The day after he resigned from his position as head of investment banking at Bank of America Securities, Joseph Schell got a telephone call. It was from Dycom Industries, one of the leading providers of engineering and construction support for the cable and telecoms industry. Schell had been their banker for over Wve years, and was now being asked if he would like to join its board.
Schell accepted, as he did the oVer of a seat on the board at two other companies he had worked closely with over the years, Samina Corporation and consumer electronics firm Good Guys.
These three positions were meant to be it as far as work was concerned. He was also looking forward to devoting more time to the home that he and his wife own in Hawaii. At 53, he thought he had had enough of investment banking.But then his departure from investment banking was not the happiest, marking his annoyance with over 12 months' political inWghting between four merging institutions. His Wrm was Montgomery Securities which, along with Hambrecht&Quist, Alex Brown and Robertson Stephens, had dominated the capital markets coverage of the high-growth tech sector from the 1980s until the late 1990s.All