Craig McCaw Built Cable TV Firm Into Cellular Leader

All that remained of John Elroy McCaw’s estate after taxes and debt were paid was a small cable television system that his son built into the world’s largest cellular telephone company in less than 25 years.

Like his father, Craig O. McCaw risked huge debts to pursue a grand vision--a phone network in which any cellular customer could be reached anywhere, anytime, with the same number.

On Monday that gamble paid off. Less than a year after agreeing in principle to sell one-third of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. to AT&T;, McCaw opted to sell it all--for an estimated $12.6 billion, including $2.5 billion for himself, his three brothers and their families.

McCaw, 44, and his counterpart, AT&T; chairman Robert E. Allen, told reporters in New York it was a harder decision for the upstart purveyor of new technology than for the longtime leader in the old.

“At a very personal level, this was a tough decision for Craig,” Allen said. McCaw added: “While we recognize it’s a very difficult (move) for both companies, probably more for us than AT&T;, we believe in the dream we’ve had about uplifting the human being by putting in their hands a more powerful communications tool.”

When the world’s largest long-distance carrier takes over the wireless phone company, McCaw gets a seat on the AT&T; board and an as-yet-undetermined executive position.

Ideas, dreams and a cable TV operation in Centralia, population 12,000, about 90 miles south of Seattle, were what Bruce, Craig, John and Keith McCaw and their mother, Marion, inherited when their father died of a stroke in 1969.

Elroy McCaw owned several radio and TV stations, investments in 54 companies, money in 25 bank accounts, a Lear jet and a yacht. But after taxes and creditors were paid, all that was left were the proceeds of a $2-million life insurance policy and Twin City Cablevision.

“My father was a visionary who did not hire great people,” McCaw said. “The company was too dependent on one person.”

In 1973, as soon as he finished at Stanford University, Craig McCaw took charge of the cable TV operation. He hired strong executives and gave them authority to act. Acting meant buying more cable operations and improving service.

When the Federal Communications Commission began awarding cellular franchise licenses in the early 1980s, McCaw jumped in as hard as his financiers would allow.