When Cox Communications earlier this year was faced with finding a new vice president and system manager to head up its Southern Arizona operations, Phoenix-based Senior Vice President and General Manager Steve Rizley was faced with choosing between two finalists. One knew the telecom business and, like others in the industry, could move to Tucson to take the reins of the operation. The other candidate was Lisa Lovallo.

Lovallo got the job.

“It was a crazy, perfect storm,” she said in an interview.

Print this story Email this story Post a Comment Lisa Lovallo ADVERTISEMENT

She’s been running Cox’s Tucson, Green Valley and Sierra Vista operations  nearly eight months now. She replaced Anne Doris, whom Cox transferred to run its Cleveland operation about a year ago.

Lovallo readily admits she came to the position running Southern Arizona’s largest combined cable TV system, Internet and phone service provider without a lot of knowledge of the business.

As training for her new job Lovallo was sent to Cox’s corporate headquarters in Atlanta and was handed a sheet of paper with a list of acronyms used in the industry.

“I took it home and studied but I’d look at some of them and realize I didn’t even know what the words were that the acronyms came from,” she said.

As it turns out, she said really only about 20 percent of the acronyms are used frequently so that’s what she concentrated on learning.

But a telecom expert is not what Cox hired in Lovallo. What they got is a person who knows about Tucson and Southern Arizona. She also has energy. When she gets excited about something - and that’s not uncommon - Lovallo says she tends to pound her hand on a table.

“What can it say? I’m Italian,” she says.

A native Tucsonan who graduated from the University of Arizona, Lovallo left for Southern California to go to work for Procter & Gamble where she was a unit manager of the Paper Products Division and a sales manager of the Patient Care Products Division.

Wanting to return to her friends and family, Lovallo came back to Tucson in 2000 running her own distribution business, North American Enterprises. She has also been an adjunct professor in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management and, before joining Cox Communications, was director of student affairs and advancement at the UA.

Two years ago she ran for the state House of Representatives, finishing third in a Republican primary in which the top two moved on to the general election. She describes herself as a conservative Republican in the mold of Barry Goldwater.

Lovallo says she learned much from the experience of running for office and doesn’t rule out the idea she may do it again at some point. If she does, she intends to be more direct and straight-forward when it comes to answering questions and talking about her stances on issues.

In the meantime, though, she’s going full-bore at Cox Communications. Her goal? To make Cox Communications the most respected brand in Southern Arizona. Toward that end, Lovallo says she’s up against names including Raytheon Missile Systems, a big company with an even bigger reputation.

But not a lot of Tucsonans are in the market to buy what Raytheon makes. Cox Communications is in the market and sells to people living here. In many respects, it’s an overlooked company.

“What would you say if I told you that Cox Communications will write checks for $1 million in this community this year?” Lovallo asks. “Most people are surprised.”

But more than that, she says Cox Communications wants to make a difference in Southern Arizona.

For example, she cites $500,000 of cash and in-kind support Cox Communications is contributing to try to revive the Tucson International Mariachi Festival held annually in April to benefit La Frontera Center. The conference, which began in 1982, has raised $3.5 million to support La Frontera’s behavioral health programs for children, families and adults.

All of the resources of Cox Communications, including Cox Media cable advertising and Cox Cable Channel 7, reaching more than 2 million Arizonans will go toward making the four-day mariachi event successful.

Another example of Cox-community synergy came about from a meeting Lovallo had with Robert Knight, executive director of the Tucson Museum of Art.

The museum had wanted a big-screen TV it could put in the lobby area to help direct visitors to events within the museum.

“I told him I thought we could help him with that, after all we’re a telecom,” Lovallo said.

In less than six weeks, before the Oct. 11 opening of an exhibition of the late Maynard Dixon’s paintings around Arizona, the flat-screen monitor was installed “with a tasteful credit to Cox Communications,” she said.

In exchange for that, though, she asked Knight if Cox Communications could talk to the museum about being its supplier for cable, Internet and phone services.

Saying people “sometimes forget” how companies come to make contributions, Lovallo says she wants recipients to know there’s a way they can return the support to Cox Communications.

She says she knows Cox must earn the business. Providing quality service is a means to that end.

The company routinely has quality control reviews in which showing that it’s achieving 99 percent efficacy along its 18,000 cable. And when companies support Cox Communications, she notes, they’re also supporting a company that employs about 450 Tucsonans.

While Lovallo may find herself on a quick learning curve when it comes to the ways of a cable and telecom technology, she’s tapping her roots — roots she says she has no intentions of leaving again — to keep Cox connected to Southern Arizona.

“It’s about the community. It’s about our place in it,” she says. “It’s using the resources of Cox Communications to capitalize on the community’s resources, which, in turn, helps Cox and the employees who live in this community.”

Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.