John Zeglis

John D. Zeglis
Born	May 2, 1947 Momence, Illinois, USA
Education	University of Illinois (B.S.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Occupation	Business executive
Children	3 (Mark, Julie, Brian)

John D. Zeglis (born May 2, 1947) is an American business executive. He served as president of AT&T from 1997-2001 and as chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of AT&T Wireless from 1999-2004. Zeglis also co-founded the NBA G League's Fort Wayne Mad Ants and served as president of the organization from 2007 until the acquisition of the team by Pacers Sports and Entertainment in 2015.

Early life and education

Zeglis grew up in the farming community of Momence, Illinois. His father, Donald, worked as a lawyer. Zeglis played basketball and golf in high school and graduated in 1965. He attended summer camp at the Culver Academies as a teenager.

Zeglis attended the University of Illinois College of Business for his undergraduate studies. Both of Zeglis's parents attended the University of Illinois, and he thought it was a perfect fit. While there, he served as the house president of Beta Theta Pi and was a member of Sigma Iota Epsilon. He was also admitted to Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi. He graduated in 1969 as the valedictorian of the College of Commerce and Business Administration, now known as the Gies College of Business, with a bachelor of science degree in finance. Zeglis went on to attend Harvard Law School, where he served as the senior editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude with a juris doctorate, in 1972. Right after law school, he studied law and economics in Europe on a Knox Memorial fellowship.

Legal and managerial career

Zeglis began his career in 1973 in Chicago, Illinois as an associate at the law firm now known as Sidley Austin. He became an official partner five years later in 1978. While there, he worked on the defense of the AT&T account during the antitrust lawsuit United States v. AT&T, and when the case resulted in the breakup of the AT&T/Bell System, he helped restructure the system. With Zeglis' help, AT&T had successfully broken up into the "Baby Bells" by 1984. After the breakup, he left Sidney Austin and joined AT&T as a vice-president and general counsel.

In early 1997 C. Michael Armstrong was named CEO of AT&T, and Armstrong appointed Zeglis as president later in that same year. In 1999, Zeglis assumed the positions of chairman and CEO of AT&T Wireless. He ended his service as president of AT&T, but continued to serve as chairman and CEO of AT&T Wireless, in 2001. Zeglis held these positions all the way until AT&T Wireless was sold to Cingular Wireless and dissolved in 2004. After the dissolution, Zeglis announced that he would be retiring from telecommunication to follow other pursuits.

The Fort Wayne Mad Ants

In 2007, Zeglis and others founded the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, an NBA Development League Team. They were the first basketball team in the Fort Wayne area since the minor league Fort Wayne Fury of the Continental Basketball Association, who folded in 2001. The nickname "Mad Ants" is a reference to 18th century military officer "Mad" Anthony Wayne, who oversaw the construction of Fort Wayne. The Mad Ants play at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Zeglis was a primary shareholder as well as the president of the Mad Ants. The team won an NBA D-League championship title in 2014.

In September 2015 the Pacers Sports and Entertainment group bought the Mad Ants and converted them into the Pacers' minor league team. The development of the D-League into a one-to-one affiliate league with the NBA is due in part to the work of Zeglis and his son in law Jeff Potter, former three-year starting forward for the Oregon Ducks from 1993-1995 and co-founder of the Mad Ants. The D-League is now known as the G League, after the NBA reached a multimillion dollar sponsorship deal with Gatorade.

Board service

Zeglis has served on a number of corporate, educational and philanthropic boards of trustees and directors, shown below:

• Sara Lee Corporation - international consumer-goods company
• Helmerich and Payne Corporation - international petroleum company
• Illinova Corporation - energy company, subsidiary of Dynergy
• The Brookings Institution - think tank based in Washington, DC
• Kellogg School - School of Management at Northwestern University
• State Farm - insurance company with headquarters in Bloomington, IL
• Gies College - College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• George Washington University - four-year institution in Washington, DC

Current life

Zeglis, 72, is now retired and resides near Culver, IN with his wife Carol on the eastern shore of Lake Maxinkuckee. He frequently takes part in Culver Academy events, an example being an alumni address in 2019 that he participated in along with one of his sons, Mark, and his daughter, Julie. Zeglis reflected on how his experiences at the Academy taught him how to deal with decision-making and uncertainty, which helped him work through things that “[he] had never done before” at AT&T and Sidley Austin".

Career timeline