Steve Craddock:  

While not typically a fan of "what have you been up to" narratives, we've lost so many high school and college friends these past few years that I find myself wondering just that. The summer of 1966 was a magical time. The stress of HS behind us and the responsibilities of college and career ahead. It was a time we could actually relax and enjoy life. It turned out to be one of the best summers of all for me. After that, for me, (forgive the tediousness), the career "plan" was supposed to be a free ride to Rutgers for rowing but my Dad's magazine (he was Art Director) got acquired around GW graduation and he couldn't get back with the Government (he later retired as Art Director for the National Archives) in time to make up the incidental costs so my Mom said "well, you can go to any school you want as long as it is VMI". So I followed my 2 older brothers into the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a decision I have never come to regret. Like every new "Rat" (freshman), I lost my weight, my ego and my high school sweetheart. They broke us down as individuals and built us up as a class of "Brother Rats" (BR's) yielding close friendships that have endured for nearly 50 years. VMI, with deep history and tradition, instilled principles of problem solving, leadership and integrity on us with an honor code second to none. I graduated with degrees in Engineering and was tentatively slotted for a combat engineering commission. In those days we had the option to delay our commission for up to 1 year so I took a job with AT&T/C&P Telephone near home since I wasn't sure what the future would bring. At C&P, I was enrolled, along with several fellow VMI BR's, in what was know as the "fast track" (IMDP) management program designed to produce (or weed out) higher management candidates. I was assigned to an engineering position in Falls Church and found myself setting up bachelor quarters with ex-Bostonians bandmate, GWHS crew alumni and dear friend Jim Dooley in Annandale where we regularly ran into and "socialized" with other GWHS alumni. At C&P I worked with a number of GW'ites including Bubbi Manni, Donny Dicicco, Janie (Hughes) Srock, Rich Klonowski and Jackie (Berkstresser) Banister with an occasional sighting of Denny Moore who was at AT&T. After my year, I reported to Belvoir for my induction physical and was promptly excused for a football injury I received while at VMI. So I ended up staying at Bell. During this time I also met my lovely wife to-be, appropriately, at Steve Kennedy's bachelor party at Journey's Inn in DC (interesting to tell your kids you met their Mom in a Bar). I went through a number of engineering and strategic planning assignments in Richmond VA, spent time at Iowa State for Graduate Business and Finance courtesy of AT&T and did TDY in New Jersey before getting promoted to District Manager back to Northern Virginia. I was part of a "3 Amigos" triumvirate in those days where I, one of my VMI BR's, Mike Snead, and GWHS '64 Alumni Paul Kentes (brother of Mike) were the 3 District Managers that ran Business Office, Engineering and Outside Operations. Those were great years. Paul and I got involved with Media General's bid to build Cable TV in Fairfax which arguably was the start of my later career in Cable TV. Afterwards, I was transferred to Washington, DC where I was responsible for Outside Operations, which included the White House and US Capitol but was also assigned to a special project to work with District CableVision on design, bidding, winning and building out the original Cable TV franchise for DC. That was a unique opportunity. District CableVision was run by Robert Johnson who was also the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET). He later sold to Viacom and now owns the NBA Charlotte Hornets with Michael Jordan. He was bankrolled (and was an extension of) Cable (and today Media) mogul John Malone and his company TCI, at the time the nation's largest Cable Company. So for months we had to appear before Mayor Marion Barry and City Council to do the franchising. The TCI executive I worked closely with was John Sie, who went on to become Founder and CEO of the premium cable TV channels Starz ("Outlander", "Counterpart", "White Queen") and Encore, both owned and controlled by Malone. We were successful and I was promoted out to Federal Marketing to run the technical team to design and bid the massive Federal FTS-2000 communications network. When the Bell System was broken up I stayed with the Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) then known as Bell Atlantic (now "Verizon") which covered 7 states. I ran a Product Management Division that spanned the 7 states and was responsible for new product technologies and services. Eventually Bell Atlantic turned its focus back to video and I was brought back to Headquarters in Arlington under the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) as the "resident expert" on cable technology and the "colorful" industry players. I was part of the team charged to develop video and we worked on developing the DSL technology (now used by AT&T's U-Verse) and FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home), running a number of trials in VA and NJ. The FTTH development was the precursor to Verizon's current FiOS offering. We then got sidetracked when an ex-consultant from A.T. Kearney who had served in the Carter Administration (who professed to know everything about everything but to that time had never run anything - typical bureaucrat) convinced the CEO to forget cable and do only video-on-demand over DSL. So we worked on an infamous project called "StarGazer" which today is talked about with the same esteem as the Edsel. There was some good from those years in that we met with all the movie studios and content providers and those connections proved helpful later in my career. After several years of wasted effort and capital, we re-visited the StarGazer decision with the CEO and convinced him it was impractical and that we didn't have the necessary relationships to be successful. We concluded that if we wanted to be in video (Pay TV) given current technologies, it would likely be a buy vs build strategy. I was promoted to Vice President and re-attached to the CTO to work on Project "Irish". So ...Expand for more