Suncoast Business Forum; Dennis McGillicuddy

The following is a special presentation of w. we do YOU Tampa St. Petersburg Sarasota. There's no one exactly like you. No one has the same financial goals or cares about the same people. That's why Raymond James financial advisors have the independence to offer unbiased advice that's right for you. And that's why we pioneered the idea of fun. Planning. You might say were just as unique as you are. Raymond James and the visual solutions from independent advisors. Not all business pioneers set out to be pioneers. Sometimes they're pursuing a normal career and then an opportunity presents itself and that opportunity turns into the adventure of a lifetime. Having the courage and the fortitude to take that entrepreneurial leap is what distinguishes pioneers from everyone else. You're about to meet a successful Sarasota businessman who gave up a legal career to get in on the ground floor of the cable TV revolution in America and who over the years has been an

activist for social change. Next on the Suncoast business form. Back in the 1960s cable TV was strictly a rural thing. Cable was used to bring local broadcast TV signals to small communities that couldn't pick them up from nearby cities. It was small but big changes were on the horizon. In 1968 a young lawyer named Dennis McGillicuddy joined two partners to form a coaxial communications a fledgling company that served about 200 customers in rural Florida. Over the next 30 years they built coaxial into a sizable cable company serving communities in the South and

Midwest. As their success grew Dennison's partners branched out into investment banking publishing and real estate among other businesses. Now Dennis and his wife are directing a lot of their energy to philanthropy and social change. Dennis welcome to the Suncoast business forum. Thank you Jeff. Now the McGillicuddy name or as a lot of people know it in its abbreviated form Mac is well known both in sports in the United States and politics in the United States and in Florida. Give us some of the historical context of your name your heritage. Well my grandfather who most people know as Kahney Mac was one of the three men who started the American baseball league back in 1981. His name was Cornelius McGillicuddy McGillicuddy family had come from Ireland in the 1830s and moved to Western Massachusetts. And my grandfather had an illustrious career

spanning 50 years. He owned the team he started out as a minority owner and over the years purchased 100 percent ownership of the team the Philadelphia Philadelphia athletic That's right. And when we were growing up as kids before we moved to Florida we go to the ball games every Saturday and Sunday that the team was in town. Now Kahney Mac is referred to as the Grand Old Man of baseball. The grand old gentleman of baseball. All right he was he was the manager and owner for 50 years. And and there's another Conny Mack that a lot of people know of his well not your grandfather but your brother. My right. My brother who is Cornelius McGillicuddy the third. And when we were growing up all of the family used Mack. My grandfather was still alive. When I got to law school. I started using McGillicuddy Conny being the namesake. I kept the name

as our dad was Junior. So it was normal for him to continue to use the name and. At one point in nineteen eighty one thousand eighty two. Conny ran for Congress was elected it was a really interesting time for us because we were new to politics. The congressional district ran from Fort Myers to Sarasota. My wife got very much involved in that campaign and it was successful and that led to an 18 year career in Congress and the United States Senate. And I'm very proud of the work that he did for our country. And you were born and raised and raised up till age 9 in Philadelphia. That is correct right. And of course the McGillicuddy name or the Mac name in Philadelphia was was legit but at the age of nine you moved to Fort Myers Florida where a little bit of that magic probably rubbed off. How was it to make that transition from being part of a legendary family in Philadelphia to small town Fort Myers back in the

1950s right. Yeah we moved down to Fort Myers in 1050. I would say for me the biggest transition was not didn't relate to the name I was nine years old. I certainly knew that my grandfather was a famous person but I didn't have any kind of sense that that was anything out of the ordinary. It was you know changing friends getting into a new environment a very southern town. Fort Myers was a town of 8000 people. So we move from mainline Philadelphia to little over Fort Myers and 1050 growing up there was fantastic. I learned to fish I played baseball in high school I played all three sports. It really was a very grounding kind of environment to live in. And I think I actually feel very fortunate that we that we moved down here. Well tell us about your family and growing up. Are you one of eight kids in my right. That is correct yes. Tell us about the family and you and your parents and some of the values that they instill. All right well.

I think I'd like to start with my my parents met at Duke University. Here's my dad who is. And in the 19 early 1930s a Yankee Catholic from Philadelphia the son of a very famous person. My mom was from Texas can a Texas Baptist and her father was the dean of the United States Senate. His name was Mar shepherd and he died in 1041 just before I was born so I never met him but he was a great man. So it was a unusual circumstance for two people to get together like this. And for example my mom when she married my dad had to agree to raise us as Catholics. And which I must say that she did with great fervor ultimately. So I'm one of eight children and the first four were born in

Philadelphia. We moved down to Fort Myers and I'll never forget the day on Mom's 40th birthday she gave birth to her fifth child John. And subsequently had three more children and gave birth to Betsy when she was 46 years old. Now an interesting twist when John was baptized Catholic my mom after all those years became a Catholic. The story doesn't end there. Nineteen years later John became an ordained Baptist minister. So there is in our family my sister is a nun living here in the Tampa Bay area and we have a very ecumenical family. Was religion discussed in the family religious tolerance diversity because obviously your family represented religious diversity yes.

Yeah I would say more in terms of not outright discussions but the way my parents behaved and the things that would happen in everyday life is what created the values that I got from them. I'll tell you a story when we had first moved to Fort Myers. So nine or 10 years old. And we live pretty near the golf course. And one Saturday morning a bunch of us from the neighborhood went over to the golf course and started playing touch football with the caddies who happen to be all black. And we had a ball. And I'll never forget the experience because most of the of the black guys were four or five years older than I was and I was kind of running around almost underneath their legs as they were leaping up the catch passes and stuff. But it was an absolute. Fun thing to do. We get home. The phone is ringing off the wall and the parents of some of our neighborhood friends were irate that we were playing with blacks and I'll never forget that lesson because my dad

a very low key person but he sat us down and said the neighborhood's all upset about this kind of stuff. And he said I want you to know that's wrong. They're the color of somebody's skin is not how you judge them. And you know I don't remember all of the precise words but the message was so loud and clear. And at the same time he was not real preacher or of against those people. He said there are some people in our community that are prejudice that's how they've been taught. And it's not right. And I want you to know that you guys did nothing wrong. And you know that stuck with me. They're obviously very very important lesson in my life. Was your father an important mentor too. Yes my dad was both my mom and dad were such exceptional people. My dad was such a generous person. And that's because he had empathy and compassion for people. When he retired from business he ended up how he spent his retirement years. I was working at

the hospital and everybody left him because he treated everybody the same Here's the person that was even when he retired everybody knew Connie Mack was in Fort Myers and he was so well looked up to. And he spent his time because he got enjoyment out of it of dealing with people that were in the hospital. Now as a kid we were involved in sports I was baseball a prerequisite since I was part of the family it wasn't a prerequisite but I loved it and I was a pitcher. I played for years lettered for years in high school in baseball I played basketball and football which I feel really lucky because in this day and time I doubt that I could play on any of them. And it's so specialized. And but our we were able to play all the sports and. Football interesting enough was more of a lesson life lesson for me because I can remember these hot August days at football practice before the season started and

football's a very physical game and there were so many times when I would feel like I don't know if I can keep doing this. And I kept doing it and I learned a level of perseverance. By that physicality of being out there in that hot sun muscles aching getting up in the morning from day to day to day practices to practice days. And that also has stayed with me. It's there's a perseverance that I learned from that playing football that was very important in my life. Now you went on to the University of Florida undergraduate and you also went to law school. How did you see your career developing at that point. Well I had in mind I took political science in undergraduate which was at the time. The kind of the only path that was recommended for going for law school I'm not sure I would recommend other people that that's the only way to do

it. And so a lot going to law school was almost like a natural sort of thing. And I did that I did very well in law school and I actually had in mind that I thought I would want to be a judge when I at some later time in my career. So I chose when I got when I graduated from law school to go clerk for a federal district court judge in Jacksonville. And interesting enough while it was fascinating job and we had some really interesting cases including desegregation cases back in the in that time I learned that it was too passive for me. And I so I learned something that what I didn't want to do. And so I graduated. Did that job and then went to work for a law firm that was the predecessor to the current Holland at night. There's also during your college years that you met your future wife Prossy. Yes. Tell us about that. Well that's that's a dream when I think about my relationship

with Rossi we've been married 45 years. We we met because she was dating and actually pin to a brother in the in my fraternity. And she would fix me up with dates from her sorority Delta Gamma and we were good friends. One morning both of us skipped class ended up in a place called the hub on the University of Florida campus where we played bridge and we would gather and play bridge again for those who drank coffee drink coffee and grog she announced that she had broken up with this fraternity brother of mine and I immediately asked her out and I tell you I have no memory of saying it just happened I asked her out we went out the following Saturday night and it's a modified love at first sight because I met Prossy before but that night was magical. We both fell in love with each other head over heels and that was the

beginning of a 45 year romance that is she's the love of my life in the light of my life. After practicing law for a couple of years you actually left the law and became an entrepreneur are you. You teamed up with two partners and formed coaxial communications cable. Why did you do that why do you give up law to go into cable TV a fledgling business. Well the relationship with one of the partners started in law school. Barry Silverstein was a law professor of mine. He and I became friends during law school and actually one day he called me in his office and said You know I don't know how much longer I'm going to teach law. I'm not sure I'm going to that this is cut out for me he had already been in business made enough money to retire teach. And I'm thinking about going into a real estate business so we kind of kept up after I left

law school. And the one one August afternoon I was on my first paid vacation ever. And I get a phone call from Barry. And he tells me about this other fellow that he got to know Steve McFaul who was the third partner out of the third partner. And that is that cable television looks like a fascinating business to be in. Would I come up and talk to him about joining them and reflecting years later while I went through what I consider due diligence and went up there and met the minute I hung up the phone I knew I was going to do it so there was kind of an instinct to say this is for me. I appreciate you referring to being courageous and introducing me. I didn't feel that way at all I felt like I had a good solid base in law. I could always go back and practice law and. So here was an opportunity of a lifetime to do. And of course it turned out that no way could I

imagine the way that it turned out. The my life as a printer and business man has was so fulfilling and interesting. Filled with a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Let's talk about some of those downs because this was six in the 1960s cable TV was small it exploded in the 1970s and 1980s. You probably couldn't anticipate the way it was going to go but tell us about some of those ups and downs. Well when we first when when Barry and Steve first got together and then I joined them. That was the promise for satellite. And that was going to be satellite transmission of broadcast signals and other programming was the future of cable. And we all kind of knew that. But I remember the first time satellite signals were available. People were nervous was it really going to work. And of course it did. And the rest is history. We started out building small rural communities in

Florida Georgia and Alabama. So small that people that the big guys wouldn't go after and we develop some technology and I say we basically Steve make void who is our technology guy. We built parabolic antennas that were used in Canada to bring signals in from 200 miles away. No one else was doing that. Not many people because we were in the rural South. We could actually put our cables underground we could plow underground. So we really learned the business in that $5 a month. Improve your signal or bring TV to the town. If you couldn't get any at all in the future we knew lay in the big cities. And so fairly early on we made a joint venture arrangement with an insurance company based in Chicago and it was the future looked unlimited because here is this big insurance company with all the capital that we

need. However as plans go awry that insurance company was taken over by another company a conglomerate that had its eye only on the insurance business and our investment along with a number of other investments outside the insurance business were really pushed aside by that company. And we've actually fought for our lives that we they were going to take us over sell everything out and happy to report that after a fairly extensive conversations and some pieces of litigation. We ended up settling and buying them out and were able to because the business had grown during this time. We're able to finance the purchase of that and that kind of set us on our way then to build our business. And as you built the business your responsibility was financed largely it was finance some connection with management fairly early on and one of things that I'm very proud of that we did and it was Barry

was the one who first said it and. You know we're not operating guys so when we get big enough we need to bring in professional managers and we did that fairly early on. So that freed us up to look for new opportunities to buy and sell cable systems too. And part of my job was then to go out to the markets to buy to finance what we were doing in the early years it was very tough particularly for a small private company. There were very few financial institutions that had the expertise. Now when cable took off that it became everybody's darling and money was easy to get. Sure. Yeah. Now in the in the in the 1900s that the three of you sold coaxial. Yeah. You had to invest in other businesses as well. But you turned a lot of your energy into philanthropy and into community involvement as did your wife crossing. Let's talk about some of the you community involved in some of the projects that are important to you. Well I guess I would start with one that's current

right now that we're in our fifth year of a project called Embracing our differences embracing our differences is an outdoor art exhibit of billboard size works of art. Thirty nine of them that we present each year at the bayfront in Sarasota. The phrase embracing our differences represents the notion of the value of diversity and inclusion and fighting hatred and prejudice. And we originally started the project in connection with the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. There was a traveling international exhibit around that same concept. It was called coexistence. We had such success that the steering committee that we had put together said we have to try to Sarasota as a great arts community. Let's see if we can't produce quality art and continue this. So we said we're going to do it one more year.

We're now in our starting our fifth year and I'm happy to report that we should go over 500000 people that will have seen our exhibit each year. It runs during the month of April and it is one of the most gratifying experiences that I've had. It's brought people together. The message is so important in this day and time about how diversity enriches our lives and how it's so important is for people to respect the thoughts and beliefs of others we get sometimes way too focused. And you know the reality is if we listen to other people then we've elevated our own experience. And also we really promote the concept of standing up speaking out to fight hatred and prejudice where we see it. So it's obviously very dear to my heart. Another project that I am so proud of and this is one that my wife has been

involved in for 20 some years and I'm happy to report now I'm able to help her with this is the Child Protection Center is a nonprofit who's in Sarasota whose responsibility is to deal with child abuse. Most people are not aware of how pervasive child abuse is. In Sarasota in Desoto County which of the areas the Child Protection Center deals with there are a thousand reported cases of child abuse and we are currently only able to deal with 300 of them. This is that the efforts of the Child Protection Center and what she's been spending the last 20 years trying to do is to break the cycle. Most people don't understand. While every child has been abused doesn't become an abuser. Ninety nine point nine percent of every

abuser has been an abused child. And we have all kinds of programs after they've become perpetrators. We don't have enough for dealing with when these innocent children. I'm talking about 2 month old 5 month old kids 5 year old kids in Sarasota. The Child Protection Center is does such a credible work. We've now run out of space in the in the location where the center is so we're not able to deal with all the people so we're in the middle of a major capital campaign to build a child advocacy center and we're going to stop the cycle of child abuse. Philanthropy and community involvement social activism are very important to you and to your wife. In the one minute that we have left how do you decide to get involved and how do you decide to direct your philanthropy.

I can't remember when I saw the saying on a wall on a beautiful picture and underneath it was a saying that says many things can catch your eye but only if you capture your heart. And that's how I go I think. I kind of connect to what really makes my skin tingle. What makes more juices because the world is filled with wonderful people doing great things and you can't do them all. So that's kind of how I think I see what resonates with me. The other factor is which is another resonating factor is the people that are involved doing it. If I feel a special connection to them and and that's worked pretty well. Well Dennis it's been great having you as our guest. If you'd like to reach us at the Suncoast business forum with any questions or comments Our email address is SPF at W edu dot org and you can view this show along with past episodes of the Suncoast business form at W E Do you dot org. Thanks for joining us for the Suncoast business for.

You. How many times have you seen a great business idea take off. Why did not I think of that. Well back in the 1960s a young lawyer named Dennis McGillicuddy took a leap of faith that

cable TV which was a small industry would grow into an enormous global phenomenon. Over 30 years he and his partners built coaxial communications from a tiny business into a substantial and to. Meet entrepreneur and social activist Dennis McGillicuddy on the next Suncoast business form.