Alan Collins Cox Cable Executive Keeping Company On Crest Of Information Wave

The big picture for Cox Cable is by no means limited to television, Spokane General Manager Alan Collins says.

Within a few years, he said, the local outlet could be providing wireless and ground telephone dial-tone services, on-line information, and virtually any other product that can be delivered by cable or broadcast.

For example, Collins noted a consortium that includes Cox recently was awarded a Spokane franchise for personal communication services, a second-generation cellular telephone technology.

“We certainly don’t think of ourselves as a cable company,” he said. “We’re a communications company.”

The future obviously excites Collins, who moved to Spokane eight years ago to take over Cox’s operations. At that time, he recalled, the company delivered 30 channels to 48,000 customers.

The business has since grown to 91,000 customers and 73 channels.

Headquarters is a former warehouse on East Buckeye that has been converted into modernistic offices remarkably quiet for all the flickering TVs and dozens of employees.

A four-foot-tall Goofy is propped in one corner of Collins’ office. On his desk is a photo montage of his sixyear-old daughter, an accomplished equestrian despite her age.

Collins said it was the lifestyle engendered by the pictures that reversed a decision a year ago to move to Cox headquarters in Atlanta, where he supervised several company franchises.

He was there only a few months.

“We decided as a family that wasn’t the lifestyle we enjoy,” Collins said.

Although a step back down the corporate ladder is a rare one, he added, “That’s life. You’ve got to make tough decisions.”

Collins said the reputation of the Spokane operation was also an incentive to return to the Northwest.

“This is perceived, by and large, as the model way to run a cable franchise,” he said, citing excellent employees, good customer relations and rapport with the community at large and regulatory authorities.

He said the heat generated by the 1990 renewal of the Cox franchise by the city was produced by a relative handful of disgruntled customers.

It was Collins’ political knowledge that landed him in the cable industry to begin with. A holder of bachelor and masters degrees from the University of Florida, he was managing a municipally owned general aviation airport in Venice, Fla., when a Cox recruiter came calling 14 years ago.

Collins said he boned up on the cable business at the local library, then used his new-found familiarity with the industry jargon to good advantage in the interview.

He has worked with three Cox franchises since then.

How much longer he remains with the company could depend on the outcome of an industry shake-up.

Collins said there is a possibility the local cable franchise could change hands as the communications industry repositions assets in response to competition.

Based on financial resources and geographic concentration, telephone companies are generally considered the businesses best-positioned to offer the full array of communications services in the future, he said.

Collins said cable-system owners may counter by swapping franchises to create larger, more exclusive marketing territories.

In the Northwest, he said, the dominant cable player is Tele-Communications Inc., which owns franchises in Seattle, Tacoma, and Boise, among others.

TCI is the world’s largest cable operator, serving 12 million customers.

Cox has more resources in Southern California and the Southwest, Collins said.

Although he appreciates the Spokane lifestyle, Collins says he does not rule out the possibility new opportunities will lure him away from the community.

In the meantime, he leaves town once a month for three days of coursework in executive management at the University of California at Berkeley.

“This is as close to a sabbatical as I’ve had,” Collins said, adding with a chuckle that he conceals his capitalist tendencies on a campus famed for its radicalism.

Although he said he enjoys the respite provided by academia, the challenges that lay ahead in the communications industry clearly have him hooked.

“It’s as close to Hollywood as you can get in Spokane,” Collins said.