VT Stories Oral History with Roger H. Moore, April 26, 2018 (Ms2016-015)

Ren Harman: Good morning this is Ren Harman the project director for VT

Stories. Today is April 26, 2018 at about 9:37 a.m.. We are in the Holtzman

Alumni Center on the campus of Virginia Tech with a very special guest. If you

could just state in a complete sentence, my name is-- when you were born, and

where you were born.

Roger Moore: My name is Roger Moore. I was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1942.

Ren: Thank you. So you were born in Baltimore, did you grow up in Baltimore?

Roger: I grew up in Baltimore and stayed there until I came to Virginia Tech .

Ren: What was your early life growing up? What kind of things did you get into

growing up in Baltimore?

Roger: Well I thought about that a lot just recently for a lot of reasons, but I

grew up 00:01:00in one area for about five years after I was born and then my mother and

father and I we moved to another section of Baltimore where we lived until my

father died when I was thirteen years old. At that point like a lot of families

would do we moved in with my grandmother into another house and that's where I

lived until I decided that it was time to go off to college. I was very

fortunate in that my family was a very loving family and I always felt really

good about myself, especially coming from my dad who was sure I was going to be

a future 00:02:00president of the United States. He always talked about that with

friends. And so what I remember when I was young is in the relationship with him

were things like getting up on a Sunday morning and he and I would take off and

take a ride somewhere and we would talk. And then we would end up going

somewhere for breakfast. A lot of times it was someplace around some river, a

little restaurant place, a diner, and again we would talk some more and then he

would drop me off at church, a church in our neighborhood. And then the rest of

the day we would spend doing whatever and as a family we would always go out to

dinner in the afternoon and then see a 00:03:00movie at one of the local movie houses at

the time, and so it was a very good environment. And so when he died then again

my mother and I moved in with my grandmother and back then the family was such

that everybody lived around each other. I had on my mother's side she had seven

siblings and all but one lived probably within three or four blocks of each

other and all around my grandmother. And then on my father's side his parents

lived a couple of blocks away in a different direction. So that was again I

think very helpful from the standpoint of the support structure you had even in

the case where you lose a parent. But having that happen it did change my life

in a lot of ways. I had to start working right away. At thirteen years old I was

stocking cans of food on local grocery 00:04:00store shelves and when they would get

deliveries putting those things away and delivering groceries to people in the

neighborhood who had ordered it. Multiple paper routes. The last one I had--very

large. It was every day of the week. It was getting up at 3 in the morning and

going out and serving hundreds of papers, which you could do because they were

all row houses in Baltimore where we lived and it was very easy to get through,

but that started my work career. And it was very important because I needed to

save money to really find a way to get to college.

Ren: What did your mother and father do for work?

Roger: My mother was a hairdresser 00:05:00and a manicurist and my dad was a tool and

die maker and he worked for a company called Columbia Specialty, and then later,

probably a few years before he died he went into business with my uncle and they

had Moore Brother Machinists and he became a subcontractor for the company he

had worked for. And so it was a sheet metal shop that had punch presses and he

again was a tool and die maker so he would make the dies and they provided

different types of things like ChapStick tubes and things like that that would

get punched out on the punch press and he did that in his shop.

Ren: You talked a little bit about his death when you were only thirteen really

affecting your life. My father passed away this last summer and as you obviously

are aware turning your work upside down in a way that you don't even realize.

You started working pretty young as you said. Were there any other difficulties

that you experienced following his 00:06:00 passing?

Roger: Not that I remember something that is specific was very difficult. You

didn't have the latitude to do things that you would have done when you had

things like the income that comes from both parents working and so forth. But

again, because I had such a support structure around me--

Ren: That really made a difference?

Roger: It makes a huge difference because I had one uncle that lived, on my

father's side lived a little more than a block away. Every Saturday when I

wasn't serving papers he would pick me up early in the morning and he would take

me fishing. He was a fisherman and we would go to all these rivers around the

Baltimore area down into Annapolis, the South River, the 00:07:00Severin, Middle River,

Back River. [Sequoia] had a river. We went to all these places and we would go

fishing, and they all were making sure that I was taken care of and so that was

very helpful.

Ren: Were you an only child?

Roger: Only child.

Ren: When you were in high school, when did you first start thinking about

college and how did Virginia Tech kind of come into the picture?

Roger: Well, I was very fortunate again because the influence had a lot to do

with my father and my family in 00:08:00that somewhat it was instilled in me the feeling

of always trying to get ahead, so I knew I was going to go to college. It was

never a question in my mind. I never thought well gee can I go to college. I was

saving money for it because I knew I was going to go.

Ren: Wow.

Roger: I don't know where that instinct came from but again it was instilled in

me. I was fortunate in that I went to a very good high school, still very

well-known, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. It's great for preparing students

for college. I went there and probably in my late junior year or senior year I

was thinking about where I would go to college, and I didn't have a lot of

resources so I limited where I applied, but there were really two, one 00:09:00 was

Maryland and one was Valparaiso. I got accepted to those but my best friend in

Baltimore his brother went to Virginia Tech, or VPI, and he was going to go and

he was going to enroll and he was going to major in aerospace engineering. We

talked a lot and he convinced me I ought to think about Virginia Tech, and so I

thought about it and decided that's where I want to go and it was one of the

best decisions of my life.

Ren: When you 00:10:00decided that you were going to come to Virginia Tech do you

remember the first time that you saw the campus? Can you take me to that day? Do

you remember what it looked like, how you felt, the smell, anything specific?

Roger: Well, [chuckles] the problem in doing that a little bit is like anything,

when you go back things are a lot different than they probably really were in

your mind. Just take your house you were born in or you lived in back when you

were a young person and you go back and visit that today it's a lot smaller than

you remember. But when I came here I remember Main Street, coming down Main

Street and I came here with my friend's parents and him. I remember just a small

what was a very 00:11:00comfortable town. It just seems like everybody was talking with

everybody. Everybody was friendly. Back then when I started there were I think

the enrollment was about six thousand. I do remember some things about the first

day and being excited about it. I was going to be in the Corps which you had to

back then. As it turned out unfortunately my friend who was going to be my

roommate or in the Corps your old lady, and it turned out he didn't realize he

had flat feet and so he wasn't able to be part of the Corps and so he started

out as a civilian. And so I started my freshman year and my Corps life on my

own, and I do remember that first day. I remember going around, because again, I

had to save as much as I could to get to college and the 00:12:00reason I was able to

get enough money at the end I was able to work as an ironworker's apprentice in

Baltimore where the pay was a lot better than delivering my papers and I was

able to save enough to get through that first year. But yet at the same time I

had to really watch the money I was spending. And so you would go around and

there were places you could go to find people who were no longer in the Corps

and you could buy used uniforms. And so I remember going around trying to find--

I knew all the things that I had to get. I had a list of that, but going around

and trying to find a way to get all those things with the least amount of money

is what I remember a lot about that first day.

Ren: Right, where did you live on campus?

Roger: I lived in Eggleston. That's where I started out and then it was around

the time that things were changing in terms of some of the 00:13:00construction going

on. And then in the Corps I started out in D Squadron and later on we moved to

Major Williams.

Ren: Over the past few years we've interviewed a lot of Corps members from this

era and they always talk about the infamous Rat Year. I'm sure there's hours of

stories, pranks and trying to kind of survive that pretty tough first year.

Would you like to share any?

Roger: Sure. I've been through a system like that three times in my life, once

here at Virginia Tech, once at basic training when I went into the Army and then

when I got my commission I went to Officer Candidate school. It's very similar

except you did it for a whole year here. 00:14:00It really had an impact from day one.

Very quickly you found that you, at least in my case you wanted to be the best

at what you were being told you should be. Theoretically the concept is you get

broken down and you build back up in a certain way. But I do remember right away

wanting to at least do my part and not only as an individual, but as part of a

squadron. There was competition back then in the Corps. You had Corps cop and so

all the squadrons and the Air Force and the companies and the Army we all

competed against each other and you got points for different activities you

participated in, whether that was drill competition. Whether that was in

intermural 00:15:00sports and so you wanted to do your part. And I remember right away

those mornings where you would hear, all freshman out. All freshman out. One

two. One two. First call to grally Sir. First call to grally Sir. Getting out

there and having the upper classman coming up and checking out your shirt tuck,

your gig line, all the things they looked at and then start asking you questions

about things that you were supposed to remember. And they would also ask you

things about making sure that you were studying at study time at night 00:16:00 and

things like that.

Ren: You had mentioned this just briefly ago, you kind of had a unique

experience as you came to college at Virginia Tech and then you enlisted in the

Army. Is that correct?

Roger: Yes.

Ren: How did that kind of scenario play out and what were the decisions made

during that time?

Roger: Well, it really would go back to a lot of the things that happened before

then. In the Corps I participated in a lot of things as well as outside the

Corps as well. While I was here I was a member of the Pershing Rifles, which back

then was the drill team, was the first Sergeant my junior year, which is your

last year that you could be in the Pershing Rifles and that was the person who

took the teams through its 00:17:00competition. And we used to perform at many of the

half-time shows at the football games here, performed in parades all over the

state and competitions. I was on the Eager Squad that was the competitive thing

each year between all the units and we fortunately won that. I was a Color

Corporal which is one of the people in the Color Guard. I was in the German Club

and a number of other organizations. Just something that I got a great deal of

fulfillment from and really had an impact in my own personal development. These

different experiences took up a lot of time, and that's one of the things I

didn't do 00:18:00necessarily very well [chuckles] back then, and so managing my time

was something that I could have done a little better job of because eventually

it might impact your grades. That's a long way of saying that what happened was

I switched from engineering over to science because at some point I thought I'm

not sure I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I think I might want to be a

doctor. And so I started getting the science courses that I needed, the biology,

the chemistry that you would need and so forth. What happened was my senior

year, I was also a co-op student. I fortunately had 00:19:00gotten a scholarship while I

was still in engineering to be with back then the Martin Company and co-ops go

to school three months and then go to work for three months, but it tacked on an

extra year and then I made the switch to science. My senior year I was one

course short of getting a degree, but I felt I had to get out and work. And so I

left before graduating and fortunately because of the quality of the education I

had a lot of job offers, a lot as a mathematician, but I wanted to work for IBM

and I got a job offer from IBM with the commitment that I would finish that one

course and get my degree 00:20:00and I went off to work to IBM. And that led to at the

time it was during Vietnam, I ended up getting drafted. I ended up enlisting

before I was inducted and went off to basic training and eventually we can talk

about the military career, but that's how I got there from school.

Ren: You enlisted in the U.S. Army Security Agency and you served for five years

attaining the rank of Captain and you were stationed at the National Security

Agency, is that correct?

Roger: Yes. I did basic training in South Carolina and I was sent immediately to

the headquarters for the Army Security Agency where I was working with a

computer that I was the only one who had seen it because I was selling it as a

salesman at IBM interestingly enough.

Ren: Wow.

Roger: And it was doing some work on direction finding. I was doing programming

for that. 00:21:00I was supposed to go to Thailand with my next assignment and I decided

that I didn't like things, like as an enlisted man I didn't like things like KP

and so forth. I felt that I would be a lot better off as an officer. It would

cost me some additional time so I went to engineering officer candidate school

at Fort Belvoir and I got my commission there. And when I got my commission I

got assigned to military intelligence and you go through some training

afterwards. I ended up in Fort Devens, Massachusetts for electronic warfare 00:22:00training and then was sent to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Ren: What's so interesting about this is thinking about the time that this was

occurring in the late 1960s and you were training in kind of electronic warfare,

that's pretty interesting to me.

Roger: Well it was a terrific experience for I, especially somebody who had

worked for IBM for a couple of years before I ended up in the service. I was

working in an area where you had the largest and most sophisticated computers

and networks that you would see anywhere in the world from all different

manufacturers, special purpose computers that were designed and it was a great experience.

Ren: What I find so unique about your story is you had that last course before

you finished. Did you have to come back to campus to finish that course or were

you kind of able to do it away from campus? How did that all play out?

Roger: 00:23:00When I got stationed at Fort Meade it turned out to be a permanent

assignment for three years, and so I was in the Maryland area. I wanted to

complete the course and back then companies like IBM what they would do is when

you went into the service you were told you had a position when you came back.

They also compensated you, even while you were in the service. They made up the

difference between what you were making versus what you were getting from the

military. And so we stayed in correspondence and they politely reminded me that

I had this course to finish.

Ren: Do you remember the course?

Roger: Oh it was German. 00:24:00It was an upper level German course. I remember it

well. So I called the University and like happens in some of those cases it

turns out that the one course with the changes that happened to the curriculum

and so forth was now three courses, and so I ended up taking three courses at

night at the University of Maryland because it was very close by. I focused on

those, did quite well, finished those and I came back to Blacksburg to graduate

in 1970.

Ren: So you claim obviously class of 1964 based upon when you entered,

Bachelor's Degree in General Science in 1970. So I want to ask you, one thing

that we always like to talk to people we interview here for VT Stories and a

central part of VT Stories 00:25:00is the idea of mentorship and advising and notable

professors that you may have had. Did you have anyone that was really

influential or mentored you in a way during your time here?

Roger: You know there were people that influenced me. To that point, when I talk

or think about my past and talk to people with it I think my experience in

Virginia Tech and what I would tell anybody from a mentorship standpoint if I

were telling them, the three things that I got from it one was a really fine

education. And to that degree when I think about mentors I wouldn't give you

specific names now, but I can remember things that were said to me that

influenced me that I still remember today. Things like fortunately a very--which

I 00:26:00switched to science and took geology, the geology professor at the end of the

year when I just aced a final exam coming up to me and telling me that I had

gotten an A, which was not consistent with what I was getting up to that point

and telling me that, Mr. Moore you are so frustrating. You are so smart. You got

an A on the exam but why don't you put this effort in during the year? And it

made me think, so I remember things like that. So again, the education was

really instrumental in the success that I had later on. The other thing I

remember are the relationships, and some of those come through the organizations

I was a part 00:27:00of, whether the Corps of Cadets, the German Club, and I still stay

very close to the people at the German Club. But the advisor back then, Mark

Oliver, and things that I was told it helped develop me as a person, those

relationships, and they were very important later in my life too and that's what

I would tell people -- develop those relationships. Make sure you nurture them.

The way I ended up with IBM is that I had again applied to different places and

had different job offers, but at IBM the people who applied with me from

Virginia Tech hadn't heard back yet. You would have an interview. You would take

a test and you would wait for the results. So we hadn't heard back and there was

ten years earlier the German Club president was a fellow named Gene Justice and

Gene was the branch manager of IBM in Greensboro, North Carolina. 00:28:00I called Gene

and introduced myself. We had never met and told him I was in the German Club

and told him my story about IBM and he said, if you can find five good people

for me to interview I will come up next week and I will interview them. And so I

called him the next day and I said, I've got five people. He came up. He did the

interview. He offered three of us jobs and I can still remember that day, and he

knows this, I still have his business card that he wrote on the back, I am

prepared to offer you $560 a month to come to work for IBM.

Ren: Wow. That's pretty 00:29:00 amazing.

Roger: The last thing I would say is personal development. I mean that's also

what happened here at [Virginia] Tech. Going back to the Corps as an example,

back then, I mentioned when you were going through the rat system the

information you had to memorize. I mean you had to memorize things like who were

all the leaders of the Corps, the regimental commander and the staff and the

battalion and squadron commanders and all that stuff. But you had to remember

things like history of the University and of course you had to learn [Virginia]

Tech triumph and everything. But there was a customs and courtesies manual that

I still have today and it taught you things like how to -- simple things like 00:30:00how do you introduce people to each other. If you go visit a friend's home for

Thanksgiving how you should interact with his family, thanking mother for dinner

and so forth. Those types of things which I still remember them because I do

them automatically now still today. That's why I talk about my time at Virginia

Tech still influences my life and my behavior. So those three things I would

emphasize, the education, which is a quality education and the relationships you

can build and the personal development you go through by the things you

participate in here and what you learn here.

Ren: Your involvement with the Corps of Cadets and the German Club and all these

other organizations what are some of your favorite memories or experiences with

those organizations 00:31:00or just your time on campus? What are some memories that

stick out to you?

Roger: Well from the Corps standpoint I was in a lot of activities and some of

the ones that stand out, first off more than anything my old ladies I had,

because I was a co-op student I would go away for three months and come back and

I might have a new roommate. And so I still have contact with a number of them

today that I feel very close to. Communicating with one of them on the way up

here is an example. I actually had them in the Air Force and the Army because

during my time here I switched from Air Force ROTC to Army ROTC and went from 00:32:00 D

Squadron to K Company, so a different set of old ladies. I remember the

competition and especially the drill competition. Back then again you had the

Eager Squad competition and as a freshman you would be part of the Eager squad

that was formed from your squadron that would face the competition of the others

and we won the competition that year. You got to wear a badge that showed that

you had won the Eager Squad drill competition. In my sophomore year it was the

first year they put together a new competition where all the sophomores would

compete against the others. Again, it was a drill competition. It was about oh a

thirty minute sequence of activities that you had to go through and it would be 00:33:00out on the Drillfield and all of us would compete and would get judged. In my

squadron I was elected to lead the -- it was a larger group. It was made up of

several squads. I can remember we would plan like getting up at six in the

morning and sneak, because you're not supposed to do this, and sneaking up to

the football field and practicing. You knew the sequence you had to go through,

and I can remember memorizing that and we had the competition and we were one of

the finalists in going up and the results were read to us. We always had

something we would do to have a signal and I can remember reaching behind my 00:34:00back and giving the thumbs-up that we had won. And then with the Pershing Rifles

I can always remember the footballs games. We had a signature routine that we

went through and part of it was something called 'Get Lost March' and you can go

back and look at Bugle publications and you will see the Pershing Rifles out on

the football field at that final moment of that particular move where everybody

did an about-face and stopped. And it's all based on the group keeping count of

where they were in this routine. So I remember that because I remember how the

stadium would go wild and everybody would 00:35:00 applaud.

Ren: Was this Miles Stadium?

Roger: It was Miles, yes. And then German Club I remember how you were asked to

become a member. Somebody would come to your room and tell you some kind of

story that you had to go down to Squires Hall. You felt you were in trouble or

you felt somebody you knew got hurt and you're running down there and you would

go in and find out that you had been asked to join the German Club. I remember

all the work we did, the camaraderie, how we would get ready for dances. We

would work really hard to decorate in our case Squires Hall and in the Cotillion

Clubs case, the War Memorial Gym. I remember dances. I 00:36:00remember the concerts we

put on. And again all the work that we did to put on social events for the

University, so great memories.

Ren: On the reverse side of that question were there any difficult experiences

and if so how did they affect you?

Roger: The difficult experiences for me were mainly the result of going back and

forth instead of just, the continuity of staying here. Some of that was very

positive in the sense of the co-op experience and going off to work for three

months and what you learn 00:37:00there and coming back to school. But later on I left a

couple of times. I had to go back and make some more money. When I switched to

general science I got out of the co-op program because I wasn't going to go to

work for the Martin Company. And so going back and forth and losing that time in

between I remember that was difficult. There were things that you wanted to be

part of that you couldn't be part of. That certainly bothered me. It just meant

you came back and you had to catch up but it would have been nice to have that

continuous experience. There were some positive things that came out of that

too, a different set of roommates. At that point in 00:38:00my time here my roommates

were mainly people I knew in the German Club. Later on I also became a member of

the Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity which is now Sigma Nu. The people I met there and

my brothers from Sigma Nu, Phi Kappa then I remember them very well and with

those relationships that was all very positive. But that may not have developed

if I had stayed, so there were pluses and minuses.

Ren: So you were kind of already working at IBM and then you had your degree,

finished that German class in 1970. Looking at your professional career I assume

you just stayed at IBM for a number of years and worked in Toronto as President

of AT&T Canada, Nortel Networks Corp., Northern Telecom Japan, all these things.

In 1995 you were named the President and Chief Executive Officer of Illuminet.

Am I pronouncing that 00:39:00correctly? Which is a telecommunications service company.

Out of all of these, out of all this time that passed between 1970 until today

in your professional career how did Virginia Tech, how did you remember Virginia

Tech and how did you think about Virginia Tech when you were able to achieve

such a success in kind of your working and professional life?

Roger: Well again, something that I think that was as I mentioned early on was

instilled in me somehow and I again I think through family. And then my time

here reinforced with my experience at Virginia Tech in the Corps, the

competitive aspect that you wanted to do well individually, but as also a member

of an organization. It really gives you a basic set of guiding 00:40:00principles in

terms of how you approach things. So a lot of that is subconscious. I mean just

things you do, doing the right thing, and so I certainly think that helped me

from a business standpoint. At IBM I knew I always wanted to get to the next

step. I started out as a trainee and back then I started out when it was punch

cards machines, electronic accounting machines. It wasn't computers yet. IBM was

certainly selling a computer system. They had some here at Tech, 1401, 1440s.

IBM had announced it 360 machine or system, but still you were working with

electronic accounting machines. I think relative to Virginia 00:41:00Tech I had a lot of

confidence in myself. I took some computer courses here. Back then they were

starting, I learned a program in Fortran here at Virginia Tech and I used that

later on. But just having that knowledge of thinking logically that is very

important to IBM, the tests that you took was all about problem-solving and how

you thought and that logical thinking ability served me well. But I started out

as a trainee. You go to your first class, which we did in Washington, DC and

it's a six-weeks training class, came back to Greensboro, North Carolina and

they stick you the next day. I was called and asked to go out and some hosiery

company had changed the system and they needed me to rewire the panel 00:42:00that would

affect how their inventory was calculated and how their invoice was printed. I

was twenty-three years old and I had come back from my first class. I had never

interacted with a customer and I was sent out to do that. The important thing is

I had a lot of confidence in myself and I think a lot of that has to do with my

development, personal development at Virginia Tech. But I went on to, you go

through a series of different schools and you eventually after sales school you

become a salesman. I went through my first year. I was doing quota selling

computers now when I got drafted and enlisted and I was gone for close to five

years when I came back to IBM. 00:43:00In the meantime while I was in the Army I did

start a small business in D.C.. It was a little service bureau company with a

friend of mine there, a UVA graduate unfortunately, but he and I started a

little company, small business computer services and after we finished work at

the National Security Agency we would run into town, into D.C.. We would pick up

data that had been keyed into punch cards and we wrote programs to run these

various applications and we would rent time on IBM computers in the city and we

would run their reports and so forth, deliver it about 1 in the morning, go back

to the Fort Meade area. I stayed busy but that drive to keep doing something I 00:44:00attribute a lot of that to Virginia Tech. I went back to work for IBM. Knew that

I wanted to get into management, became a marketing manager in New Jersey and I

was due to go on to the next position as most likely what they called an AA to a

regional vice president and administrative assistant, but it's like a chief of

staff. But although I was on their executive resource list which theoretically

said you had the potential the run the company you had to be in certain

positions by a certain time and I had lost five years in the Army and I couldn't

catch up, and so I decided I needed to make a change and that's why I left IBM.

IBM was great from the standpoint 00:45:00of its training and it helped develop me as a

person, and from a business standpoint business ethics was outstanding. But I

left and I went to work for AT&T at the time that AT&T was transitioning from a

regulated monopoly to a competitive environment where they could actually sell

telecommunications systems as opposed to just you getting them through tariff

from a local operating company and they could get into the computer business and

actually compete with companies like IBM, and that's how I ended up going over

to AT&T. Again, always with a drive of how to get ahead, and I always knew that

I wanted to be a CEO, and so I went ahead 00:46:00and moved into different positions. I

started out in New Jersey, went to Atlanta and then was asked to go up to

Toronto to be the president of AT&T Canada. AT&T was pretty much out of the

international business as the result of an earlier consent decree with the

government. When that had run its course they were allowed to get back into the

international business and the first step that they made was start to establish

a company in Canada from an equipment standpoint selling again the larges

switching systems for the telephone companies. Back then in Canada you had the

provincial telephone companies, as well as selling to enterprises,

telecommunication systems like PBX or 00:47:00private branch exchanges or computer

systems. So I set up the company in Canada. The offices--opened up offices

across the country, set up the various channels to establish those products to

sell to customers and really create the beginnings of a successful business up

there. Along the way I decided to make a change. I was going to come back to the

U.S. and I got recruited by Northern Telecom who was the largest

telecommunications manufacturer in Canada, coincidentally my competitor up

there. So I 00:48:00started what was a ten-year career with Northern Telecom in various

positions. I started out as a regional vice president in the U.S. in the

northeast and ultimately ran sales and marketing and service for their PBX

business in the U.S. and eventually led that too. They asked me to be the

president of Northern Telecom in Japan. Back then the companies that -- the U.S.

was putting a lot of pressure on Japan to buy a product that was manufactured in

the U.S. Northern Telecom's large switching systems were manufactured in

Raleigh, North Carolina, so I was sent there. It was an established entity but I

replaced someone and spent four years in Tokyo building 00:49:00that business to--or

continue building it and it became quite sizeable. And after the four years I

believed strongly that the next president of Northern Telecom in Japan should be

a national and not an expat and recruited my replacement and came back to the

U.S. And when I came back to the U.S. I came back to the Dallas area working for

Northern Telecom and decided that there were some other opportunities that I

could take advantage of. I still had this desire to be a CEO. Although I was at

a very high level in the company I felt it was really important to try to make

that 00:50:00move and I got recruited to really take over two small companies. One was

based in Overland Park, Kansas, one was based in Olympia, Washington to merge

those companies and to see if we could make a business out of it and that was

Illuminet. I took that job in December of [19]95. The merger was effective in

March of '96. Took the company public in 1999. It was a very successful public

offering. It was back in the .com bubble days, but this was a real business. It

was generating cash. It wasn't--

Ren: Enron. [Chuckles]

Roger: Well it wasn't some of the others that had a lot of subscribers but they

didn't generate any revenue, 00:51:00but it was a real business. And then as we evolved

that business and as the industry was moving towards not only the internet but

communications that were based on the internet protocol that was going to change

things considerably. And so I thought it made a great deal of sense for my

company for us to partner with someone else that was much more established in

that type of communications and we ended up selling the company to Verisign and

I still serve on the Verisign board today. We sold it in 2001 and I've been on

that board for fifteen years, going on sixteen years now.

Ren: I was going to mention that along with Verisign and others, Board of

Directors Consolidated Communications, 00:52:00Western Digital Corp., is it Tut Systems?

Roger: Tut Systems, yes.

Ren: I'm glad you walked through that because it was much better than me trying

to explain. I want to just ask you this question, we always like to ask people

we talk to, if someone just kind of simply says the words Virginia Tech what is

the first thing you think of?

Roger: For me it's really the first thing I think of is the influence it had on

my life. My wife knows that I really think of this almost like home, and so that

would be another word. It's probably for me more of a 00:53:00home than I consider where

I grew up. It's had such an influence in so many ways that I stay close to it

even though I've lived since 1995 mainly on the West Coast. I enjoy coming back

here. I look forward to it. I do it at least a couple of times a year. Some is

through my participation with the College of Science. Some is through the German

Club. Every five years we have a reunion, just did our 125th a few years ago, 00:54:00 so

that's the first thing I think of.

Ren: And you mentioned this, but there was a Gallup survey a couple of years ago

and it talked about Virginia Tech alumni having this affinity for Virginia Tech,

not necessarily that they give to Virginia Tech in the way that they probably

should, but people do love Virginia Tech and they seem to be really involved

with the University. You mentioned the College of Science, Dean's Roundtable

Advisory Board which obviously has brought you back to campus today. Can you

talk a little bit about that and then other things you are involved with within

Virginia Tech still?

Roger: Well the College of Science I was approached years ago about joining that

Advisory Board of the Dean's Roundtable and there was not a question in my mind

that I would do that any way that I could come back and help. I mean up to that

time. Actually I had 00:55:00been away from Virginia Tech for years and years. It just

seemed like my career had taken me in so many different-- I mean I had lived in

over 18 different places, some international, and it just seemed like I wasn't

able to make it back. I followed it closely, whether it was through sports or

other reasons, but when the opportunity came or presented itself to come back

and get involved there wasn't a question I wouldn't do that, and so I did get

involved with the Advisory Board. We had meetings twice a year and we go through

various presentations about the College of Science, its challenges, its

opportunities. Like any advisory board based on your experience either here or

elsewhere you offer your opinion as to what might 00:56:00be of help. I do that through

trying to build relationships with industry. You mentioned some of the boards I

was on, Western Digital, the largest storage manufacturer in the world. And I

look at some of the things that are done in the College of Science and some of

the areas of security, especially these days with cyber security and

opportunities for internships or building relationships. Today I'm involved in

trying to develop a relationship between the University and Verisign where the

program within the College of Science, the CMDA program, computational modeling,

data analytics, and the whole idea of analyzing large quantities of data and the

potential connection in terms of companies that do capture and see a large

amount of transactions, how you can use that data to have more effective

marketing 00:57:00campaigns, have better not privacy but security, and so I look at ways

to make those connections. And then certainly my wife and I feel it's important

to give back in terms of financial commitment to the University.

Ren: And you are a member of the Legacy Society, correct?

Roger: Hmm.

Ren: So to that point of you being such involved with Virginia Tech and alumni,

what is it do you think about this place and specifically where we are that

makes alumni want to get involved and love Virginia Tech, what do you think it is?

Roger: Well number one it's a beautiful place. This time coming here I was in a

meeting in D.C. and so we drove 00:58:00here, and unfortunately there was an accident on

81 and we got off on Route 11. That's fortunate, that's not unfortunate. The

accident was unfortunate, but to drive Route 11 and remember what it was like my

freshman year when I didn't like coming back because I knew I would be back in

the rat system and then later on just that drive. Spring was always the time I

liked best because the mountains got larger. When the leaves came out on the

trees the mountains got larger and it brings back memories. It brings back

memories like the final night when you finally got inducted into the Pershing

Rifles at midnight you went to the War Memorial where you met and you got a 00:59:00backpack full of stuff and your rifle and you ran miles and climbed up a

mountain, got there at the mountaintop in the morning as the sun come up and

looking over the valley. So again, the beauty of this place is terrific. And

then everybody has got memories. I mean I still remember the train we would take

from here to Roanoke for Thanksgiving when we played against VMI. The people I

remember. The memories are even stronger when you think about what you did here

with them. You talked earlier, I didn't mention any of the Corps pranks, but we

drove through Lexington and I can remember driving up there in the 01:00:00middle of the

night one night and us putting a flag up on their flagpole and running away. So

it's those memories that are so strong that it's one thing to remember, but they

are enhanced when you are here. And to see the development and the growth and

how it's done such a good job of making the university better and stronger, but

yet still that feel like you had when you came back here, whether it's because

of the Hokie stone on the buildings and keeping that tradition. Even the town,

although it's grown and you see so many more restaurants and so forth it still

has that feel and so that's why I think it's great coming back here.

Ren: 01:01:00Because you said you try to come back a couple of times every year since

you have graduated, when you kind of look across campus the changes that have

occurred what inspires you about the future of Virginia Tech and then also what

concerns you about the future of Virginia Tech?

Roger: Well in terms of inspiring me it really would go back to what I just said

and that is the fact that it's developing and growing like any organization

should. It's vision. It's core beliefs. It's mission. They are all the right

things. It's a better university, whether it's the quality of education, it's so

multicultural, all the things that are so so important it's better at 01:02:00than when

I started here. But yet at the same time it's maintained links to the past and

tradition. I mean what's happening on the Upper Quad and the Corps of Cadets,

the Corps wasn't going to stay the way it was, especially with the changes to

the University. But yet to have that today and have it be a little over one

thousand strong and the two facilities there and what they've done. And not only

to have the Corps, but to offer the leadership program potential to people who

are not going to go into the military, I think that's terrific. What would

concern me is 01:03:00that I would say a couple of things, one is to make sure that the

support is in place. So this would be for all alumni, the supports in place to

continue to plan to grow it, because when I look at what the University is

trying to do it takes a lot of money, and so that. And secondly also, now from a

university standpoint if you look at the way that it has grown and I say for the

better, but still always with the vision to be inclusive, and when I say

inclusive that means welcome all opinions, 01:04:00good discourse--good constructive

conversations about different opinions, different views of things, end up in a

better position. What I worry about sometime is with this University or any

university they become too one-sided one way or another. And so they would be

the type of things that do concern me, especially for Virginia Tech if you are

looking at rapidly growing, again you still maintain those things that are so

great about this University.

Ren: I'm just wrapping up here, so thank you so much for your time. I know you

have a packed schedule with this Advisory Board but a couple of things I want to 01:05:00mention. I know you support a lot of children's causes, board member of the

Colorado Symphony and the Tacoma Opera Association in Washington State and some

local school organizations. Then also I wanted to ask you your name, Roger

Moore, you had to be the coolest kid in high school with that name. [Chuckles]

Roger: Well I'm going to tell you when I went to high school I wasn't cool for

that purpose because James Bond movies hadn't come out yet.

Ren: Right. [Chuckles]

Roger: The first James Bond movie, Dr. No, I saw at the Lyric Theater here in

town with friends of mine. Whenever I think about Roger Moore and James Bond I

will remember the Lyric Theater and seeing Dr. No. I saw Dr. No here. I saw

From Russian With Love 01:06:00here, and I may even have seen Goldfinger here, but I

remember it well.

Ren: That's wonderful. One of the last questions and this is kind of a big one,

it might be difficult to answer but we always like to ask as well is what does

Virginia Tech mean to you?

Roger: Well again, I would have to take it back to something I said earlier. I

look back on my life and there are certain things, I mean a lot of things that

impact you, but a few that really impact you greatly in terms of how you

developed as a person and in many ways what your life becomes. 01:07:00What it means to

me is it played one of the more critical roles in that for me, and I would go

back to the three things I said in terms of the education that I got, the

relationships that I've built, and my personal development. I mean I had that

from my family. I had that from Virginia Tech and to some degree I got that from

my business experience. But my business experience and what happened there so

much depended on the first two and Virginia Tech was absolutely key, and so

that's what I think when I think of Virginia Tech and again as I said to me it's

like home.

Ren: Is there anything you would like to say or that I didn't ask that you

thought I would ask or anything you would like to add? This is just kind of an

open floor question.

Roger: The only thing I would 01:08:00emphasize, not that I haven't said is I would

encourage all alumni to really think about their time here. Which everybody

probably does and thinks a lot of, but you go back to you talked about alumni

earlier and some comments that you made, when you generally look at alumni I

talk with our children today, they are grown, but between us we have four boys.

They've all gone to different universities -- Georgia, Trinity, 01:09:00 Colorado,

Oregon, University of Putrid Sound. Some of those are advanced degrees, and they

with maybe a couple of exceptions they don't necessarily have those connections.

In some cases they do have those connections and they really try to stay close.

I would tell people reflect back to your time here and think about the types of

things that I said, the people that you met and the education you got and your

experiences here and how that's impacted you, and really think about those

things and the benefit that that provides for other 01:10:00people. Get more involved,

whether it's financially if you can or some other ways. Get as involved as you

can get because it's a positive experience and it's important. It's important.

Ren: Thank you again for speaking with VT Stories and thank you for your service

both in your military service and your service to this University. It was

wonderful to meet you and I will say Roger Moore class of 1964 thank you so much.

Roger: Thank you.

[End of interview]