[1] Upon his discharge from the Air Force, Mays obtained a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University.
[2][4] He became an investment banker, rising to Vice President of Corporate Finance during his ten years at Russ & Company.
He and his business partner Red McCombs bought a second San Antonio Station, WOAI, in 1975.
Over the next several years, the company bought ten more struggling radio stations and turned them profitable, usually by switching their formats to religious or talk programming.
A merger with Jacor Communications, based in Covington, Kentucky (which had bought the former broadcast side of Nationwide Insurance a year earlier), brought the operation of 450 stations to the Clear Channel portfolio.
Within eight years, and with an influx of capital investment from the private-equity Griffith Family, Clear Channel had accumulated ownership of over 1,200 radio stations and 41 television stations in the United States, one of the nation's leading live entertainment companies, and over 750,000 outdoor advertising displays.
However, in an interview that same year with Fortune magazine, he remarked, "We're not in the business of providing news and information.
They lived in San Antonio, Texas, where they oversaw the operations and giving of the Mays Family Foundation.