into surrounding and nearby counties.
“He was an exceptionally good leader and led by example,” she recalled. “Roger held monthly meetings with ETC’s management team and encouraged everyone to understand the plan. He helped our company look to and plan for the future.
“Roger was excellent when negotiating contracts with Bell South and AT&T. ETC was a small company but was known as a leader in the state and national telephone industry. A lot of this was attributed to Roger’s leadership and vision.
Roger was a friend to all and well respected in the community and the telecommunications industry.”
Jon Jones worked for the late Fred Bailey in a telecom consulting business in Ellijay, and was given the ETC portfolio.
“That account was mine to take care of, and I had college but not much practical telecom knowledge,” he remembered. “I worked with Roger very closely, and he kinda took me under his wing.”
Jones called Futch a mentor and added, “We had a great working relationship.
“I attribute my success in the profession all these years to people like Roger who took the time to mentor and teach me some of the finer points, and introduce me to some of the important people in Georgia telecom,” he said.
Years ago, David Bailey was partners with Lee Moore in a telecom consulting firm (which they bought from David’s father Fred) that still had ETC as a client.
“They didn’t really need us, they had John Weissinger, Frances (Carson) and all of them (at ETC),” he noted. “Roger just gave our company an opportunity to do work for ETC, and we certainly enjoyed that relationship with him. We were supposedly the consultants, but c’mon, nobody knew more about the telecom business than Roger did … after a period of time with him visiting us and talking about regulatory issues, telling us things that were about to happen and everything else, I realized he was our consultant. Lee told me one day, ‘Why don’t we just hire him?’”
It was on trips to conferences, Bailey said, where Futch talked about “integrity, character and how to conduct yourself in business” that was oftentimes more important than the technical aspects and issues of the industry.
“Roger was one of the most generous people I ever met — other than being one of the smartest!” he shared.
‘He helped other people’
John Reece of B.J. Reece Orchards said he “always respected Roger, he was a good person in the community, and he helped other people.”
“One thing that stuck with me with Roger is one night I was up and couldn’t sleep at about 2 or 3 in the morning, and I heard him on the Ellijay station (ETC 3) while he was doing an interview for the phone company,” he recalled. “And he said, ‘Your business is only as good as your help,’ meaning you gotta have good help. I’ve never forgotten that.”
Ronnie Gheesling is a retired county agent with the Cooperative Extension Service, and worked closely with farmers and orchardists like Roger Futch.
“He came to almost every meeting we ever had, and he rode with us to North Carolina and all these places and have meetings,” he shared. “I always enjoyed being around him. I think they built one of the first apple houses (in the county) … later on, they became more than just apple houses. Really, if you think about it, they were competing, but the more of them there got to be the better it was. It just drew a bigger crowd.”
Bill Aaron of Mack Aaron’s Apple House said he’s known Futch all his life; in fact, he and the Futch’s children, Andy and Rhonda, are cousins.
“Roger was always helpful, and I’ve never seen him upset — and he was smart at business,” he pointed out. “He’ll be missed, but he’s much better off now.”