Take the Measure of the Man; An American Success Story

Philadelphia, PA: Veritas Press, 2001. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xi, [1], 260 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. DJ is price-clipped. Inscription on fep is signed "Dan", but it is NOT BELIEVED to be that of the author. Daniel Aaron, a refugee from Nazi Germany and an orphan who went on to become a founder of Comcast, the largest cable company in the country. In 1963, Mr. Aaron persuaded Ralph J. Roberts, a Philadelphia entrepreneur who had recently sold a men's wear business, to buy a small cable television system in Tupelo, Miss. As part of the deal, Mr. Aaron agreed to help run it, and over the next 30 years they built or acquired dozens of other cable systems around the country. The company they started, Comcast, acquired AT&T Broadband to become the largest cable television service provider in the country. I In 1944, Mr. Aaron was not yet a citizen but old enough to be drafted, and he returned to Germany with the army, in time to witness the liberation of slave laborers. After the war, he attended Temple University. Mr. Aaron started his career as a business journalist for the Evening Bulletin, a Philadelphia newspaper, which was where he first encountered the fledgling cable business. He wrote an article about Milton Schapp, founder of Jerrold Electronics, one of the first cable companies to deliver better TV reception. Mr. Aaron was impressed that Mr. Schapp employed an executive who had been physically handicapped by polio and ''made it work,'' as Mr. Aaron recalled in his memoir. Mr. Aaron signed on to the company the next year to handle public relations.