AT&T HQ Moving to Dallas

AT&T announced yesterday that it's moving corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas. The move has apparently been in the works for a number of months but was kept under close wraps.

There are four AT&T skyscrapers adjacent to one another in downtown Dallas. I'm located in One AT&T Plaza which is the largest of the four. Soon the CEO & many of AT&T's other top executives will be moving into my building. This is rather exciting!

It's been quite a ride throughout my 21 years with AT&T. I'm proud to work for such a legendary company and am thrilled that AT&T is as strong as ever. AT&T faces a bright future and now I'll get to experience it up close!

Press release:

AT&T corporate headquarters to move to Dallas
We're announcing this afternoon the move of AT&T's corporate headquarters to Dallas to gain better access to our customers and operations throughout the world, and to the key technology partners, suppliers, innovation and human resources we'll need as we continue to grow, domestically and internationally.

The move will begin in the coming weeks and is expected to be complete by around year end. It will involve about 700 of our nearly 6,000 San Antonio-based employees. The company's Telecom Operations group will remain in San Antonio.

"We're a growing global company with customers and operations around the world," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. "After much study and consideration, we determined the benefits of being headquartered in Dallas are significant for our long-term growth prospects and human resources needs, and our ability to operate more efficiently, better serve customers and expand the business in the future. It's a decision we believe will benefit AT&T employees, customers and shareowners for years to come."

The vast majority of employees will be notified no later than July 3 if their job is moving to Dallas. Soon after that, affected employees will be provided with more information about when their group will move, relocation assistance, job search assistance for spouses, a special relocation website, and other details to help you and your family move.

"I know from experience that moving is never easy, but we're committed to make it as smooth as possible for employees and their families," said Stephenson. Plans are to locate corporate headquarters' employees in our existing One AT&T Plaza (208 S. Akard) in downtown Dallas, though we will continue to evaluate our long-term real estate needs in the Dallas area.

Moving to Dallas puts our corporate headquarters near many of our key technology suppliers and other telecom companies who have major operations in Dallas, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Nokia, Nortel, RIM and Samsung. The Dallas area is home to one of the country's largest communities of telecom companies, nearly 1,300 strong with 45,000 employees.

Air travel to and from Dallas will be more convenient, time efficient and cost effective. The DFW airport is the 3rd largest in the U.S. and one of the top six in the world, offering daily non-stop service to 35 international and 133 U.S. destinations. Additionally, Dallas enjoys a second major airport; Love Field — the 50th largest U.S. airport (San Antonio ranks 47th) — offers more than 160 non-stop flights daily.

Being headquartered near leading air transportation facilities is critical to global companies like AT&T as the airline industry continues to consolidate and reduce hubs and flights amid higher fuel prices and industry economic pressures. With better access to significantly more commercial flights — both domestically and internationally — the company will be able to sell some of its corporate aircraft, the proceeds of which are expected to more than pay for the move.

AT&T — recently ranked 10th among Fortune 500 companies — is a dramatically different company today than when it relocated corporate headquarters from St. Louis to San Antonio in 1992. At that time, the former Southwestern Bell had 60,000 employees, 11 million customers, $9.3 billion in revenues and operated primarily in five states. Today, AT&T has nearly 310,000 employees worldwide, more than 100 million customers, $119 billion in annual revenues and operates in all 50 U.S. states and 160 countries.