The legacy Mal Gurian leaves the wireless industry will be found as much in the generations of people he has influenced as in the technological innovations he has shaped.
Gurian is perhaps best known for his role as president of Oki Telecom, the first cellular phone manufacturer to receive Federal Communications Commission-type certification.
But when Gurian’s gig at Oki began in 1980, he had already been involved in the radio business for 30 years, having entered it when Citizens Band radios were introduced-“from the day that they first came out,” as he remembers-in the 1950s.
Gurian made a name for himself in the radio industry with a couple of executive-level jobs at two two-way radio companies: first as vice president of Radio Telephone Corp., a job he took in 1960, and later as senior vice president of Aerotron Inc., a Siemens company, where he spent 16 years.
Gurian was recruited in 1980 to join Japan’s Oki Electric Industries Co., and charged with launching Oki Telecom, the company’s U.S.-based cellular telephone division. “It blew my mind at that time,” said Gurian of the idea of cellular. “I was so intrigued with the technology.”
The early manufacturer of the cellular phone counted all seven Bell operating companies as its customers and the Oki phone was “probably the best phone ever used,” according to Gurian.
Gurian remembers his 11 years at Oki as “the fun years, the challenging years.” But eventually, Oki Telecom fell victim to the evolution of the industry and exited the U.S. handset market in the 1990s.
David Rowan, 20-year business associate and friend of Gurian’s, credits him as an industry pacesetter very early on. Rowan watched as Gurian, during his tenure at Oki, transformed a small, hardworking group of associates into the wireless professionals that drove the success of Oki and its products.
“They set the tone for the industry at that time,” said Rowan, explaining that their effectiveness and efficiency was reflected in the quality of Oki’s products and in the way the early wireless business was run. “I don’t know of any other industry that did that,” said Rowan.
Further back, before his years in radio, Gurian served in the U.S. Marine Corps for two-and-a-half years as an aerial photographer during World War II, following a boyhood hobby into adulthood. “I was a photography nut when I was a kid,” he commented.
Gurian also is a pilot and his hobbies now include driving performance cars, “very quickly,” according to Rowan, which he believes fits Gurian’s personality perfectly. “You have to know the man … he would tire out people 25 years younger,” he said.
After his term at Oki, Gurian began to branch out, across the cellular industry and the U.S. He served as president of Cellcom Cellular Corp., a New Jersey-based reseller, then became chief executive officer and director of Universal Cellular Corp., a California-based start-up, and later became GlobalLink Communications Inc.’s chairman and CEO. He also co-founded and chaired Authentix Networks, a company devoted to solving roaming fraud. Authentix, under Gurian’s leadership, evolved into SimplySay L.L.C., a well-known pioneer in voice-recognition technology.
Now, Gurian heads up Florida-based Mal Gurian Associates L.L.C., an advisory firm he founded in June 2002. The company is focused on helping foreign companies find their niche in the U.S. wireless business, a reflection of his tenure at Oki when he “Americanized” its business for the U.S. marketplace.
Gurian also serves on the executive committee and has been named president emeritus of the Radio Club of America.
There must be hundreds of people who owe their place in the industry to him, according to Rowan, who met Gurian at Oki, worked with him at SimplySay and followed his path to Mal Gurian Associates. “I wouldn’t have gone along if it was anyone else,” said Rowan.
“The sheer ability and dedication by engineers, vendors and carriers created the world of cellular,” said Gurian.
Rowan, who is likely joined by many other industry veterans, believes just the opposite: “the industry absolutely would not be what it is today without his influence.”
