Craig O. McCaw, also known as The Wireless wizard Oz, was born in Centralia, Washington. Craig’s father, a broadcasting magnate was into business of selling radio and television stations, and irrespective of his significant debts provided quality life to his family. As a teenager, Craig and his brothers worked as lineman and door to door salesman for one of their father’s cable television services. Craig was Dyslexic and made extra efforts in his studies, and even continued to run the cable business while studying at Stanford University. He was naive in college, when he took over his father’s business, left with burden of taxes and debts forcing his accountant mother to liquidate the family business.
Craig McCaw then expanded the cable business, and backed by established firms, he acquired a credit line of more than a billion dollar. This future American cellular tycoon then switched into untested and new business of cellular telephone services, and built the McCaw’s cellular empire, which he later sold it to America’s telecom giant AT&T for $11.5 billion. In 2001, he founded XO communications, but ended up under debt of $7 billion, and filed bankruptcy in 2002. Further, his attention turned to the emerging field of wireless broadband Internet access service, and he successfully founded and expanded Clearwire Corporation. The company delivered 4G network services, covering more than 110 million people in 71 markets of United States. Later in 2010, Clearwire stumbled as its operating system, WiMax, failed to catch on as an industry standard. Resulting, Craig resigned his seat on the board of Directors and stepped down as the Chairman of Clearwire. But, don’t bet against him, Craig has the wisdom and experience on his side now.
Craig is an avid aviator, away from his office, he will be found flying his own jet. He is also the founding donor of The Free Willy Foundation and reportedly donated $2 million. Craig was earlier married to Wendy McCaw, a newspaper publisher, who he met during his studies in Stanford. They divorced in 1997, and Wendy reportedly received divorce settlement of $460 million. Now married to Susan Rasinski McCaw, Craig has three children and the family makes their home in Seattle, Washington. Mrs. McCaw, an investment banker and former United States Ambassador to Austria, was also the major fundraiser for George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns.
