Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
The old Sonics owners
Although Howard Schultz was the public face of Sonics ownership, he had many partners, many of whom have never been publicly revealed. It took 58 people to put up the $200 million to buy the team in 2001. Here are the owners who are known:
The Starbuckies: Howard Schultz, chairman; Orin Smith, former president and CEO; David Olsen, senior vice president; Wanda Herndon, senior vice president; Michael and Jacqueline Casey, senior vice president and wife; Nancy and Jack Rodgers, early investors.
The tech crowd: John Stanton, former chairman of Western Wireless; Theresa Gilespie, former vice chair of Western Wireless; Peter van Oppen, chairman and CEO of Digital Information Co.; W. Russell Daggatt, former president of Teledesic; Alan and Joyce Bender, former executive with Western Wireless and T-Mobile, and wife; Lynn and Mikal Thomsen, former president of Western Wireless; Naveen Jain, CEO of Intelius; Greg Maffei, president and CEO of Liberty Media and former Microsoft CFO.
The lawyers: G. Scott Greenburg, Stewart Landefeld, Ronald Berenstain, Valerie Hughes, Harry Schneider Jr., Patrick Simpson, V.L. Woolston, Michael Reynvaan, Roger Tolbert.
The gamers: Richard Tait, of Cranium; Rob Angel, of Pictionary; Craig Kinzer, of Scene It; and David Edelstein, of Scene It and Cranium.
The non-locals: Duncan MacNaughton, Hawaii developer; William Goodwin, Virginia investor.
Others: Stan Barer, UW regent; Dan and Cindy Brettler, founder of Car Toys, and wife; Bill Block, director of King County's Committee to End Homelessness; Peter Nordstrom, board member, Nordstrom; Sabey Corporation, Seattle developer; H.S. Wright III, chairman of Seattle Hospitality Group; Jon & Julie Barwick, Seattle financial planning firm; Ken Woolcott, former pharmaceutical company executive; Dennis Daugs, investment adviser; Douglas Donnelly, stockbroker.
Mystery owners: The Sonics have never disclosed about a dozen owners. Some are family members of other owners.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
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