Bill Daniels

Born in Greeley, Colorado in 1920, Bill lived with his family in Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa as a child. He started his first cable business in Casper, Wyoming in 1953. As one of the pioneers in cable television, Bill went on to own and operate hundreds of cable TV systems across the country. The firm he founded, Daniels & Associates, is nationally recognized as a leading provider of investment banking services to media and technology companies. An avid sports fan, Bill was one of the first cable leaders to focus on sports programming, giving impetus to today’s highly popular regional sports networks. He also sponsored heavyweight-boxing champions, served as president of the American Basketball Association, was a founder of the United States Football League, and was an owner of several professional sports teams, including the Utah Stars and a stake in the Los Angeles Lakers. he donated more than $20 million to the University of Denver in support of a graduate business school with the requirement that it stress such basic values as honesty, accountability, and community-mindedness. Today, the Daniels College of Business has gained national prominence for its ethics-based curriculum and was recently named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top business schools in the world for producing graduates with high ethical standards. When he passed away in 2000, his estate transferred to the Daniels Fund, making it one of the largest foundations in the Rocky Mountain Region. The Daniels Fund operates the Daniels Fund Grants Program, and the Daniels Fund Scholarship Program in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.