Name: Thomas P. O'Neill, III

Age: 55

Position: Chief Executive Officer, GPC International/O'Neill & Associates. GPC International is a worldwide government and public relations consulting firm based in Canada. It recently purchased O'Neill & Associates. O'Neill is in charge of U.S. operations. Besides offices in Canada and Europe, it has offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., Hartford and Providence, at 86 Weybosset St.

Background: From 1975 to 1983, O'Neill served as Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts, during which time he created and administered the Office of Federal-State Relations in Boston and Washington, D.C.; prior to becoming Lieutenant Governor, he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; O'Neill has led business delegations to China, Cuba, Ireland, Kuwait and other nations; has served on the Board of Trustees for the Mount Auburn Hospital since 1983 and is currently chairman of that board; member of the Board of Trustees for Boston College; member of the Board of Directors for CareGroup, New England's second largest health care service provider; prior to forming McDermott/O'Neill in 1991, O'Neill founded Bay State Investors, Inc. in 1983, advising clients on government relations. Thomas P. O'Neill, III is the son of the late Tip O'Neill, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Education: Boston College; Masters of Public Administration, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

Residence: Boston

Family: Married, two children

RONALD AUGER: 'I feel a loyalty to the people who helped us grow.'

GPC/O'Neill & Associates is part of a huge international firm. What exactly is your connection to the Providence market?

We opened an office in Providence almost two years ago. My company needed a strategic plan. The first steps were to open offices within the region and to share clients. If we have 3Com and are doing work for them in Boston, I know Providence has a need and I know Hartford has a need. And I know there are things we can do in Washington, D.C. If we are doing work for Harvard University, there is something we can do for Brown University. If we are doing health care work somewhere in Massachusetts, are there hospitals that we can do work for in Providence? Yes, there are four or five.

How many employees do you have in Providence?

Six. It's a great little office and it has been profitable since the day we opened it. We have 60 employees in total in the four offices.

Why come to Providence?

I saw what was happening in Providence, the explosion. I could see the robust economy that we were enjoying in Boston was being shared down here. It was also reminiscent, frankly, of Boston 20 years ago - when we were building Copley Place. I can remember all of the challenge and critique from the citizenry about the public expenditure of such a thing. Could the city possibly support the challenge that was going to be put on it with the development of these upscale stores? Not only was the city of Boston ready, but now it has been replicated about 20 times throughout Greater Boston. I saw the same thing here -- that the city of Providence was about to explode. The fact that it looked so wonderful. That all these amenities had been constructed over the years. It really was the next stop for us to set up a shop. And we have had an awful lot of success here.

You spent nearly a decade as Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts and had long been entrenched in the politics of that city. At what point did you start hearing more about Providence and taking it seriously?

I had come down a couple of times on business for clients, to City Hall, as well as the State House. It just caught my fancy. Every time I came down here there was something brand new being rolled out in the city. You know, critics will be critics. It is awful easy to sit in the middle of a community and criticize what is going on around you. The fact of the matter is, Providence is very much a regional city if not an international city. It draws an awful lot of people from outside of Providence in here every single day. I think what is going on in terms of the explosion of Providence should be shared. I just saw a terrific opportunity from a business point of view, to open an office here.

Are there particular kinds of clients that you have or are looking to have?

Principally, the same kinds of clients that we have in Boston. As we looked at New England, there are 12 million people. Between Greater Boston and Rhode Island, reside five-and-a-half million of those people. It doesn't take a great deal of understanding to strategically place offices and to sit back and understand what the economic building blocks are for the state of Massachusetts and within the region, including Rhode Island and Connecticut. It is things like higher education, high technology, transportation, infrastructure and financial service capabilities. Those are the companies that we represent.

We hear a lot of talk about a regional economy. The idea that Providence and all of Rhode Island, needs to sell itself that way. What do you think of the approach that Providence is not in itself an economic region, but can capitalize by also selling the resources of Boston, for example?

It has been said that Boston is part of a region, as well. The regional approach to our type of service would be all the way from Washington, D.C. to Boston. At every stop, whether it is Washington, New York City, Hartford, or Providence, you have to have that local capability, as well as that regional reach.

We have seen other companies, including competitors of yours, come into this market. Are you all seeing the same thing?

Yes, and I think it's very complimentary of Providence. Providence has arrived. If I were living in Providence, I would be very proud of this community - and of the opportunities that lie ahead. This has just made for a natural fit.

You are Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Harvard's teaching hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, and are a member of the Board of Directors for CareGroup. What do you make of these soaring health insurance costs?

We are confronted with the very same issues that you are confronted with down here. From a hospital setting, health care is in its most competitive era. There has been a crunch on health care costs, emanating from Washington, as well as our state capitals. I think it is the result of a few things. We are over-bedded and over-doctored as a region. Secondly, one of the major reasons for the continued growth in health care costs, is the high-tech availability. If one hospital has it, they all have to have it. It drives greatly the cost of doing business. Also, I think historically there has been a competition amongst the HMOs in providing insured health care delivery. For the longest time, they went bottom fishing. They are suffering right now the very strong pains of not allowing their rates to ease up so that they wouldn't be floundering and insolvent. There has to be a discussion as to what health insurance is as we go into the new millennium and who is going to be responsible for it. The other important thing is the so called Balanced Budget Amendment in Washington. What the Clinton Administration attempted to do back in 1995 was balance the U.S. budget. It was supposed to be balanced by 2001, and they did it, frankly, in two years. Over 80 percent of that balancing came in the cost of health care, by reducing health care dollars. So, it's Washington. It is our state governments, deciding what and how insurance coverage will be given out. And it's making sure the hospitals really are as competitive as they can be.

Let's go back a few years. You had just run for governor in Massachusetts. Why did you make the switch from politics to public affairs?

I ran for governor in 1982. It was a natural thing for me to do. I had been Lieutenant Governor, both with Mike Dukakis and then with Ed King, the eight years prior. I thought I was ready to run for governor. But the rules had changed. The state party had changed the rules and had reconstructed and introduced to the Democratic party by state law a convention system again, which had not been around for years. I had always run in primaries and been quite successful. But the rules were such that if you hadn't participated, you couldn't get on the ballot. It was really a kind of lodging against my candidacy. It was the famous 15 percent rule. We didn't have time to get it before the State Supreme Court for a ruling - and I was ruled off the ballot. I never quite made it out of the starting gate.

Did you jump into something else right away?

I went into an investment company, with four partners. It had a great degree of success, until the economic fallout of the late 1980s and early 1990s. I had put together a consulting business, principally in lobbying and that went a long way to helping get through that very difficult economic period. After 1992, I decided to get into the consulting business and take the so-called hard edge off lobbying. I really did not like going into the State House in Boston or City Hall for a client, because when I came out, the press was writing stories about me. I thought something had to be changed. I tried to shift the whole thrust of lobbying from hard-edged arm-twisting and shin kicking to really making it as professional as I could, by making it a communications business. We put together with lobbying, a public relations capability in a quite forcible way. We called it public affairs. Now, everybody calls it public affairs and most regional lobbying houses have a public relations capability. But I have always felt that a client's resource base could obviously make a governor, a mayor, a legislative leader, an agency or department head look good by trying to understand what their public policy direction was going to be and if they understood that, create a winning situation for everyone involved. We think we have changed the whole approach to government and lobbying by making it a communications business. Others have followed us into regions and other cities, and that's fine. But it is not a compliment to me, it is the way the industry has to go.

You've obviously been close to the Boston political scene. At center stage in Providence is Buddy Cianci. Have you had any contact with the mayor over the years?

I met him once, years before I opened the office here. Since opening the office I have met him four or five times and we've struck up a pretty good friendship. I like him a lot. I find him very charming, and more importantly, I find him very smart. He is someone who has made a wonderful contribution to this community. I am sure others have helped make contributions; there are senators and congressman and others. But Buddy Cianci comes across to me as someone who in 1492 would not have laughed at Christopher Columbus. He would have given him every opportunity to go and do his discovering and exploring. I'm taken by that.

What are your thoughts on the media?

When I was in government in the 1970s and early 1980s the media was very different. Far more tame than it is today. It was tough in those days. I came in after Watergate and Vietnam and people were looking for younger and brighter ideas. They were looking for new people. I was part of that generation of politician. I always felt that if you behaved yourself and kept you nose clean and worked hard, the media would treat you quite well. I'm also the son of Tip and Millie O'Neill and even 18 years after the fact, in Boston at least, you are still a personality. So the media is always there. I struggle with the media, because I would love to have my private time with my own family. But even that's tough.

What lessons did you learn from your father?

He was tremendously instructive. What he prided himself in and what I think his generation of politicians prided themselves in - coming from the ethnic background that they did - is that they created equity in the marketplace for the next generation. They felt that they were the forerunners to opportunity to the next generations of politicians. They opened doors. That was a great pride he took. As a parent, the instruction was a little bit deeper: 'I have no money to leave you. But the things your mother and I have to leave you are a good name and a sense of confidence. With that, in this society, you can do anything - as long as you do it the right way.'

Do you think about your father often?

He's been gone five years. Just the other day we buried his sister. The last of the siblings of his family. We celebrated her life, my father's and my uncle's life with all of our family and our cousins. It was a wonderful get together. We think about them all. It's a very strong family.