Lamont’s connections paid handsomely
It was the early ’ 80s, and the rollout of cable TV was in its Wild Wild West era, driven by the white- hot MTV music video network.
Ned Lamont, a young Harvard graduate, worked with Cablevision on its entry into Connecticut. He had his hand in other cable- related projects, too — including a report he filed on the industry in Kuwait.
“That’s one of the things that prompted me to challenge Joe Lieberman many years later,” Lamont now says.
He borrowed $ 250,000 from People’s Bank in Stamford to buy a couple of “very small, beat- up private cable television systems in New York and Virginia.”
“We fixed them up, made then functional,” Lamont said.
One day he got a tip from someone at MTV: Trek up to Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire — they’re very unhappy with their cable system. The college told Lamont its students were paying high prices and the cable system wasn’t delivering what it wanted, educational and international programming.
“And, by the way, we want MTV,” Lamont recalls Franklin Pierce telling him.
That was the first customer for Campus Televideo, Lamont’s company that strung cable TV from satellites into college dorms and other buildings.
The company grew steadily, adding more than 100 campuses by 2006, with an enterprise value well into the millions. But it also suffered a major downsizing that became the source of controversy in Lamont’s political career.
There’s no question, Campus Televideo was — and still is, under a different owner — a successful business.
Details of finances and operations remain hidden because, as a closely held company, it never had to report publicly.
But we know it never grew to be a huge business — just over 100 full- time employees at the peak — and it’s likely that the company didn’t account for the bulk of wealth in Lamont’s household, which includes inheritance as well as income from Lamont’s wife, Annie Huntress Lamont, a venture capital investor.
And what we do know tells us a lot about Connecticut’s endorsed Democrat for governor.
After the Franklin Pierce victory, Lamont sent letters to a couple of dozen other colleges and universities — and snagged three new customers right off the bat, including the University of Hartford.
Lamont loved the connection to higher education and collected chairs with the insignias of those early institutions, one early employee recalls.
“Ned was the kind of guy, very intelligent, but also knew how to surround himself with people who knew all sides of the business,” said the former employee, Ray York, now senior director of operations under Apogee, the company that bought Campus Televideo in 2015. Apogee, based in Austin, Texas, maintains an office in Stamford for some executives.
“He was wise enough to let all the engineers on the ground do their jobs,” York said.
Cutting back
Through his financial holding company, Lamont Digital — which the Lamonts still own — he had expanded into private cable, voice and data networks for planned communities. But by 2006, the front end of the housing decline, that business, known as Gatehouse Networks, wasn’t working out.
That was the year Lamont, with little electoral experience, shocked the political world by beating then- Sen. Joe Lieberman, D- Conn., in a primary — only to lose to Lieberman in the general election after the senator ran as an independent.
Lamont Digital and other investors sold off the Gatehouse projects in pieces. But did Lamont lay off two- thirds of his staff, more than 75 people, while taking a salary of more than $ 500,000? That was a charge from Lieberman. A New York Times story in August 2006 left the question open.
Now Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim is reviving the charge. Like Lamont’s previous opponents in Democratic primaries — including Dannel P. Malloy, who won the nomination and the governor’s seat in 2010 — Ganim is saying it cuts to broader issues about Lamont’s character and the sources of his wealth in his self- funded campaigns.
Lamont, 64, who lives in Greenwich, says there were a few layoffs of executives.
“All the front- line guys kept their jobs, many of them moved on to the new employers,” he said.
“He should produce the records,” Ganim said. “That’s like me saying I don’t have a felony conviction.”
York, the operations employee, recalled the downsizing but declined to comment on layoffs. He said he usually communicates with Lamont around Christmas time.
And he recalls Lamont as an exemplary employer.
“He stayed pretty much out of the operational side,” York said. “But he definitely stayed in touch with the people. A CEO can sit up in an ivory tower and never talk with anybody under him, but it sure does help with morale when a CEO stays involved and knows the names of your children. There was never a concern that ‘ Oh man, I made a mistake, I’m going to get fired.’ ”
How big a payoff?
Lamont stepped down as CEO for his first run for office against Lieberman, and remained as chairman of the board until just before the company sold. He won’t say how much the business fetched.
“I started the company by borrowing $ 250,000 and I sold it for 100- plus times more,” Lamont said, offering no more specifics. “I did well. All the folks that worked for our company did well. ... Our clients thought it was a good deal. You treat people well, the deal works out.”
In a 2006 federal campaign filing, he reported his net worth as $ 90 million to $ 330 million, much of that held by his wife.
Ganim is calling for financial disclosures to determine what he says are potential conflicts.
Lamont has not complied, but his business history points to a record of innovation and success. Since 2008, Lamont Digital has invested in some startup companies that Lamont has advised closely, he said.
One regret — he never signed up Harvard, his alma mater.
“Maybe they were a little too highbrow for our service,” he said. ” But we did do Yale.”