MBA - University of South Florida
BBA - University of South Florida

Following his honorable discharge from the United States Marine Corps, he began his career with AT&T at their New York Telephone Co. unit in Manhattan, and held various management and marketing positions, before being awarded the 'University Scholar Fellowship' by USF, where he completed his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree in 1974.

Upon his return to AT&T,  Professor Bell held several sales leadership positions with their Southern Bell unit, including Sales Manager for the Health Care & Lodging clients in Florida. In 1982 he was promoted to District Manager for Administrative Operations & Training at AT&T headquarters in New Jersey.

Professor Bell was named the inaugural Branch Manager for the west coast of Florida in 1984. This Branch proved to be AT&Ts most successful venture into 'independent territory', generating more than $60 million in annual revenues. In 1986, he was promoted to AT&T General Manager for Florida & the Carribean, where AT&T Puerto Rico became the first AT&T venture to turn a profit in its first year of operations in 1987.

In October, 1989, Professor Bell became Vice President-Global Services for the southeastern United States, where he was responsible for growing the base of $2 billion in annual services revenue, generated by more than 400 large Global Services clients in the nine southeastern states. In 1998, he became AT&T's Vice President for Federal Government Solutions, with a $1.5 billion profit & loss responsibility for AT&Ts largest client, the U.S. Federal Government. After 29 years of service at AT&T, he retired in January of 2000, to pursue a 'second career' as Executive-In-Residence at Kennesaw State University in their highly acclaimed and innovative Executive MBA Program.