John W. Sidgmore became the Chief Executive Officer of UUNET

UUNET

UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...

 Technologies in June 1994. UUNET was purchased by MFS

MFS

MFS may refer to:*Ministry for State Security , the security and intelligence organisation of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as Stasi...

, later taken over by WorldCom, which eventually bought MCI

MCI Communications

MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...

. He later became WorldCom's Chief Operations Officer. Sidgmore worked to revive WorldCom after disgraced CEO Bernard Ebbers

Bernard Ebbers

Bernard John "Bernie" Ebbers is a Canadian-born businessman. He co-founded the telecommunications company WorldCom and is a former chief executive officer of that company....

 left. Sidgmore was instrumental in beginning to turn around the failed company, revealing to federal investigators an $11 billion accounting fraud, left over from Ebbers' management of the company.

John Sidgmore died suddenly in December 2003 from acute pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis or acute pancreatic necrosis is a sudden inflammation of the pancreas. It can have severe complications and high mortality despite treatment...

. He is survived by his wife Randi, and their son, Michael.