GTE’s Western Office to Be in Thousand Oaks

GTE Corp. confirmed Wednesday that its Thousand Oaks offices will become headquarters for all of the company’s telephone operations in the West under a previously announced consolidation planned for early next year.

A number of jobs are expected to be eliminated when GTE’s overhaul is put into place, but company officials declined to give any specifics. GTE California employs 21,400 people, most of them in Southern California.

Under the reorganization, GTE’s seven local phone companies, which serve parts of 31 states, will be grouped into four regional operations. GTE’s new West Area will include local phone operations in Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and California, states now served by GTE Hawaiian Tel, GTE Northwest and GTE California, whose headquarters already are in Thousand Oaks.

As previously disclosed, the president of the Western regional operation will be Charles A. Crain, now the head of GTE Hawaiian Tel in Honolulu. He will report to James L. Broadhead, president of GTE telephone operations at the parent company’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

Broadhead also announced the headquarter locations for GTE’s other regional operations:

- Southwest, with bases in San Angelo and Irving, Tex., will serve Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico.

- South, headquartered in Tampa, Fla., will cover GTE’s local phone operations in Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

- North, based in Westfield, Ind., will have responsibility for Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Missouri.