Tellabs co-founder Birck passes away
Michael Birck, a co-founder, former CEO and chairman of Naperville-based Tellabs Inc., died on Monday, according to his alma mater, Purdue University. He was 77.
Birck helped to build Tellabs into a global telecommunications company that survived the dot-com bust and economic downturns until it was sold about 2 years ago.
In 2012, Birck revealed that he had chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, an uncommon form of bone marrow cancer, and underwent chemotherapy. He then retired from Tellabs a year later.
During a 2013 interview with the Daily Herald, Birck said he decided against a bone-marrow transplant after doctors said he would have a possible 50-50 chance of dying during the first 100 days following the procedure. Birck said he'd rather take his chances without it.
"I have no big to-do list," Birck had said. "I did a lot of things already. And as for other things, well, I'll get to them. But there's no race to finish things."
Birck was born in Missoula, Montana, and then moved with his parents and four siblings to a farm near Clinton, Indian. His father, Ray, was a mail carrier and his mother, Mildred, was an English teacher and homemaker.
He later earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University and a master's degree from New York University.
He began his career at AT&T's Bell Laboratories and Continental Telephone Laboratories before joining Wescom Inc. in 1968, where he was a director of engineering. His life changed on Fourth of July 1974 during a barbecue at his Hinsdale home.
That's when he and Martin Hambel, a Wescom colleague, casually talked about forming a new company to use emerging technologies expected to replace transistors. They were operational amplifiers, the building blocks in exchanges that would transmit more than data. That fall, the men talked again, this time more seriously.
By early 1975, they enlisted C. Fred Weeks Jr., Charles "Chris" Cooney, Ron Sproull and John Santucci. They went into business together, despite a recession.
To fund the startup, Birck sold all his AT&T stock and used his home as collateral for a $50,000 loan from Citizens Bank of Downers Grove. Hambel and Weeks each sold their homes. Sproull's mother loaned them $20,000.
In 1975, the men raised $110,000 and created Tellabs inside a rented, 3,000-square-foot office on Indiana Avenue in Lisle. The men made a five-year commitment and forfeited salaries that first year. Birck's wife returned to work as a nurse to help support their three children.
The six men often gathered whatever resources they could to design telecommunications equipment. They were latching onto RCA, Western Union and others in the growing satellite communications field, developing equipment to help with signaling and transmission.
The company grew and eventually paid $13 million for 50 acres on Diehl Road in Naperville and spent nearly $115 million to build its North American headquarters.
Tellabs was growing rapidly and Birck split his chairman and CEO position. In 2000, he relinquished his CEO title to Richard Notebaert, a former Ameritech Corp. chief. Then Notebaert left to head Qwest Communications in 2000 and Birck returned to the top spot. Birck stepped down as CEO a second time when Krish Prabhu arrived in 2004. But when Prabhu left, Birck returned again to the helm until Rob Pullen was named CEO. However, Pullen died of colon cancer in 2012.
Birck served on Purdue's board of trustees for 14 years. He was also director of the Economics Club of Chicago and actively involved with the United Way/Crusade of Mercy in Chicago while serving on the board for the Lincoln Foundation for Business Excellence and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Purdue said in a statement online that Birck was inducted into the Purdue Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame last April. He previously was honored by Purdue as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus in 1991 and was given an honorary doctorate of engineering in 1995.
Birck is survived by his wife Kay and three children and several grandchildren.
Arrangements are pending.