John Stanton is a wireless industry pioneer, co-founding three of the top 10 wireless operators in the United States during the last 37 years. His involvement in the wireless industry began in 1982 when John helped found McCaw Cellular Communications, where he served as Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman. By 1989, McCaw had grown to be the largest wireless operator in the US and in 1994 was sold to form what is now AT&T Wireless.
Beginning in 1989, John and his partners formed a number of private entities to provide wireless service in rural areas. In 1994 these entities were combined to form Western Wireless Corporation, which went public in 1996 (NASDAQ: WWCA). In addition to the company’s US operations, Western Wireless also operated wireless networks in eleven countries in Europe, Africa, and South America. Western Wireless was the nation’s seventh largest independent wireless operator when it was acquired by Alltel Corporation in August 2005 in a transaction valued at $6.2B. John served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1989 to 2005.
VoiceStream Wireless, which was formed as a subsidiary of Western Wireless in 1995, was John’s third wireless endeavor. VoiceStream (NASDAQ: VSTR) which was spun off from Western Wireless as a public company in May of 1999 and was sold to Deutsche Telecom for $50.7B in 2001. Deutsche Telecom subsequently changed the name to T-Mobile USA. John served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company from 1995-2003.
John joined the board of Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ: CWLR) in December 2008 and served as chairman from January 2011 to until the company was sold to Sprint in August 2013. John served as Interim CEO of Clearwire in March – August 2011.
Today, John is the Chairman of the three Trilogy Partnerships. Trilogy Equity Partners invests in early stage growth companies; Trilogy Search Partners invests in private search funds and Trilogy International Partners Inc. (TRL.TO) operates national wireless systems in Bolivia and New Zealand. John is also the Chairman and Managing Partner of First Avenue Entertainment which owns the Seattle Mariners and Root Sports. John serves on the boards of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST).
In the community, John chaired or co-chaired the Business Partnership for Early Learning, the United Way of King County campaign, the Regional Transportation Commission and the Whitman College Board of Trustees. He presently serves as the chair of Year Up of Puget Sound and on the board of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Nationally, John served as chair of national wireless industry associations on three occasions; during the 1980’s representing McCaw, the 1990’s representing Western Wireless and in the 2000’s representing VoiceStream/T-Mobile.
He has a BA in Political Science from Whitman College and MBA from Harvard Business School. John lives with his wife Terry Gillespie and has two grown sons.