“GOOD FUN, GOOD FUN!” BELLOWS ROB Hale on a recent Friday morning. It's 6:30 a.m., and two dozen employees of Granite Telecommunications have gathered for one of their CEO's favorite rituals: hourlong morning workouts, a grueling grind of pushups, squats, sit-ups, planks, jumping jacks and stair runs through the company's four-story office headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts, a blue-collar burb 10 miles south of Boston.
Hale, 56, likes routine. His typical workday includes nabbing the parking lot's fifth spot (five is his lucky number), downing four extra-large decaf Dunkin’ coffees (two in the morning, two in the afternoon), overseeing a second group work-out at noon (this one, mercifully, 20 minutes), then getting home in time for dinner with Karen, his wife of 28 years. “My life is very regimented,” Hale explains. “It doesn't deviate much at all.”
Such discipline pays big dividends. Privately held Granite generated over $1.6 billion in sales last year and has no long-term debt. Twenty years after Hale's first company collapsed, he boasts a $5 billion fortune
