It’s only been seven months and former Hawaiian Telcom CEO Mike Ruley has already landed a cushy job with a Chicago-based Internet service provider. (See)

During Ruley’s tenure at 1177 Bishop St., the company lost tens of millions of dollars, thousands of telephone customers and is under investigation by the state Public Utilities Commission for providing poor service.

Hawaiian Telcom’s bonds are trading at a discount and one influential rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, is raising concerns that the company’s cash balance might be "inadequate to fund operations through 2009.”

You’d have to go back to the late 1980s during the Paul Finazzo-John Magoon era at Hawaiian Airlines to find anything akin to the Ruley years at Hawaiian Telcom.

One longtime phone company watcher gave Ruley the “Evan Dobelle Infamy Award,” which is named after the former University of Hawaii president who promised so much yet delivered so little.

Hawaiian Telcom’s new management team -- CEO Eric Yeaman and First Hawaiian Bank Chairman Walter Dods -- are doing the best they can to nurse the company to profitability. Both have proven track records and the expertise to turn the company around.

But their efforts will continue to be hamstrung by problems that surfaced during the Ruley years -- which didn't end soon enough for many current and former employees.

Tags: Hawaiian Telcom

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Biz Bites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.