Top Vets

As one of the cable industry’s founding fathers, Navy Veteran Ralph J. Roberts has brought an entrepreneurial spirit to Corporate America, and positioned his multi-billion dollar entertainment giant Comcast for the Twenty-First Century.

“My father and I tend to come to the same conclusions, but we arrive at them in different ways,” his son and current Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says. “I’m more concerned and wary, while my father is more of a risk taker. His view is that we should take the risk, but find a way to be conservative in the way that we finance it. Plan for the worst, but bet on the future. I can do a lot of the analysis, and he’s great at pulling the trigger.”

He calls his father “the great psychiatrist,” someone who is always encouraging and has endless patience.

No ordinary cable guys: Ralph and Brian Roberts, a father-and-son team, have wired Comcast for the future.

His choice as a son for heir to the Comcast empire has more than family values tied to it, as Brian Roberts has emerged as one of America’s most revered CEOs. In fact, in 2008 Institutional Investor Magazine named Roberts as one of America’s Best CEOs for the fifth year in a row, citing among his achievements his success in transforming Comcast into "the undisputed industry leader."

It’s come from a trail blazed by the elder Roberts who in 1963, purchased a 1,200-subscriber cable TV system in Tupelo, Mississippi. His entrepreneurial spirit was sparked to enter this area after successfully growing a men’s suspender and accessories company, and exiting it just in time before the beltless slacks craze hit the country.

“He wisely foresaw the demise of the suspender business and moved on to his true calling," Ted Turner said, a longtime business partner, as he introduced Roberts for the 2003 National Television Academy Trustees’ Award. Turner, who benefited from his early distribution deals with Comcast systems, regards Roberts so highly that he has asked Roberts to serve as a pallbearer (and vice versa).

The 2003 awards event also featured a video tribute from Roberts’ wife Suzanne. "I thought Ralph was absolutely crazy," Roberts said of her husband’s decision to enter the cable business. But his crazy bet paid off handsomely. Comcast is the largest cable TV company in the country, employing 87,000 people and serving 24 million customers.

The road began after college at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and four years as a lieutenant serving at Philadelphia’s Naval Ship Yard. He sought out emerging businesses to invest in before finally seeing the great potential of cable TV.

“The cable business, you put up a tower, you run a line down through the telephone poles, you charge everybody five dollars a month, and you don’t do anything. So it didn’t seem very appealing to me,” he said, reflecting on his first impression. “But as I began to look at what was happening, I realized the cable business was the best of all the ones I had invested in and decided to go forward full boat.”

“It all depends on how you stimulate people,” he adds, about how his management style impacted his business.

It’s a sense of positive motivation, going for what you want instead of running from what you don’t want, which has helped define his entrepreneurial spirit. And it also pervades his family life.

“When I would get home at night, the big deal was the dinner table and everybody talked about what they did, and I think we encouraged our kids to do that, which gives you the greatest happiness and don’t worry what anybody says about it. If you want to be a hotdog salesman, sell hotdogs. It doesn’t make any difference as long as you enjoy it, because most people, I used to say, hate their jobs.”

“He never met a business he didn’t like. He’s eternally optimistic and that infects everyone around him,” the son Brian Roberts says.

PERSONAL
Roberts is on the boards of the Council of Emeritus Directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Brandywine Museum and Conservancy, the Advisory Board of the Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. He has been a member of the PENN Medicine Board of Trustees since 2002.

Ralph Roberts has received awards from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Walter Kaitz Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Urban League of Philadelphia, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He has been awarded honorary degrees from Holy Family College and the University of Pennsylvania, and also received Penn’s Joseph P. Wharton Award.