I don’t usually read the obits in the paper… I’m not sure what drew me to that page in the Star yesterday afternoon.
It was with great sadness that I read of the passing of James Christian McDaniel, an anchor of consistency in the turbulent waters of competitive telecom in Canada.
Jim was Mr. CNCP – a dignified gentleman who personified customer service and attention to detail. Always impeccably dressed, I recall that he usually had a cigar in hand when I would see him in the garage at 200 Wellington early in the morning when we both would get into work.
The obituary sums up his career:
Jim began his career in 1934, in the heart of the ‘depression’ as a telegraph messenger with what was then known as the Canadian National Telegraph Company. Jim rose through the ranks to become Head of Sales and was at the heart of the last century’s technology revolution from Morse Code through to fibre optics. During the 1970s and 1980s, Jim was a pioneer in the way he acted as Chief Customer Advocate in television commercials – for what had come to be known as CNCP Telecommunications – becoming Mr. CNCP. Later in the 1990s, after a brief retirement, Jim agreed to become a member of the senior management team at Unitel Communications, where he contributed his powers of persuasion and national presence to the effort to bring competition to Canada’s long distance telephony market.
Jim symbolized the transformation of Canada’s first telecommunications carrier – from telegraph to telex, through Facsroute to long distance competition and a complete portfolio of converged solutions. Thirty years before the telephone was patented, the company that would become CNCP carried the first telecommunications message of any kind in Canada.
CNCP/Unitel alumni hold leadership positions in every telecom company in Canada. On behalf of all those who shared being part of an inspired team, let me say that we will miss you, Jim.