William Esrey, chairman and CEO of Sprint Corp., will offer his insights about emerging technologies and how they affect peoples' lives during a speech next week at Kansas University.
Esrey will deliver the KU School of Business Vickers lecture titled "Can We Have Technology and Humanity?" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Lied Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.
"We are excited about having one of the world's leaders in the fast-changing communications industry," said Bill Fuerst, business dean. "We all know communications technology impacts us all. We can see the obvious effects in how we conduct our lives, but there also are subtle, almost invisible, impacts.
"This is a great opportunity to get an insider's views of upcoming innovations and how they might affect our lives."
The J.A. Vickers Sr. Memorial Lecture Series brings prominent citizens to campus to debate or discuss subjects considered vital to maintaining a free political and market society.
Esrey was elected chief executive officer of Sprint in 1985 and chairman in 1990. During his tenure as CEO, Sprint has grown from a local telephone company serving primarily rural areas to a worldwide communications company with annual revenues of $20 billion. Esrey led the effort to reposition the company by entering the long-distance telephone market and building the country's first all-digital fiber-optic network.
In 1994, Sprint entered into a partnership with three cable companies to build the country's first nationwide wireless personal communications network, and today Sprint PCS dominates the industry in new sales. In 1997, Business Week named Esrey one of the top 25 business executives in the world.
Before joining Sprint, Esrey was a managing director of Dillon, Read and Co. from 1970 to 1980. Earlier he held management positions at AT&T, New York Telephone Co. and Empire City Subway Co.
Sprint has been named the Most Admired Telecommunications Company in the United States in Fortune's survey of corporate reputations.
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