Stanley L. Wang, 67; was Comcast executive

Stanley L. Wang, 67, an "unsung hero" who as a cable-franchise negotiator and general counsel helped build Comcast Corp. into the nation's largest cable company, was killed Thursday afternoon while bicycling in Moorestown.

Mr. Wang, an avid cyclist and tennis player, was knocked into oncoming traffic when his bicycle struck a parked pickup truck's door being opened by the driver on Main Street, according to police. Mr. Wang was thrown from his bicycle and struck by a passing Chevrolet Cavalier being driven by Kellie Gifford, 19, police said.

He was pronounced dead at Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Cherry Hill, police said.

Moorestown Police Sgt. Randolph S. Pugh said he was still investigating the accident but did not anticipate that charges would be filed.

Comcast executives were in shock yesterday over the timing, and remembered a man who avoided the limelight and mentored a generation of executives who took the reins from the company's founders.

Mr. Wang, who joined Comcast in 1981, was scheduled to finally retire on June 30 after continuing to work, part time, on special projects. He had retired as executive vice president in 2003.

One of his special projects had been overseeing construction and leasing details of the new Comcast Center, which officially opened June 6.

The Philadelphia company recently mailed invitations to Mr. Wang's retirement party in July at Ralph's Cafe in the new tower.

Mr. Wang's wife, Pola, was retiring from her teaching job this summer so they could begin their retirement together. Her last day was the day of the accident, said their son, Seth Warner. They also have a daughter, Dana Padula.

Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts said Mr. Wang was easing into retirement because "he had the temperament to do that."

Mr. Wang was an "unsung hero whose contribution and ethics and morality and friendliness leaves a hole in the company's heart," Roberts said. "The culture of deal-makers was not Stanley. What he did was the less glamorous thing of making it all work."

Mr. Wang negotiated programming deals crucial to cable's success in the 1990s, Roberts said. One all-night negotiating session with CBS led to free retransmission of CBS over the Comcast cable system, instead of Comcast being charged, and set a standard for the industry, he said.

Arthur R. Block, the company's current general counsel, who was hired by Mr. Wang, said that his mentor had "helped make the culture" at Comcast and that Mr. Wang's goal was to make the company "as human a place as you could within a corporate environment."

Warner said that unlike some top executives who have trouble letting go of corporate life, his father eagerly awaited full retirement and had encouraged his wife to retire as a high school Spanish teacher so they could be together.

Mr. Wang had an office in the Comcast Tower with other executives in the founding generation but his thought was, "Hey, this is my time and it's time to go," Warner said.

Ralph Roberts, a Comcast-cofounder and a member of the board, said he came into contact with Mr. Wang when the then-small cable company negotiated for pay-TV franchises in northern New Jersey. Mr. Wang sat across the negotiating table, representing the towns. "We admired him like you'd admire the opposition," Roberts said. At the time, Mr. Wang was a regulatory lawyer in a Newark firm.

When the franchise deals wrapped up, Roberts asked Mr. Wang to join Comcast as its first in-house lawyer. Mr. Wang served as general counsel and began assembling Comcast's legal team, which now has 75 lawyers around the nation. The company produced $31 billion in annual sales in 2007 and employs 100,000 people.

Mr. Wang, Ralph Roberts, and other Comcast cofounders, Julian A. Brodsky and Daniel Aaron, in addition to Pola Wang, played tennis, which "was the major extracurricular activity," Roberts said. He described Mr. Wang as "high-grade" and "top-drawer. He was not an egomaniac and he really came through," Roberts said.

A funeral service is planned for 11 a.m. tomorrow at Platt Memorial Chapels in Cherry Hill. The family asks that donations be made to the Philadelphia Orchestra or the American Cancer Society.