The following article appeared in the Fall 1999 issue of UO Business
November 29, 1999
Charles Lillis arrived on the University of Oregon campus in 1970,
a 29-year-old doctoral student with a bushy red beard wearing jeans, hiking boots and a plaid shirt. His resume included being in the Army twice and getting thrown out of the University of Washington once (although he persuaded the school to readmit him on academic probation, and went on to earn his bachelor's degree and M.B.A. there).
"At first glance," observes Del Hawkins,
now the Charles H. Lundquist Professor of Marketing but then a brand new assistant professor, "one did not envision an executive."
Lillis didn't envision himself becoming an executive, either. After earning his Ph.D. in 1972, he went to work as a professor of business at Washington State University. But Lillis, who describes himself as obsessed with complex business problems, was drawn to challenges outside the class-room. "I just found the business world was better for me," he says simply.
Roger Best entered the doctoral program with Lillis and is now the Thomas C. Stewart Professor of Business at the UO. From the start, he recalls, it was clear Lillis loved the game of business, especially if the stakes were high. "Chuck is not an incremental person," Best says. "He likes to play for something important."
After his stint at WSU, Lillis worked for General Electric as a director of corporate marketing and research, returned briefly to academia to serve as dean of the University of Colorado Business School, and then joined US West in 1985 as vice president of marketing. He became executive vice president and chief planning officer
in 1987.
"A sophisticated public education was a ticket to opportunities that I wouldn't have had any other way."
Chuck Lillis
He was serving as president and CEO of US West Media Group in 1998 when it split from US West and became MediaOne Group. As chairman and CEO of MediaOne, Lillis is responsible
for one of the world's largest broadband communications companies. ("Broadband" refers to the technology of using high capacity cable-TV lines to deliver digital services such as interactive video, Web-enhanced television and high-speed data, and Internet and telephone services.)
From his base in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Colorado, Lillis oversees domestic and international cable as well as telephone communications, international wireless and interactive multimedia services. MediaOne employs
16,000 people, operates in ten countries and generates more than $7 billion in annual revenues.
The Deal of a Lifetime
Known as a sharp deal-maker, Lillis made the deal of a lifetime last year when AT&T agreed to acquire Media-One Group for $62.5 billion, an increase of $50 billion in value since the spin-off from US West. Once all required approvals are received, probably by this spring, Lillis will be out of a job, but not out of play. At age 58, he isn't ready to retire. With his wife, Gwen, who holds a Ph.D. in business from Northwestern University, he plans to establish a family foundation and contemplates returning to academia or jumping into a new business venture.
Thirty years after landing in Eugene flat broke, Lillis is leaving a career that has allowed him and his wife to make a $12 million gift to the UO Lundquist College of Business. He never envisioned that his career would take the direction it did or reach such heights.
A native of Overland Park, Kansas, he came from a lower middle class family. His father left the family when Lillis was two, and his stepfather was a mechanic. Lillis attributes much of his success to his mother, who was a source of great encouragement as well as a pragmatic teacher. Starting in about sixth grade, Harriet Love required her son to give a book report once a week to the family before everyone could eat dinner. He was the first person in his family to attend college.
Primed for Success
More than anything, however, Lillis was motivated by fear of failure. "I've been terrified of failing for as long as I remember," he says, noting that fear can be a positive factor in life. "I still wake up with dreams that I've forgotten to do an assignment for class."
Far from failing, Lillis was primed for success. Even in his UO days, Lillis impressed colleagues with his vision, charisma and confidence. Although soft-spoken and humble, he is not the least bit shy. "As a graduate student he would tell faculty what was wrong with their courses," Hawkins recalls. "He's very sure of himself. He's the same in the business world."
Always highly motivated and a good, solid thinker, Lillis evolved into a leader. In a profile of Lillis last year, The Wall Street Journal called him a visionary. "He's the only true, inspiring leader I've ever known, "Hawkins says. "He can articulate a vision that others can't see, and can get you fired up about it."
Although Lillis has reached the elite level in the corporate world, he has never forgotten how he got there. Lillis credits public universities with opening doors to him. "My personal experience was that the education I got both at the UW and the UO was more important in my future success than almost anything else," he says. "A sophisticated public education was a ticket to opportunities that I wouldn't have had any other way. So I'm a big fan of public education at the university level; it's critically important."
Today's Opportunities
After more than 15 years in the executive suite, Lillis has an insider's knowledge of how business works. In his view, today's business leaders are exceptionally bright, well educated, hard-working, street-smart people who operate under corporate ethical standards that are as high as ever. "But it is more competitive, so in that sense it's more cutthroat," he says. "It's faster. It's harder to make money. But I don't think the basic ethical fabric is much different. What's different is that the wealth created by business is in more and more people's hands."
And that presents enormous opportunities for today's entrepreneurs, no matter what size business they're in. For people with talent and ideas -- particularly in the fast-growing fields of communications, computing, enter-tainment and data--the sky's the limit.
"Maybe for the first time at least in the history of this country, there is much more money available than ideas," Lillis says. "Now the world is awash with money and desperately seeking really high quality ideas and people who will drive them. The richness of the opportunities is just breathtaking."
If Lillis is impressed by the opportunities available today, he is equally impressed with the students who are poised to take advantage of them. "The students get better every year," he says.
To students striving to make themselves attractive to recruiters, Lillis offers some advice. Above all, performance matters. "We still think that how you do in school is a reasonable predictor of how you're going to do in business," Lillis says. "We look at how you do academically, and we like to see people who lead a balanced life and have taken a balance of rigorous courses." Additionally, prospective employers are impressed by students who started businesses while still in college. Knowledge of new technologies is a plus.
Over his 30-year career, Lillis has honed his philosophy of business to a couple of insightful nuggets: Pick the right business to be in, and then focus on the people side. "You will only be as successful as the people you surround yourself with," he says, "and to surround yourself with good people you need
to treat them how you want to be treated. You have to be open, honest, and you can't hoard information. Once you pick the right business, then it's about people."
