I worked in N Jersey in the late 70s and I had coworkers who'd worked for Bell. They said that most tech people in Jersey had been thru Bell at one time or another. Does this match your experience of the area ?
It really blew my mind how much Bell Labs influenced the area. I had my internship at Ericsson in Piscataway (formerly Telcordia, formerly part of Bell). I later worked for a defense contractor that came out of the Bell/Lucent/Alcatel-Lucent line. It feels like everyone I crossed paths with knew everyone else, and that they all had roots in some part of the Bell System.