Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.bonus From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: bonus Wed, Mar 25 1992 Date: Wed, 25 Mar 92 05:43:34 EST Message-ID: 03-25 0000 BONUS: Xerox's Rand is close to the top USA TODAY Update March 25, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Xerox Executive Vice President Barry Rand has been known to unwind by going for a little spin. Through the wilds of Thailand. On an elephant's back. Rand is not your run-of-the-mill manager. And within corporate USA, he's among the rarest of rare birds: A black executive with a chance to run a Fortune 500 company. Recently promoted from president of U.S. marketing to executive vice president for operations, Rand is now a notch beneath Chairman and CEO Paul Allaire. Xerox has no president or chief operating officer. Those duties are handled by Rand and three other executives. WHAT DOES RAND SAY ABOUT RACE RELATIONS IN U.S. CORPORATIONS? Rand doesn't mince words on the subject of race relations in U.S. corporations. He says that until minority and female executives are commonplace, his unusual position makes him something of a standard bearer - at home as well as abroad. "You would like to think that racism gets old, but it doesn't," Rand says. "It consistently resurfaces." WHAT KIND OF RACISM HAS RAND EXPERIENCED? Sometimes it's subtle, such as rationales offered to explain why Xerox shouldn't hire and promote minorities and females. Or it can be the in-your-face variety: One supervisor's biased work evaluations almost persuaded Rand to leave Xerox at one point. Then there are intemperate remarks from Asia, where Xerox's biggest competitors reside. When not disparaging U.S. workers in general, some Japanese officials have made it clear they hold blacks and Hispanics in particularly low esteem. WHAT DOES RAND SAY ABOUT THE JAPANESE? "It would give me a tremendous delight to beat them - as we are doing now - with a heterogeneous workforce, vs. their homogeneous workforce," Rand says while seated inside a Xerox office building in Arlington, Va. WHAT'S RAND LIKE? Rand is 6-foot-3 and trim, as one might expect of a 47-year-old who bangs bodies with teen-agers on the basketball court. "Now, my game has changed," he says with a laugh. "They have to give me 10 fouls, and my jump shot is a tiptoe shot. I still have strong moves. ... They're just not fast." Sipping incessantly on orange soda and ice, Rand wears a tailor-made gray suit that's suspiciously crisp for 7 p.m. A corporate jet waits at National Airport to whisk Rand through a gathering fog and back to Xerox's Stamford, Conn., corporate headquarters. HOW DID RAND GET HIS CURRENT POSITION? Rand moved to Stamford from Xerox's Rochester, N.Y., marketing and operations command post last month under a reorganization that followed former chairman David Kearn's confirmation as deputy secretary of education. Xerox, with 100,000 employees scattered around the globe, had revenue of nearly $18 billion last year. It's an empire that may be Rand's one day. Maybe. "I wouldn't have promoted him to his current position if I didn't think he had the capability to go further," says Allaire, who's 53. "But he will clearly have competition." Rand says his career wouldn't be a failure if he doesn't wind up running the show. WITH THE BRASS RING SO CLOSE, WILL RAND EXTEND HIS REACH? He responds cautiously, having seen a Xerox curse zap executives who openly lobby for the top job. They come to be perceived as "too political or seen as too manipulative" and invariably fail, he observes. If Rand fails to reach the highest perch, it won't be because he shrank from the competition: He thrives on it. An airline cleaning crew once had to work around him and his card-playing partners because he was struggling to win a game long after others disembarked. "Losing," Rand notes, "is an anathema to my well-being." "He hated to lose," says his mother, Helen Rand. HOW DID RAND'S FIGHTING SPIRIT HELP HIM EXCEL AT XEROX? Rand's fighting spirit helped him land his first job at Xerox. In 1968, the ambitious 24-year-old crashed a private recruiting session in a Washington hotel suite and boldly proclaimed, "Everyone needs good salespeople. Therefore, you need me." It didn't matter that Xerox was looking for chemists or that Rand had little sales experience and had already been rejected twice. He caught on as a sales trainee and excelled in successive sales and marketing positions. WHAT ABOUT HIS PERSONAL LIFE? But as his professional life took off, his personal life went into the dumper. Married shortly after joining Xerox, Rand's marriage gradually fell apart. He bluntly blames his lack of maturity then for the breakup, not his work. Rand responded by totally immersing himself in his job. Fourteen-hour days were the norm. But Rand also found time for fun. An explorer, Rand indulged himself on weekends and during vacations, visiting exotic destinations such as South America, Fiji, Tahiti and Thailand, where he had his elephant ride. WHAT KIND OF BACKGROUND DOES RAND HAVE? As an only child, Rand always strove to meet his middle-class parents' lofty expectations. He was perennially class president in high school as well as captain of the baseball, basketball and football teams. College was a different story. Rand never quite got in sync at Rutgers University, which he attended directly after high school. His grades were average, and the one-time football standout found himself riding the pine. After two years that were "the most frustrating of my life," Rand left Rutgers and returned to Washington to enroll at American University. The Rutgers experience taught him how to handle failure. WHAT ARE HIS DUTIES AT XEROX? These days, his competitive urges are largely channeled toward Canada, Mexico, South America, China and Hong Kong, over which he is directly responsible for operations. In his previous post as head of U.S. operations, Rand oversaw 35,000 employees and ran a subsidiary with annual revenue of $6 billion. IS RAND CURRENTLY MARRIED? Remarried in 1990, Addison Barry Rand is now the father of 1-year-old Allison Barrie Rand, a moniker he laughingly says was an unadulterated display of ego. "I decided boy or girl, this is going to be a junior." Rand is also father to an 8-year-old stepson, Christopher. Not surprisingly, Rand's sojourns to Fiji, Thailand and the like have tapered off. A trip from the executive vice president's suite to the CEO's office would undoubtedly fill that void quite nicely. WHAT ARE RAND'S GOALS? Regardless of where his career leads, Rand says he'll continue to push for diversifying the workplace and speak out on the subject. "You consistently have people who will say you can't afford to emphasize minority and female participation," he says. "So you have to take a deep breath and pick up the flagpole and carry it some more." Bonus Editor: Michele Coleman. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM