Craig McCaw

Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw in May 2008
Born	(1949-08-11) August 11, 1949 (age 67) Centralia, Washington
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Stanford University
Occupation	Businessman and entrepreneur
Known for	Wireless service companies
Net worth	US$1.84 billion (Sep 2015)
Spouse(s)	Wendy P. McCaw

Craig McCaw (born August 11, 1949) is an American businessman and entrepreneur, a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility) and Clearwire Corporation.

Craig is the second of four sons of Marion and John Elroy McCaw. McCaw's father was a broadcasting magnate and owner of Gotham Broadcasting Corporation. WINS which became one of the first stations to play rock and roll. Alan Freed was the earliest famous personality disc jockey on the show. McCaw's father was in the business of buying and selling TV and radio stations, which brought in wealth but also incurred significant debts. Elroy entered the cable television business in the 1960s, and his four sons worked as linemen and door-to-door salesmen.

When Elroy died, the only company not sold to repay the debt was the small Centralia cable company with estimated 2,000 to 4,000 subscribers, which was in trust. During his senior year at Stanford, Craig took the helm of the cable company and set out to rebuild his family name. He used the cash flows from his growing cable company to purchase other remote cable companies, resulting in a profitable conglomerate. By the 1980s, McCaw Cablevision was the 20th largest cable carrier in the US.

When the FCC held a lottery for cellular licenses in the early 1980s, many ordinary Americans got rich by winning the right to establish cellular systems in cities across America. In addition to entering the lottery himself, McCaw approached many other lottery winners and bought their cellular rights, which were already considered to be undervalued. Using the same tactic he'd used in cable TV, McCaw financed an aggressive cellular expansion by borrowing against and selling shares in the cable operation. Through continued borrowing and smart management of only the most useful licenses, this wireless land grab put McCaw's operation in the position of a competitive nationwide cellular carrier before the incumbent landline telephone industry took serious notice of the field.