Robert A. Brooks

He enrolled at Northeastern University but dropped out the following year to join the United States Navy, where he gained familiarity with radio and radar equipment while serving during the Korean War.

With his knowledge of radar from the Navy, Brooks obtained a job in 1954 at Spencer-Kennedy Laboratories in Boston, focusing on the expansion of cable networks.

[1][3][6] By the late 1970s he was head of Telecom Cablevision, which owned and operated cable TV systems west of St. Louis, in the cities of St. Charles, St. Peters, and Columbia.

Within the next ten years, Cencom became the 21st-largest[7] cable company in the United States, and in 1991 was purchased by Hallmark Cards, Inc., through its subsidiary Crown Media Holdings.

[8] In 1993 some former managers of Cencom — Howard Wood, Jerald Kent, and Barry Babcock — purchased the company back from Hallmark and formed Charter Communications,[3][9] which in 1998 was sold to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for $4.5 billion.

Designed by architect Seab Tuck, the building featured the company's name spelled out in Morse code in the southern facade of the windows.

[9] Brooks was strongly Catholic, and raised millions of dollars for both the Archdiocese of St. Louis and for Vatican City projects to restore churches in Rome.

[3] In 1990, he worked with Archbishop John L. May (1922–1994) and Sister Mary Ann Eckhoff to co-found the Archdiocese's "Today and Tomorrow Educational Foundation".

[18] In 1996, he was ordained as a Deacon by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Justin Rigali,[17] serving at Ascension Church in Chesterfield, Missouri and at St. Mary's Star of the Sea in Longboat Key, Florida.