McCaws Selected to Receive 2004 Seattle First Citizen Award.

News & Assignment Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 2004

The McCaw family, which built McCaw Cellular into the dominant force in the cellular telephone industry before selling it a decade ago to AT&T, has been selected as the 2004 Seattle First Citizens for their community involvements and philanthropic contributions, it was announced today.

The McCaw brothers -- Bruce, Craig, John and the late Keith -- along with their spouses and their mother, will be recipients of the 66th annual Seattle First Citizen Award at a banquet June 1 at the Seattle Sheraton.

The award, co-presented each year by the Seattle-King County Association of Realtors and the Puget Sound Business Journal, is designed to honor the icons of philanthropy and community involvement and has been presented annually since it was created by the Realtors' association in 1939.

Marion Oliver McCaw, Bruce and Jolene McCaw, Craig and Susan McCaw, John and Gwenn McCaw, and the late Keith McCaw and his widow Mary Kay, will share the First Citizen honor and the recognition at the banquet.

The $20 million gift that allowed the transformation of the former Seattle Opera House into Marion Oliver McCaw Performance Hall (affectionately known as MOM Hall) is the most recent, and highly visible contribution that the McCaws have made to the community.

The announcement of the McCaws' selection was made jointly by co-chairs of the selection committee, Puget Sound Business Journal Publisher Mike Flynn and Ronnie Strupat, the Realtor association representative who also chairs the First Citizen Award committee.

"Philanthropy today is rarely the result of a single individual. Most often it is a collective commitment of spouses and family together," Flynn and Strupat said. "But perhaps never in the 66 years of this First Citizen Award has that fact of philanthropy as a family affair been more evident than this year, with the selection of the McCaw family."

The brothers' father, the late J. Elroy McCaw, was a nationally known broadcaster and businessman. Beginning in 1937 with his first radio station KELA in Centralia, he owned and operated many radio and television stations including KIXI radio, KTVW (Channel 13) television locally and WINS radio in New York. Involved in many other businesses throughout his career he was instrumental in organizing funding for Lear Jet Corp. and was a Vice President of the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962.

After building a very successful national company in cable television, the four brothers were considered visionaries when they seized the opportunity created by the advent of cellular telephone technology in the early 1980s and built McCaw Cellular into the nation's first national cellular network, which AT&T later purchased in 1994.

Since then, although the brothers have been involved in many local and global businesses as well as professional sports investments, their collective commitment to education, the arts, important causes and other nonprofit organizations have become legend.

The brothers' spouses have played a particularly active role in many of the organizations the family supports and, as a business-leader friend of the McCaws noted, "the family rarely gives just passively. They like to be actively engaged with the causes they support and will frequently persuade others to join them in supporting the efforts."

A sampling of their involvements always risks important omissions especially because of many anonymous donations. But any such list would certainly include locally the Museum of Flight, The Seattle Foundation, Lakeside School, Talaris Research, University of Washington and Washington State University, Swedish Hospital, Team Read, Alliance for Education, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Children's Hospital, YMCA, YWCA, , the Opera ,Ballet, Arts Fund (formerly Corporate Council for the Arts,) and various other arts and educational organizations. The brothers are fully committed to the region. Sons of Washington natives, they have resided in King county for over 50 years. Their family dates back to the late 1800's in Washington State.

In addition, the family members have been generous in supporting national and global concerns, including Save The Children, United Way, Oceans Future, Conservation International, Ashoka, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Orbis, Stanford University, and Colorado College.