Hugh Stallard Announces Retirement from Bell Atlantic

Hugh Stallard Announces Retirement from
Bell Atlantic

Woltz Appointed Acting President and CEO

December 14, 1999

RICHMOND, Va. -- H.R. "Hugh" Stallard, president and
CEO of Bell Atlantic - Virginia, announced today he will retire after 15
years at the helm of the state's largest local telephone company.

Robert W. Woltz Jr., currently vice president for external affairs, will
replace Stallard on an interim basis, pending consummation of Bell
Atlantic's merger with GTE.

During his tenure as president, Stallard oversaw sweeping technological
improvements to the state's telecommunications infrastructure.

Over the decade of the '90s, Bell Atlantic invested billions of dollars in
Virginia, converting nearly all of its switching centers from analog to
state-of-the-art digital switches, while also installing hundreds of
thousands of miles of fiber optics. Stallard also helped broker an alliance
among Bell Atlantic, Virginia Tech and the town of Blacksburg to build
an "electronic village," the first of its kind in the nation.

His telephone career spanned four decades. He joined the Chesapeake &
Potomac
Telephone Co. of Virginia in 1959 as a staff assistant in the engineering
department. In 1966, he was appointed district manager for special
services in eastern Virginia. Four years later, he moved to Culpeper as
district plant manager for that area.

In 1971, C&P Telephone promoted Stallard to division plant manager for
Northern Virginia. In 1973, he became general plant manager in
Washington, D.C.

Stallard moved to Richmond in 1977 to head engineering for C&P
Telephone in Virginia. He was named assistant vice president for revenue
requirements three years later and in 1985 became vice president of Bell
Atlantic - Virginia. He was promoted to president in 1988.

Stallard serves as a director on the boards of Universal Corp. and Trigon
Healthcare Corp. He is a member of the governor's Commission on
Information Technology and served on the General Assembly's
Commission on the Future of Public Education.

Stallard is active in several organizations that promote economic
development in the commonwealth, including the Virginia Business
Council and the advisory board for the Coalfield Economic Development
Authority.

He is also the current chairman of Virginia Free, an organization that
promotes the interests of business and free enterprise in the
commonwealth.

In 1997, the Commonwealth of Virginia honored him as the Virginia
Industrialist of the Year.

Stallard also works closely with educational institutions in the state. He is
on the board of trustees of the Virginia Historical Society, the Virginia
Commonwealth University School of Engineering Foundation, the
Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and the Virginia Literacy
Foundation. He is also a former trustee of Hampden-Sydney College and
was on the
advisory council of the University of Richmond School of Business.

Stallard, a native of Norton, spent much of his early life at a Presbyterian
orphanage in Lynchburg and was educated in Lynchburg-area public
schools. He later served as a trustee of
that orphanage.

Stallard graduated from Hampden-Sydney College with a bachelor's
degree in mathematics. Following college, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast
Guard where he served as a lieutenant commander.

Stallard and his wife, Alice, live in Midlothian. He has three sons, Craig,
Mark and Brian, and one grandson, Steven.

He intends to remain active in civic and community affairs in the
Richmond area.

Bell Atlantic is at the forefront of the new communications and
information industry. With more than 43 million telephone access lines
and more than 10 million wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic
companies are premier providers of advanced wireline voice and data
services, market leaders in wireless services and the world's largest
publishers of directory information. Bell Atlantic companies are also
among the world's largest investors in high-growth global communications
markets, with operations and investments in 23 countries.