Henson took a small, regional telephone company in Nebraska and transformed it into the number three telecommunications company in the United States. When Henson joined United Utilities, it had 500,000 customers, served 500 rural communities, and generated sales of $42 million. When he stepped down as Chairman in 1990, Sprint had 4 million customers in 3,000 communities with sales of $8 billion. Under Henson’s leadership, Sprint acquired 28 companies and built the nation’s only all-digital fiber-optic network.