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November 29, 2009

Cable pioneer, Mankato native Bill Bresnan dies

CEO Bresnan donated to Minnesota State, SCC

By Dan Linehan

MANKATO — William J. Bresnan, a Mankato native whose 50-year career in the cable industry began with Rochester’s cable system and eventually led to the helm of a multi-billion dollar cable company, has died. He was 75.

Bresnan died Friday at his home in Greenwich, Conn., after a yearlong battle with cancer.

“A week didn’t go by without some form of Mankato anecdote,” said Shawn Beqaj, vice president of public affairs for Bresnan Communications. “They (William and his brother, Pat) are very much Minnesota guys in their hearts.”

Minnesota State University’s Bresnan Arena is named after him, thanks to a $1 million donation in 1998.

Bresnan was born in rural Madison Lake in 1933 and grew up with three siblings and a single mother, Ann. His father, Robert Leonard, died of tuberculosis when William was five.

After a childhood in the Great Depression that nonetheless taught him lasting lessons, William Bresnan attended a two-year program at Mankato Technical School, now South Central College, in radio and television repair.

His career eventually landed him as the chief engineer of Rochester’s cable system.

Bresnan tied his fortunes to businessman Jack Kent Cooke and quickly climbed the corporate ladder.

In 1984, he formed Bresnan Communications.

His 1998 donation to MSU was both an act of philanthropy and a good business decision, he said at the time. Bresnan’s cable system carried MSU games to 125,000 southern Minnesota cable subscribers.

In 1996, he donated scholarships worth $100,000 to students at what is now South Central College. He directed the scholarships to children of single parents.

In 2000, Bresnan Communications was sold to Charter Communications for $3.1 billion.

He returned to the cable business in 2002 with the purchase of a 320,000-subscriber network in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

A Wednesday mass has been set in Greenwich.

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