He thought his Navy days would be behind him when his military obligation ended, but it was only the beginning. Gerry Lenfest stayed on in the Naval Reserve and used what he learned in the Navy to help build a small cable TV company into one of the largest in the industry. Here’s how it all worked out.
Sometimes there’s an obvious connection between a person’s military service and the career that he pursues in civilian life. Take the supply officer who later became a retailing executive, or the fighter pilot who continued flying—for an airline. Mine was more subtle than that.
On the surface, the time I spent in the Navy had no visible link with my first few years as a corporate lawyer or later as a cable TV executive. But the Navy has been a major influence and continuing presence in my life, and I stayed with it—in the Reserve—until I retired.
It started when I was a kid. My dad was educated as a naval architect and headed a shipping company, so I grew up hearing a lot about seafaring. Dad had a soft spot for the Coast Guard, but he was willing to admit that serving in the Navy would be a respectable way of fulfilling my military obligation in those days of the draft. So I signed up for the Naval Reserve Officer Candidate program.
My first taste of active duty was a real adventure. After graduating from Washington and Lee University in 1953 with a B.A. and an ensign’s commission, I spent five months at the Combat Information Center (CIC) School in Glenview, Illinois. Then I shipped out on the USS Holder (DDE-819), a destroyer escort out of Norfolk.
I spent the remainder of my two-year tour as the ship’s CIC officer in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, qualifying as officer of the deck under way and assistant navigator. I did celestial navigation long before the days of Global Positioning System receivers. Then I got out to pursue a civilian career.
In 1955 I enrolled in law school at Columbia University, and after graduation I worked as a trust and estate lawyer for a large New York law firm. In 1965 I became associate general counsel of Triangle Publications Inc., a large private communications company owned by Walter Annenberg. I later became managing director of Triangle’s Seventeen magazine and its cable television properties. In 1974 I struck out on my own and formed a cable TV company.
Our new Lenfest Communications Inc., bought a small Lebanon, Pennsylvania, cable television system from Triangle. By the time I sold the company in 2000, we had expanded from 7,600 subscribers to 1.3 million customers in three continguous states—one of the 12 biggest firms in the business.
Today I serve as head of the Lenfest Foundation, which provides grants and scholarships for education, the arts, and the environment. And I’m on the boards of several museums, universities, and organizations; I chair four of them.
But there’s been more of a link between my time in the Navy and my civilian career than what I’ve just sketched would suggest. Indeed, I credit the Navy for preparing me for my success in the business world. It instilled in me the values and the ethic on which I’ve relied all these years.
For one thing, the Navy gave me—and many other junior officers—a tremendous amount of responsibility. As OOD during night operations, I had the lives of more than 300 officers and Sailors in my hands. If I’d taken a wrong turn, I could have gotten us into a collision. You mature rapidly in such an assignment.
It also showed me the lessons of leadership—something that I might not have learned had I started out in a civilian job. And it showed me how to get along with people from widely different backgrounds. Few civilian jobs provide those kinds of opportunities so early in the game.
Following Navy practice, I continually tried during my civilian career to learn enough about each of the challenges my top corporate officers faced that I could ask intelligent questions without looking as though I was trying to micromanage their divisions.
I made clear that I valued integrity above all, just as the Navy does. And I rewarded good performance with a public “well done.”
To no one’s surprise, I stayed in the Naval Reserve long after I finished my first two-year stint on active duty. At Fort Schuyler, New York, which had a large Marine Corps detachment, I spent weekends and vacation time in charge of a naval-gunfire platoon.
It’s a good thing that I liked it. In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I got called back to active duty to serve as operations officer on board the USS John Hood (DD-655), a destroyer reactivated for the emergency. I spent 11 months at sea and then went back to my civilian job—and, in the Reserve, on board the Hood.
Staying in the Reserve never brought me much monetary return, but it provided some rewarding experiences in other ways. In 1965 I was given command of the USS Coates (DE-685), a destroyer escort based in New Haven, Connecticut, that had been used for training Reservists. It was a challenge—and an opportunity.
The Coates was the lowest-ranking ship in the squadron when I reported aboard. The crew seemed ill at ease and unmotivated. It was obvious we’d have some work to do.
Two years later, we won the USS England trophy as the highest-rated Naval Reserve destroyer escort in the Atlantic, and our commodore wryly dubbed us “a rising star in the east.”
The reason we did so well was that the crew became highly motivated and felt that the ship belonged to them. I learned to step away and let them do their jobs and to give recognition when it was due. To me, that’s the real link between the military’s way of doing things and what works in the civilian world: the common thread is motivation and respect for your shipmates and fellow workers.
I retired from the Naval Reserve as a captain, but I’ve continued to keep in touch with my old shipmates. Serving in the Navy had a major impact on my life early on. It has never waned.