Latest release dropped on Friday with the announcement that our company had been purchased by a private equity firm.

Learfield was founded (co-founded, actually) by Clyde Lear, forty years ago. He borrowed $24,000 from some local businessmen and grew the company by ploughing back profits and — later– borrowing from a local bank. A great entrepreneurial story.

For the first dozen years of the company (ver 1.0), Clyde managed everything. Around 1984, he started growing the company and needed to delegate some the work. I was part of that hiring spurt (ver 1.1).

It wasn’t long before our sports division took off and we opened an office in Dallas. Our news division was growing, too, but not as fast (ver 1.2).

Sometime in the 90s we had a major restructuring of management, with Clyde handing off CEO duties. This was Learfield 1.3 and as the dust settled, I slipped out the window and began easing myself down the corporate ladder.
A couple of years ago, Clyde shuffled the cards again and Greg Brown took over as President and CEO (let’s call this ver 1.8)

Learfield 2.0 is a major update. Clyde still has a “minority interest” in the company but prior to Friday, he had the final word on anything big (if he wanted it). That’s a big change for those of us that were personally brought into the company by Clyde. And doubly so for those charged with the running the new company.

Let’s just call this a soft reboot. Control+Alt+Delete.