Wireless pioneer Craig McCaw assembled an all-star executive team to start and drive McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. in the 1980s and early 1990s. And though McCaw sold the business in 1994 for almost $12 billion to what it now AT&T Wireless Services Inc., many from that all-star squad have remained in wireless-creating a close network of executives that spans from one side of the industry to the other.
“The old six degrees of separation is funny,” said Jeff Brown, president and chief executive officer of in-building wireless company RadioFrame Networks Inc. “You know someone who knows someone.”
Indeed, the saying is especially true for those who hail from McCaw Cellular. Brown worked as the vice president of sales and marketing for the carrier’s CDPD wireless data business from 1991 to 1994. RadioFrame’s Chairman Rob Mechaley and Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rick Applegate are also former McCaw Cellular alumnus who teamed up after the AT&T Wireless sale to found RadioFrame.
Craig McCaw “hired a lot of people that were stars,” Brown said. “They knew how to hit it out of the park in the ninth inning.”
A quick check of former McCaw Cellular executives who have made a name for themselves in today’s wireless industry seems to back up that statement. Former McCaw Cellular executive John Chapple is now the CEO of Nextel Partners. Nextel Communications Inc.’s chief Tim Donahue also hails from McCaw Cellular. As do the heads of Edge Wireless, Wireless Services Corp. and venture-capital firm Ignition Corp. And former McCaw Cellular officer John Stanton is now head of T-Mobile USA Inc. and Western Wireless, and he even managed to oversee a sale bigger than the AT&T Wireless/McCaw acquisition, the $30 billion VoiceStream Wireless/Deutsche Telekom AG linkup. These execs are just a sampling of former McCaw employees who steer the wireless industry today.
“It’s a very nice network of great human beings and very smart business people,” said Dan Kranzler, chairman of wireless content publishing company Mforma. Kranzler, who came from the paging industry, was McCaw Cellular’s first general manager, from 1983 to 1985. He helped form the company’s operating plan, business plan and marketing plan.
Aside from his work with Mforma, Kranzler also serves as the managing partner of eFund L.L.C., an early stage venture firm that gives all of its profits to children and educational charities. Kranzler said he hopes other successful McCaw Cellular executives would follow his example and donate some of their earnings to charity.
“We just happened to be in the right industry at the right time,” he said.
As head of the rapidly growing wireless start-up Mforma, Kranzler said his McCaw Cellular connections are key to helping the company move along. Since Mforma works to sell its content to carriers, Kranzler said his McCaw Cellular contacts help to smooth the business process.
“The contacts that we have … are incredibly important,” said RadioFrame’s Brown. “It does give you the ability to pick up the phone and get a quick comment. It is great that we have the reach that we do.”
Brown said those important contacts are a result of a talented group of businessmen who benefited from an energetic environment at McCaw Cellular.
“The time at McCaw was an absolutely magical time,” Brown said. “There was a lot of creativity at McCaw. I think in a lot of ways, we got a lot more done” than others in the industry.
