Meet Windstream's Jeff Gardner

Headquarters: Little Rock, Ark.Business: Provider of high-speed Internet, voice and data services to businesses and high-speed Internet, voice and digital television services to residential clients. Employment: 14,500.Management: Openly traded company headed by CEO/President Jeffery R. Gardner, who prior to Windstream was chief financial officer of Alltel Corp. History: Formed in 2006 when the spun-off landline business of Alltel merged with Valor Communications LLC. Finances: Revenue of $3.1 billion for the first nine months of 2011, up 13 percent from 2010, and profit of $188.2 million, down 21 percent. Assets of $11.4 billion. Long-term debt of $7.3 billion.

The head of the Arkansas-based Internet service provider/telecommunications company that closed Dec. 1 on the acquisition of PAETEC Holding Corp. was jetting across much of the nation last week, visiting PAETEC sites and talking with workers about their future as part of Windstream.

The telecom PAETEC

Before buying the telecom PAETEC, Windstream was a $3 billion company operating in 29 states, offering voice and data services to businesses and high-speed Internet, voice and digital TV to residential clients.

Now, Windstream is a $6 billion company - qualifying it for straightway year's Fortune 500 - that has 14,500 employees and operates nationwide with a larger customer base of businesses and more data center and cloud computing services.

"We've been very honest and straightforward with the people here. Going forward, we try to get them focused on the strategy of the company. What I try to get them to understand is that this acquisition and merger was about growth and possibility. Our team has been out here a lot since we announced the deal. We'll continue to be out here. It's a key hub of our business going forward. We'll spend a lot of time in Rochester."

The deal is done

Now that the deal is done, Gardner said: "We're squarely focused on business and broadband. PAETEC helps us on both accounts. We're a major player who can compete for national accounts now. Very simply, I think we can deliver the same research the biggest companies in the country can offer, however with personalized service."

Gardner said PAETEC and its fiber optic network as well help expand Windstream's broadband offerings to rural consumers and fit in then with a rapidly growing line of business - fiber optic connections to mobile phone towers.

It was a perfect match for what we're trying to do. They had big plans to grow in the data center space. We'd already bought a data center company in the previous year. At the same time we've got a national data center strategy that's pretty exciting, and that business is growing double digits year over year.

It in effect accelerated everything we're trying to do. We're trying to be a big player. PAETEC was a strong financial performer. So when you come in to sell an IT person a network, the fact you've got deep experience and financial strength is a win-win.

The heavy lifting is deciding on a go-forward strategy for your business and evaluating the relative strengths and weaknesses of each company and where your operational centers of excellence would be. So it's coming up with the best-equipped company possible. On the competitive landscape:

Our business is very competitive. There are very strong companies that we're competing with every day. We need to continue to invest in our network - that to me is an incredibly important part of it.

There are no illusions with this deal that it's going to get any easier out there. We have to compete and win the business every day against some formidable companies.

What were doing

It's not like our competitors are standing for all that watching what were doing. They're trying to improve their own businesses. That's just business.