William Bresnan

William Bresnan was born in Madison Lake, Minnesota in 1933. He was the third of four children of Ann and Robert Leonard Bresnan. When Bresnan was five years old, his father died from tuberculosis leaving Ann to take care of the family working as a seamstress.

At 12, Bresnan began fixing radios for his neighbors working out of his home and the local radio shop. He attended a two-year program focusing on television and radio repair at Mankato Technical School, which is now called South Central College.

Eventually, he was offered a job at the Northwest Radio and Electronic Supply – when Bresnan heard that a cable system was going to be built in Mankato, he set up a distributorship agreement with Times Wiring Cable, the company that supplied the cable.

In 1958, Bresnan, along with engineer Joseph Poire, built the Mankato cable system. When Poire offered him the job as assistant chief engineer of the newly minted Rochester, MN cable system, he signed on. When the chief engineer of the Rochester system disappeared, Bill took over and for the next seven years.