On the morning of Sunday, March 10, beloved businessman and philanthropist, Karl Eller. passed away peacefully at the age of 90, at his residence in Phoenix, Arizona.
Mr. Eller was known for his long career in the world of media and advertising, but most notably the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.
From his biography on the College’s website:
In the early 1960s, he saw the possibilities in outdoor advertising in America’s blossoming love affair with the automobile. He bought a fledgling Phoenix billboard company and built it into one of the nation’s largest, then branched into other media.
After merging his company with Gannett, he moved on to head Columbia Pictures and then Circle K Corporation before returning to his roots in advertising.
Reinventing the outdoor advertising business, he built Eller Media Company’s billboard business into a Silicon Valley leading advertising medium at the height of the 1990s dot-com boom, and later sold it to media giant Clear Channel, Inc. In 2004, his achievements earned him a place in the Advertising Hall of Fame.