Frank Stanton

Frank Nicholas Stanton (March 20, 1908 - December 24, 2006) was an American broadcasting executive who served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 and then vice chairman until 1973. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.

Along with William S. Paley, Stanton is credited with the significant growth of CBS into a communications powerhouse.

Early life

Stanton was born March 20, 1908 in Muskegon, Michigan to Helen Josephine Schmidt and Frank Cooper Stanton. He attended Stivers School for the Arts then just Stivers High School in Dayton, Ohio. He then attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, receiving a B.A. in 1930. He married his childhood sweetheart, Ruth Stephenson, in 1931. He taught for one year in the manual arts department of a high school in Dayton, and then attended Ohio State University, from where he received his Ph.D. in 1935. He also held a diploma from the American Board of Professional Psychology. Soon after earning his Ph.D., Stanton joined the CBS research department. During World War II, he consulted for the Office of War Information, the Secretary of War, and the Department of the Navy, while serving as a vice president at CBS. He was selected as the administrator-designate of the Emergency Communications Agency; part of a secret group created by President Eisenhower in 1958 that would serve in the event of a national emergency that became known as the Eisenhower Ten.