Quello died of kidney failure Sunday in Alexandria, Va. He was 95.

At the time, Wildman had just been appointed as the director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law at MSU, as well as the James H. Quello Endowed Chair of Telecommunication Studies.

“This remarkably energetic younger person walked in and everybody was stopping him and he would regale them with stories,” Wildman said.

“It turns out he was Jim Quello. That’s how he was. People wanted to be around him.”

Quello, an MSU alumnus, received several awards and honorary degrees from his alma mater, including the MSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998 and an honorary MSU doctor of humanities in 1977.

Although he spent more than two decades as a commissioner for the Federal Communication Commission, or FCC, and briefly served as the commission’s chairman, Quello had a history that spanned both civilian and military life.

Born in 1914 in Laurium, Mich., Quello was an editor at The State News before he served as a lieutenant and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945 during World War II.

Quello also was a past president of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and recipient of the group’s lifetime achievement award. In 1995, he was named to Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame and received the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished service award in 1994.

He brought his personality, which his son, Richard Quello, described as “driven, kind and generous,” to both his personal and work life.

“I’ll tell you if he was your friend, he was the best friend you could have,” Richard Quello said.

“I learned from him that you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. He surrounded himself with some very phenomenal people and stood behind them like glue.”

Richard Quello said his father “ate and breathed MSU.”

Even in the waning days of his life, James Quello remained the man his friends and family worked and grew up with, said longtime friend Brian Fontes, who is a member of MSU’s Quello Center’s advisory board.

“What was really amazing was while he was at the hospital he was very coherent, very much his normal, deprecating, humourous self,” Fontes said. “You could close your eyes and imagine him 20 years ago.”

Fontes said one of most important traits Quello brought to his work was fairness.

“Anybody that would come in, he would listen to them and he would be fair in his decision,” Fontes said. “He made sound, reasonable decisions and was always optimistic to the possibilities of the world.”

Richard Quello said his father’s forward thinking shone during his more than 20 years as a FCC commissioner. In that time, James Quello served under six presidents, as well as the advent of the Internet and other forms of digital communication.

“He was revolutionary as far as communications went,” Richard Quello said.

“He had a voice for 23 years. He was appointed as a Democrat by (President Richard) Nixon and back then there weren’t cell phones and faxes.”