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William Bresnan

Sep 15, 2003  •  Post A Comment

Bill Bresnan designed and built his first cable system in 1958 in Rochester, Minn. Always a step ahead of the crowd in the technology arena, he helped to develop the first domestic satellite transmission as well as the first fiber-optic communications system in the United States.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Bresnan was a vice president of engineering for American Cablevision Co. He joined Teleprompter Cable Television in 1970, rising to the level of chairman and CEO a decade later.
Mr. Bresnan struck out on his own in 1984, forming Bresnan Communications, a company he sold to Charter Communications in 1999 for $3.1 billion. Vowing to stay active in the cable business, Mr. Bresnan founded a new company, Bresnan Broadband, which this year bought a number of small-market systems from Comcast.
Mr. Bresnan served for three decades on the board of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. He is a member of the Cable Television Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Stanley B. Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Minorities in Communications.