Carl M. Williams Faculty Research Fellowship

Williams was born in 1928 to a ranching family in Douglas, Wyoming. After graduating undergrad, Williams joined the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard in 1952 and fought in the Korean War. During his six years of services as a fighter pilot, he simultaneously earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Wyoming. After graduation from law school, Williams joined Bill Daniels as an original partner in the cable brokerage firm Daniels & Associates. “Bill wrote a check for $600, and I wrote a check for $400 and we started Daniels & Associates by applying the funds to buy an ad in a broadcast magazine,” said Williams in his oral history. After branching out on his own, he went on to build Televents, Inc., with systems throughout Wyoming, Colorado, California, Montana and Florida. The company merged with Western Telecommunications Inc., and was purchased by TCI in the late 1980s. In 1968, while building Televents, Inc., Carl was elected to the Colorado State Senate where he served as the Chairman of the State Senate Affairs Committee. He later went on to serve as Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. He remained active in state and national politics for the rest of his life. A tireless philanthropist, Carl actively pursued and fought for the advancement of ethics and values in education, which lead him to establish and fund programs including the Carl M. Williams Chair for Ethics at the University of Wyoming, and the Carl M. Williams Institute of Ethics and Values at the University of Denver.