John Goeken | Founder of MCI, 80

John Goeken, 80, founder of the telecommunications company MCI and the father of air-to-ground telephone communication, died Thursday at a hospital in his hometown of Joliet, Ill., after a long battle with cancer.

As a founder of MCI and Airfone Inc., Mr. Goeken sought to make communication possible anywhere people went - an idea that at the time revolutionized the telecom industry. He also won a reputation as "Jack the Giant Killer" because of his passion for breaking up communications monopolies such as AT&T.

"You do it because it's something you believe in," Mr. Goeken said for a 1994 profile.

He defied convention and was one of the founders of Microwave Communications Inc. in 1963, setting up a system of microwave towers to provide long-distance service between Chicago and St. Louis to compete with American Telephone & Telegraph Co. The company went on to become MCI Communications Corp., the nation's second-largest provider of long-distance telephone service after AT&T. He left MCI in 1974 and two years later founded Airfone, the first air-to-ground telephone service.

Always restless, Mr. Goeken went on to several other ventures after Airfone, and in 1995 founded Goeken Group Corp., based in Naperville, Ill. - AP