Previous
Big business
The Uxbridge customers of Compton Communications will undoubtedly have mixed feelings about the news reported on page one.
On the one hand, you have to feel happy for the Compton family, who have served this community extremely well for almost four decades, who have slowly and steadily built their business into one of the most respected small telecommunications companies in the country. As the release from Rogers pointed out, Compton has smoothly kept pace with the latest advancements in the industry, and in fact has often led the way.
This industry leadership, albeit in a very small market (two rural municipalities) is no doubt what drew the gaze of Rogers in their direction. Though the amount of the transaction has not been disclosed (although we could probably find out if we were Rogers shareholders), it’s fairly safe to assume that the Comptons did well on the deal. Rogers has deep pockets, and the ‘good will’ value of the company alone is substantial indeed.
In its answers to our queries, Rogers has assured us that for now, it’s business as usual; the same people will be delivering the same quality service under the same name, presumably for the same price. Over time, of course, the brand will change, the available product line will expand, and it would be surprising if the fees didn’t creep upward.
But however you feel about the way they run the Blue Jays, or whether you feel they should even own mainstream media, there can be little question that Rogers does a pretty good job of their principal focus - telecommunications. The good people of Scugog and Uxbridge will be well taken care of in this aspect of their lives.
Nevertheless, it’s always a little scary when a long-established, successful local entrepreneur gets swallowed up by a giant, relatively faceless corporate entity. How would we feel if Low’s Furniture, the oldest business in Uxbridge, owned by the same family for a century and a half, was suddenly purchased by Leon’s or The Brick? If Blue Heron Books, one of the most respected independent booksellers in Canada, sold out to Chapters?
Probably the closest recent analogy would be when John Davies’ well-loved downtown drug store, the Quaker Pharmacy, moved off Brock Street and became just another Rexall. Somehow it was never the same.
These, of course, are all retail businesses, and maybe it’s a little different with a service company like Compton. Although we might have felt some degree of pride in its local origins, how many of us ever actually walked through the doors of its unassuming Utica headquarters? How many of us knew its employees by name, the geography of its aisles? The nature of its relationship with us is more distant, more remote. So maybe it’s not quite so important if the company’s nerve centre is a few more miles away.
Besides, what we might forget is that Rogers started out as a family business, too, and not too far away, just up Davis Drive in Newmarket. Not only that, but the Rogers clan are of good Pennsylvania Quaker stock, just like the founders of our own town. So maybe, just maybe, the Rogerses still involved in the firm will look with some affection at this particular cog in their mighty machine.
Or maybe not. But it’ll be something to hold on to, when the colourful Compton trucks eventally give way to the Rogers red and white.
