John W. Stanton
Trilogy Equity Partners

John Stanton is a wireless industry pioneer co-founding three top 10 wireless operators during his nearly 25 year history in the industry. Early in his career, John helped found McCaw Cellular Communications in 1982 where he served as Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman.

Beginning in 1989, John formed a series of private entities that in 1994 were combined to form Western Wireless Corporation, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1989 to 2005. Western Wireless, which was the nation’s seventh largest independent cellular company when it merged with Alltel Corporation in August 2005.

Western Wireless formed VoiceStream Wireless as a subsidiary in 1995, and spun off as an independent public company in May 1999. John served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of VoiceStream until it was sold to Deutsche Telekom in 2001. At the time, VoiceStream was the sixth largest wireless company in the U.S. Deutsche Telekom subsequently changed the name to T-Mobile. John served as Chairman and CEO of VoiceStream and T-Mobile USA from 1995 to 2003.

In 2006 John and several colleagues formed Trilogy Equity Partners, which invests in small wireless related companies, and Trilogy International Partners which operates wireless systems in south and central America.

John served as chairman of national wireless associations three times, once each during the 1980’s representing McCaw, the 1990’s representing Western Wireless and in 2000-2001 representing VoiceStream/T-Mobile. He presently serves as a board member of Advanced Digital Information Corporation, Hutchison Telecommunications International, Columbia Sportswear and as a Trustee of Whitman College. A Seattle native, John graduated from Whitman College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

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