Feb. 17, 2003 – Samuel E. Ebbesen, senior vice president of Innovative Communication Corp. and a native Crucian, was sworn in recently as a member of the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corp.
OPIC is a federal government corporation established in 1971 to extend political risk insurance, loan guarantees and direct loans to U.S. companies that invest abroad.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, a longtime friend of Ebbesen's, conducted the swearing-in at OPIC headquarters in Washington, D.C.
According to a release from OPIC, Ebbesen is one of two members designated to represent U.S. small businesses on the board. The 15-member board comprises eight directors representing the private sector and seven from various federal agencies.
Ebbesen, a retired three-star Army general, was named ICC senior vice president in January after having served for five years as president and chief executive of Innovative Telephone, an ICC subsidiary.
In his current position, he oversees ICC's telecommunications operations in the territory — which in addition to the phone company include Innovative Cable TV St. Croix and St. Thomas-St. John, Innovative Wireless, Innovative Long Distance, Innovative Business Systems and VI PowerNet.
ICC, in addition, owns the V.I. Daily News and cable TV channel TV2 in the Virgin Islands. Abroad, it owns telecommunications businesses, in the British Virgin Islands, St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique and France.
Ebbesen joined what was then called V.I. Telephone Corp. — Vitelco — in 1998. The OPIC release said the phone company is "the 30th largest telephone company in the United States." Prior to that, he was vice president of the Association of the U.S. Army.
He retired from the Army in 1997 as a three-star general after more than 35 years of military service. His last assignment was at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for military personnel policy. Prior to that, he had served as commanding general of the Second U.S. Army.
It was during their military careers that Ebbesen and Powell, African-Americans rising to the upper echelons of the Army, became friends. Powell, who spent 35 years in the Army, attained the rank of four-star general and in his last assignment, from 1989 to 1993, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Defense Department. In this role, he oversaw Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Powell's son, Michael, who chairs the Federal Communications Commission, is Ebbesen's godson.
The FCC has oversight for regulating the nation's mass media.
Michael Powell announced last year that the FCC would vote this spring on whether to abandon, modify or keep current restrictions on the concentration of media ownership. According to FCC member Michael Copps, writing in the current issue of The Nation magazine, "at stake is how TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet will look in the next generation and beyond."
FCC rules now, among other things, limit a single corporation from dominating a local TV market and from merging a community's TV stations and newspapers into one voice. If the rules are scrapped or weakened, Copps wrote, "one company could dominate a region's access to information by controlling its radio stations, television stations, newspaper and cable system."
Ebbesen's OPIC appointment, announced some weeks ago, is one of two national recognitions he has received in the last two months. In December, U.S. Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White named him to a two-year term as a civilian aide to the Army representing the territory in military matters — a position held for the preceding 10 years by Calvin Wheatley. Describing the position to The Daily News last month, Ebbesen said: "Essentially, what it ends up being is generating support for the Army's position."
According to the OPIC release, the organization "helps U.S. businesses invest overseas, fosters economic development in new and emerging markets, complements the private sector in managing risks associated with foreign direct investment and supports U.S. foreign policy." And, it states, "Because OPIC charges market-based fees for its products, it operates on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to taxpayers."
For more information, visit the OPIC Web site.
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