'Chris' Cooney remembered for helping create Tellabs
One of the founders of Naperville-based Tellabs, which at one time was the largest employer in DuPage County and a giant in the telecommunications and broadband industry, has died.
Charles Christopher "Chris" Cooney was one of six Wescom employees who pooled their resources to start the company, believing they could use emerging technologies to replace transistors and ultimately transmit more data.
Cooney, 77, died Aug. 2.
The six founders conceived the idea at a dinner party in 1974 at the Hinsdale home of Michael Birck, who would go on to serve as chairman. Birck was an engineer and each of the six brought their own strengths to the company.
Cooney brought his skills as a salesman and is credited with growing the company worldwide, his son, Chris Cooney, said. He ultimately served as director of worldwide sales for Tellabs, which was sold in 2013 to a group of investors for $891 million.
"My dad was a consummate salesman," Chris Cooney said. "He was a great storyteller and told great jokes. He just brought people together."
Among the first products they designed were echo suppressors, which reduced echoes on phone calls. They went on to introduce the industry's first echo canceling device in 1981, one year after the company went public.
"I remember as a kid assembling echo cancelers at the dining room table," Chris Cooney said. "They stored their first products in a garage and then moved to a small warehouse in Lisle."
It was when the company produced the TITAN 5500 system, which featured a five-stage switching network that used large, wideband cross-connect networks to handle data five times faster than the standard, that sales soared.
"When the TITAN products became something companies had to have, (Tellabs officials) began to see their potential," Cooney says. "Those products really drove their success."
As the company grew, Cooney and company leaders had a goal of reaching $2 billion in sales by the year 2000, which they surpassed, establishing the company as a telecom giant. Around the same time, they established their North American headquarters on a sprawling, 50-acre campus in Naperville.
Despite the company's groundbreaking success, Charles Cooney remained unchanged, his son says.
"He knew the janitor and he knew the president," Cooney said. "He knew everybody. Just getting to his office took 20 minutes because he talked to everyone."
Besides his son, Cooney is survived by his children Sara (Michael) Schimmel and Brendan (Denise) Cooney, as well as 13 grandchildren.
Visitation will take place at 10 a.m. before an 11:30 a.m. funeral Mass Saturday at St. Joan of Arc Church in Lisle.