LAW, CORPORATIONS ATTRACT MANY FCC EX-COMMISSIONERS, BUT NOT ALL

Chong sees ex-commissioners’ experience as incredibly beneficial to corporations: “To have an in-house executive that understands both state and federal regulations as you go through the process is instrumental.” The trend for commissioners has been shifting recently toward the corporate world, most likely because increased competition has led to more opportunities in the communications market than there were in the times of the AT&T and Bell monopolies, officials said. Blair Levin, top aide to Reed Hundt when he was FCC chmn. (1994-1997), said: “As the wireless and Internet industries have grown, business opportunities become more attractive… Commissioners now are doing lots of things that were not available for [former FCC Chmn. (1972-1977) Richard] Wiley and [former FCC Chmn. (1977-1981) Charles] Ferris.”

Both Wiley and Ferris became big players in private law firms, especially Wiley, whose Wiley Rein & Fielding firm has become the “preeminent communications firm,” Levin said. Former Comr. Henry Rivera (1981-1985) remembered that “there was a time when AT&T wouldn’t touch former FCC employees as just a matter of company policy… and in the old days, that was all there was” in terms of private industry jobs. Ferris (1977-1981) became a name partner in the law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo in Washington.

Former chairmen all have been active in the private sector, changing jobs or starting new companies, while many commissioners have tended to stick to private law. The trend for chairmen to enter corporate life began with Mark Fowler (1981-1987), whose resume seems to be updated annually. From his Commission departure to 1994, Fowler was at the law firm Lathman & Watkins, and of counsel 1994 to 2000. But in 1991 he founded and became chmn.-CEO of the telecom company PowerFone Holdings, a provider of mobile radio communications for taxis that was acquired by Nextel for $400 million in 1994. From 1994 to 2000, he was a founder and chairman of UniSite, an antenna site developer that was sold to American Tower for $205 million. Fowler also was a founder of AssureSat, which sent 2 geostationary satellites into orbit to provide telecom backup services. From 1999 through 2002, he was a dir. of Pac-West Telecomm, a local exchange carrier. He also was a dir. of Beasley Bcst. Group and currently is on the Talk America board. Fowler splits time between Fla. and Cal., but returns to the Commission for the annual Christmas party.

Commissioner-turned-Chmn. Dennis Patrick (1983-1989), like Fowler, didn’t take a very long vacation before jumping back into the communications field. Patrick joined Time Warner in 1990 and created and became CEO of Time Warner Communications, which combined cable and telephone operations. He left Time Warner in 1995 and co-found Milliwave, a local exchange telephone company that used digital frequencies to transmit voice, video and data, which Patrick eventually sold to Winstar in 1997 for $125 million. Next, he founded and became pres.-CEO of Doeg Hill Ventures, which funds start-up telecom ventures, and Patrick Communications, a telecom consulting firm. He also sat on several boards, including Sterling, Va.’s Network Access Solutions and Fla.’s Microgistics. In 1999-2001, Patrick was the first pres. of AOL Wireless. Most recently, he became pres. of National Geographic Ventures after being a trustee on the boards of Ventures and the National Geographic Society. As pres., Patrick deals with the company’s growing TV and film production, its cable channel businesses and dot.com units.

Former Chmn. Alfred Sikes (1989-1993) didn’t change jobs as often, but still remained active in communications. In 1993, he was named pres. of Hearst Interactive Media, where his key accomplishments included major partnerships in sites such as women.com networks, brandwise.com and goodhome.com, along with a successful portfolio of strategic minority investments in Internet companies. He stepped down as pres. in 2001 and remains a Hearst consultant on technology-enabled media investment. Sikes also is chmn. of the Reading Excellence and Discovery Foundation. He’s on such boards as Hughes Electronics, iVillage and Cymfony, in addition to several nonprofit and educational organizations, and maintained all this through a bout with prostate cancer. He’s in the process of finishing a book.

Hundt is the other former FCC chairman to have worked on a book. Yale U. Press published his book, “You Say You Want a Revolution,” released in March 2000. Earlier, he had been co-chairman of the Aspen Institute, a Washington think tank, then joined McKinsey & Co. in Nov. 1998 as a senior adviser on information industries. He also became a principal in Charles Ross Partners, a telecom consulting firm in Md., and a venture partner at the VC firm Benchmark Capital. Along with being a professor at Yale, Hundt sat on many communications-related boards, including Phone.com, NorthPoint Communications, Allegiance Telecom, Novell, Intel and Expedia. Hundt also got closer to politics than many of his FCC counterparts during a flirtation with the possibility of becoming a Cabinet member that was floated during Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. The election results sent Hundt back to McKinsey and international consulting, but Wiley said “he might go back in [to politics] someday if the Democrats take over.”

William Kennard (1997-2001) chose to pursue investment banking after leaving the Commission, becoming a managing dir. of the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that recently received much publicity for making its past and present investments open to the public for the first time (CD May 20 p4). Kennard also sits on boards such as the N.Y. Times, Nextel, Handspring and the nonprofit One Economy.

Some believe chairmen are offered the higher status corporate positions because their “first among equals” position at the Commission puts them under more scrutiny and public attention. But some former commissioners say it’s simply because of their entrepreneurial desire and their interest in seeing the communications industry, as Chong put it, “from the client’s side for the first time.”

Commissioners who never became chairmen also have gone the entrepreneurial route, although they are few. Former Commissioner Andrew Barrett (1989-1996) became managing dir. of the Global Telemedia Group of the public relations company Edelman Worldwide before starting his own public relations firm, the Barrett Group. He remains involved in the telecom industry in other ways, most notably filing an affidavit for Advanced Communications in its petition to the FCC to regain its satellite orbit position.

Former Comr. Chong has the most unusual of post-FCC careers of the commissioners researched since 1980. She had been both a private lawyer and a corporate executive, and decided she liked neither. After leaving the Commission in 1997, Chong returned to private law, her occupation before she “got the call from the White House” in 1994. From Feb. 1998 to Dec. 1999, Chong was a partner in Coudert Bros. in its San Francisco and Palo Alto offices, continuing to work in telecom law, FCC regulation and advanced technology issues. Then in 1999, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers presented her with what seemed like “an offer I couldn’t refuse: A well-funded, well-thought-out start-up company with attractive stock options,” she said. She took the offer, and became full-time gen. counsel & vp-govt. affairs at BroadBand Office (BBO), a communications and Internet service provider. Chong joined Kathleen Abernathy, vp-public policy at BBO, who eventually became an FCC commissioner in 2001. BBO’s business began successfully when it developed relationships with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, which included the integration of advanced application solutions for BBO customers and a $25 million equity investment by each company. The agreements were valued at $500 million total, and BBO gave up 10% of the company to them. While the job “continued to well-round me in terms of life experiences,” the ventures ended up unsuccessful, and the company filed for bankruptcy in May 2001 after “not being able to get our fourth round of finances,” Chong said.

Chong decided she was tired of the telecom industry after those 2 experiences and returned to her home in San Francisco to start a family. She eventually became pres. of Carina Jewelry, a retail store selling Italian jewelry, ceramics, art and gifts in San Francisco, and the owner of www.carinacharms.com. Chong calls the change “a new chapter in my life,” the most important feature of which was her giving birth to twins: “I had the desire to be a mom and I wanted to spend more time at home… We were about to start a family when the call from the White House came, and after I left I had the biological clock ticking so it was time to get going.” Now, Chong says, she’s “having a fun life and doing everything.”

Other notable post-FCC commissioner paths include those of nonlawyers Mimi Dawson (1981-1987), and Harold Furchtgott- Roth (1997-2001). Dawson still deals with the FCC in her work at Wiley, Rein & Fielding as a “heavy duty government relations expert,” said Wiley, who recruited her. He continues to work with many other former commissioners, including Dawson, Tyrone Brown (1977-1981), non-lawyer James Quello (1974-1997), and Rivera. Furchtgott-Roth has returned to the private sector doing economics research. He first became a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, where he continued to work with telecom and regulation. He later started his own group, Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises, and is writing a book on his research ventures..HEADLINE

as dir. of Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Information & Society section and on the Adelphia board. Anne Jones (1979- 1983) stayed in Washington after leaving the Commission and was a partner with the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. Even as Quello approaches his 90s, he has continued to make his presence felt on the communications industry. Since leaving the FCC, he has received many awards for his dedication to broadcasting, has a center for telecom management and law at his alma mater of Michigan State U. named after him and even wrote his autobiography, My Wars: Surviving WWII & The FCC, published in 2001. On the other hand, former Comr. Stephen Sharp (1982-1983) was sentenced to a 10-year prison term in 1992 for sexually assaulting 3 boys and was ordered not to see his then-8-year-old son until he reached the age of 17.-- Andrew Goodman

(Editor’s Note: This is the 2nd in a 2-part series.)