Dialing Up A New Challenge

      Clark Peterson, vice president of NEXTLINK, a new Southern Nevada telephone company, figures he is getting the second big chance of a lifetime -- and he's only 35.
      Peterson earlier caught a ride on the cellular telephone wave as a national executive with McCaw Cellular Communications Inc.
      Now, he believes he is building the information highway. He is fostering the convergence of telephone, television and computer technology through fiber-optic networks.
      Fiber-optic wires are fine strands of glass that transmit light rather than electrical signals. A pair of fiber-optic wires has more than 32,000 times the capacity of a pair of twisted copper wires traditionally used for telephone lines.
      Fiber-optic strands have the kind of capacity needed for full-motion video and other advanced data-intensive applications. And NEXTLINK has the most extensive fiber-optic network in Southern Nevada, more extensive than even Sprint Corp., which operates the once-monopoly local exchange company.
      NEXTLINK is a privately held national company headed by billionaire Craig McCaw, who built the nation's largest cellular phone system before selling to AT&T. Peterson heads the Nevada affiliate of NEXTLINK.
      The Nevada affiliate has a strategic partnership with Prime Cable and is using the cable company's 331 miles of fiber optic cable in Clark County for the phone service.
      "The convergence of the television, computers and phones will be facilitated by networks we have, like NEXTLINK," Peterson said.
      "This is going to be the pipeline or the medium for this whole information highway," he said.
      Peterson will compete with the former monopoly local exchange company, two other new phone companies and potentially eight new competitive local phone service providers.
      He left a job as vice president of sales and marketing at AT&T Wireless, the former McCaw Cellular company that did business in Las Vegas as Cellular One, to accept his job at NEXTLINK.
      "I really don't like maintenance of an existing company as much as I enjoy building a new company, a new product, a new industry," he said.
      Peterson joined the work force early, first as a newspaper delivery boy and later as an employee for the cable television company now known as Prime Cable. He also ran his own businesses, first in high school and then at Brigham Young University.
      He's embarrassed to admit he worked as a party disc jockey during high school. He also sold and installed car stereo systems.
      After his freshman year at BYU, he spent a year on a mission in Colombia for the Mormon church.
      Back in college, he started an auto windshield and commercial window installation company, later getting into windshield repair and tinting. By the time he graduated, Peterson employed six workers.
      As a college student and entrepreneur, Peterson was one of the first people to buy a car phone. His mobile phone cost $3,000 and took up his car trunk's space, but he recognized the potential of wireless communications. After graduating, he joined McCaw Cellular in Utah as a salesman.
      Peterson was a top-producing salesman and advancement came quickly. As product manager in Utah, he helped launch voice-mail for cellular phones. He was promoted to director of products nationally for McCaw. Then, Peterson served on a four-man executive team called McCaw Revenue Development.
      "Our group interfaced with the top level of McCaw Communications, including Craig McCaw, to enhance our existing products and services and to look at future opportunities in the telecommunications industry."
      In 1994, Peterson returned to Las Vegas as director of sales and marketing. Richard Cracroft, vice president of Pocket Communications, a start-up wireless phone system in Las Vegas, is an old college friend of Peterson and worked with him on marketing and sales at AT&T Wireless.
      "He was a great leader and manager who was always willing to listen to his employees and other people," Cracroft said.
      Peterson's management skills will be put to the test at his new job.
      Las Vegas has one of the highest percentage of residents with cellular phones in the nation.
      It's also a city where entrepreneurs accomplish goals others call impossible, Peterson said.
      "Clark is one of the rare people who can really lead a team by gaining their trust and their loyalty, rather than ever having to give an order," said Paul Taylor, regional vice president and general manager of AT&T Wireless.
      The city's rapid growth and obsession for new technology make the future bright for NEXTLINK, Peterson said. "Las Vegas will be one of the first markets to adopt the new products, such as the fiber-optic (network) and the information highway."