Telecom veteran pushes customer service. (People).

AFTER climbing the corporate ladder for 31 years at Baby Bell NYNEX, now part of Verizon Communications Inc., Dick Jalkut wanted to start from scratch.

As the new president and chief executive of L.A.-based TelePacific Communications -- a 3-year-old phone and Internet service provider serving small- and medium-sized businesses -- he will get the chance.

Jalkut, 58, served as president, chief executive officer and chairman of NYNEX, engineering its merger with Bell Atlantic Corp. Now he plans to build a company from nearly the ground up by offering service of a sort the bigger players cannot.

"If a customer wants to complain about a service or give a compliment, I answer my phone and talk to them myself," he said. "What we promise our customers is that personal touch. (We're) easier to do business with."

He vows not to lose that touch by remaining in a niche targeting businesses requiring 15 to 20 phone lines and Internet bandwidth. The target market may be small, but Jalkut's growth plans aren't.

He will be boosting the 70-salesperson staff and has a group of outside business agents in place to seek contracts and provide the hardware and wiring for TelePacific's services.

Jalkut wants to double his client base within a year and increase revenues to at least $100 million, up from the $65 million generated in 2001.

It's a far cry from the operation he oversaw at NYNEX, which had 80,000 employees.

Jalkut left the company after the Bell Atlantic merger to become chairman and chief executive of Pathnet, a Washington D.C.-based telecom focusing on second- and third-tier markets.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and economics from Boston College in 1966 and later studied in the MBA program at Northeastern University in Boston.

Jalkut is married with two children.