James Joseph McGillan was a lawyer and businessman who specialized in corporate transactions and telecommunications systems. Born on November 12, 1941 in Manchester, New Hampshire, McGillan graduated from Manchester’s Bishop Bradley High School in 1959. In 1963, he earned his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the Catholic University of America School of Engineering and Architecture, and graduated cum laude from Catholic University of America’s Columbus Law School three years later. During his time in law school, McGillan served as editor of the Law Review, won the first and second year Moot Court Competitions, and also served a year as law clerk at the firm of Nixon, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander in both their New York City and Washington, D.C. offices.

McGillan began his legal career as a Lieutenant in the US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1967 until 1969, where he was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island; Charleston, South Carolina; Danang, Vietnam, and Washington, D.C. He was awarded the Navy Commendation medal with a combat V for Valor for his service in Vietnam.

After his career in the Navy, McGillan became a partner at Pepper and Corrazzini from 1976 to 1983, where he specialized in telecommunications litigation, particularly those involving the Federal Communications Commission. In addition, from 1983 to 1987, he served as counsel to the law firm of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley, and Casey in Washington, D.C., specializing in common carrier, cellular telephone, broadcast and other communications issues, as well as contractual transactions. In 1984, McGillan became Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Tel-Optik, Ltd., a Delaware Corporation formed to engage in a joint venture with Cable & Wireless P.L.C. of the United Kingdom for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the world’s first privately owned transatlantic undersea fiber optic telecommunications cable connecting the United States and England with spurs to Ireland and Bermuda. The cable was able to handle the equivalent of 85,000 simultaneous conversations at a time when conventional copper cables had far less capacity. McGillan acted as principal negotiator and draftsman of the $350 million cable manufacturing contract and supervised the construction of the $30 million terrestrial system between Sea Girt, New Jersey, and New York City. As the company planned the design and construction of the cable, McGillan and company Chairman Ron Coleman conducted ongoing negotiations with BellSouth and NYNEX, regional Bell holding companies, for the purchase of the company. A Stock Purchase and Trust Agreement was executed with NYNEX in August 1986, whereby the former shareholders of Tel-Optik were paid a substantial cash premium by an entity called the PTAT Trust in exchange for the transfer of their stock to the Trust. Coleman and McGillan were appointed the trustees to hold the company stock. The NYNEX transaction finally closed on December 22, 1986.

Following the transaction, the board then authorized the change in company name from Tel-Optik, Ltd. to Private Transatlantic Telecommunications System, Inc. and authorized the formation of a wholly owned Bermuda subsidiary called PTAT System (Bermuda) Ltd., which held title to the transatlantic segment of the cable that was not within the territorial waters of the United States. With NYNEX unable to obtain court approval to purchase PTAT in 1987, the trustees were obliged to sell the company within two years as dictated by the terms of the Stock Purchase and Trust Agreement. Together with Coleman, McGillan successfully negotiated the sale of the company to U.S. Sprint in August 1989.

Following the sale of the company to Sprint, McGillan and Coleman cofounded Med-Tel International Corporation in 1994, a telemedicine business based on the utilization of high bandwidth telecommunications networks to deliver medical images from distant diagnostic clinics. The company installed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines in rural areas throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Together, McGillan and Coleman operated and managed over twenty-two MRI clinics in the US and eleven in the UK.

In 2005, McGillan moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina, where he cofounded The Voice of Moore County news website and operated the Charles St. James e-Book publishing company. McGillan died in Pinehurst, NC, on June 8, 2013.