Jack Goeken: Telecom Entrepreneur

s the man behind the breakup of AT&T's U.S. telecommunications monopoly, you'd think MCI founder John D. "Jack" Goeken, now 70 and quite wealthy, would be resting on his "Jack the Giant Killer" laurels.

But then, you don't know Jack Goeken took on what, at the time, was the world's biggest corporation, along with its litany of lawyers and the Federal Communications Commission, for a simple reason: He thought he was right. The FCC eventually concluded Goeken was right, and he prevailed in a case that spawned today's competitive, yet booming, telecom industry.

But Goeken didn't stop there. He moved on to build the world's largest data network and create the air-to-ground telephone business. And today, his Naperville, Ill.-based company, The Goeken Group, continues to turn innovative ideas into solid companies.

"My story shows two things," Goeken says. "It shows that it pays to be dumb and that you can do anything you want in this country. How could five guys fight the world's largest corporation [at the time] and win? It shows that if you believe in something, you can make it happen."

Indeed, Goeken's perseverance and belief in his ideas are what defines him, his associates say.

TELECOM ENTREPRENEUR In the 1960s, Goeken filed for an FCC license for his two-way radio company, Microwave Communications Inc. (MCI), but the big phone companies moved to block him. This undaunted entrepreneur carried the fight to the telecom giants, ultimately forcing the cataclysmic breakup of AT&T and igniting the rocket growth in today's voice/data communications market.

The son of a Lutheran minister, Goeken grew up with little money as a child, says his daughter Sandra Goeken, president of The Goeken Group. "He was brought up in the school of hard knocks. That made him extremely tenacious," she says, discussing her father's impact on the business world.

"Yes, he created competition in the telecommunications industry, but it's more than that," Sandra Goeken says. "It starts with the attitude that 'Where there's a will, there's a way' [and] that the little guy can make a contribution. He had no money and no education, yet he singlehandedly broke the AT&T monopoly. No one else can take credit for that. We'd probably still be using black rotary phones without modular jacks if it weren't for Jack."

But for Jack Goeken, the realization of the idea is the payoff, Sandra Goeken adds. "He really loves the challenge of finding a market need and filling it with a product or service. For him, it's the creating that's exciting. He was convinced that MCI was going to change America for the better."

Engineer Joseph Child, who joined MCI as its 19th employee in 1969, also lauds Jack Goeken's determination once he has an idea. "Jack is a visionary who had the foresight and cleverness to put things together," Child says. "But more important, he would never give up on his idea."

Goeken's impact on the high-tech industry is much greater than many people realize, Childs says, pointing to the MCI founder's influence in the data communications realm. "MCI, in the early 1970s, started telling people they were going to carry data, and the number of modem manufacturers rose from three to more than 80," Child says. "If you look at the impact of data communications on the world, it's enormous, and Jack had a lot to do with that. At the time, AT&T would have stopped anything that smelled of data if they could have," he says.

After leaving MCI in 1974, Goeken aimed to cultivate the world's largest computer network,for the floral industry. "Back then, if you went to a florist and ordered flowers, they'd get out these great big books and start calling florists in the town you wanted to send them to," Goeken says. "So I thought this could be done a lot smarter."

The result, unveiled in the late 1970s, was a national network of 10,000-plus terminals, the biggest ever built at the time. "That [seemed like] a nutty idea. But it changed the entire floral business and many other businesses later on," Child says.

"If you think of all the people who have been in high technology, there are probably only a dozen other people who have had the kind of impact that Jack has," Child adds. "But if you trace the massive social changes of our day, more than any other individual, they trace back to Jack."

One of Goeken's innovations was the air-to-ground phone. After observing that most people exiting a plane headed for the pay phones, Goeken thought that phones should be put on planes. But the idea wasn't an easy sell. He had to convince the FCC and the Federal Aviation Administration. Goeken prevailed, a triumph that gave birth to Airfone, an air-to-ground phone company.

Goeken later sold Airfone to GTE, yet the move paved the way for his next project: improving the analog air-to-ground phone technology he created. The result: In-Flight Phone, a digital air-to-ground voice/data service, which he sold to MCI in 1994.

When he founded MCI in 1963, Goeken didn't set out to break up a monopoly. He had a simple plan to increase sales at his two-way radio franchise in his hometown of Joliet, Ill.

At the time, radio frequencies were congested, which made it tough to sell two-way radios, Goeken says. He thought that if he could erect microwave towers between Chicago and St. Louis, he could sell more two-way radios to trucking companies and generate lucrative maintenance contracts. So he applied for an FCC license.

However, petitions to deny the license application of Microwave Communications Inc.,MCI's original name,were filed by AT&T, Illinois Bell, Southwestern Bell, GTE and Western Union. Goeken didn't see why phone companies would have a problem with his little two-way radio business, so he figured a quick trip to Washington would resolve the issue.

	ACHIEVEMENTS
	Goeken's daughter, Sandra, says he loves the challenge of finding a market need and filling it with a product or service. %A0%A0 Started MCI, a two-way radio company, in 1963. %A0%A0 Built a national computer network for floral industry in the late 1970s,at the time, the largest such network. %A0%A0Invented air-to-ground voice and data communication technology, spawning Airfone and In-Flight Phone. %A0%A0Led epic battle that eventually compelled the federal government to break up AT&T, unleashing a telecommunications boom.

MCI's five owners knew fighting the phone companies would be costly, so they ponied up $600 apiece to cover legal expenses. "That's how dumb we were," Goeken says. "We thought we could fight AT&T with $3,000." As the legal expenses grew, MCI's partners dropped out one by one,but Goeken persevered.

After years of fighting, Goeken's radio business eventually grew into a national network as his chief rival AT&T was being divided by the federal government.

"All the original guys dropped out because they didn't have the money," Goeken says. "I was the only one who kept believing in it. I believed that this is America, so if I wanted to go into the telephone business, I had as much right to go into the telephone business as a guy [who wanted] to be an auto mechanic. I believed that AT&T didn't have the right to keep me out of the business. All we were asking for was the right to fail."

About the same time, MCI's sole lawyer, Michael Bader, told Goeken he couldn't spend any more time on the case without getting paid. "But he felt sorry for me," Goeken adds. "So he let me use his law library. I don't know if he knew it or not, but I used to sleep there because I couldn't afford a hotel room. . . . But in his law library, I'd do all the research and write it up, and he'd clean it up and do the filing."

But Bader didn't clean up the filings entirely, Goeken adds. "I tried to write things so AT&T would stay confused. [For example], if I said I was going to use a white cup, I knew AT&T would say it can only be done with a black cup. So I'd write the arguments so that I could come back and say, 'We are using a black cup,' " he says.

"In the initial decision when we were granted a license, the judge said, 'AT&T complained about Mr. Goeken's use of the King James version of the English language. Admittedly, he butchered the heck out of it. But he knew what he wanted to say, and there is no law against using bad English.' So if we would have had the money for a team of lawyers, I don't think MCI would have got the license."

And it's possible the telecom industry might never have boomed the way it did.