Quentin A. Ewert

Of Counsel:

Retired:

In Memoriam:

Quentin A. Ewert

Quentin A. Ewert (born August 19, 1915; died March 19, 2011) was a distinguished Lansing attorney who was instrumental in building the Loomis Law Firm into one of the State’s leading firms for regulatory and telecommunications law.

Ewert’s father was Rev. Albert Ewert, Chaplain at Michigan State Prison in Jackson in the 1930’s, and pastor at Trinity Episcopal Church in Grand Ledge. Ewert attended Jackson Junior College (1935-36) and then Michigan State College (1937-38), where he played JV basketball for the Spartans, graduating with a BA in 1938. Ewert enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School but his legal education was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He served in the U.S. Navy as Lieutenant Commander in the Supply Corps. After the war ended, he earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and was admitted to the Michigan Bar in 1946. He formed the firm of Ewert & Fagan with offices in Grand Ledge and Lansing, where he practiced law from 1946-1952, including serving as Grand Ledge City Attorney from 1946-1949, a role the Loomis Firm would later reprise beginning in the 1990’s. In 1952, he became President of Guardsman Insurance Company in Pasadena, California, but was convinced by George Loomis to return to the Lansing area in 1955 to join Loomis’s recently-formed law firm, Snyder & Loomis, which then became Snyder, Loomis & Ewert, eventually growing to Loomis, Ewert, Parsley, Davis & Gotting P.C. Ewert specialized in regulatory law, most significantly in telecommunications law before the MPSC and FCC. Ewert represented the Telephone Association of Michigan (now Telecommunications Association of Michigan) and many of its member companies for many years. Ewert had a keen eye for identifying business opportunities for the rural independent telephone companies he represented. He advised the former Parma Telephone Company in its successful bid to build a portion of the Army’s Automatic Voice Network (“Autovon”) in the 1960’s, a military phone system designed to withstand nuclear attack in the Cold War Era. Using that experience, he later formed Communications, Inc., headquartered in Grand Rapids, with offices around the State, which he built into one of the largest telephone interconnect companies in the State of Michigan. Ewert formed the Michigan Independent Cellular Telephone Company, a coalition of small rural independent telephone companies, obtaining some of the FCC’s first cellular telephone licenses in outstate Michigan, and then partnered with other providers to bring cellular service to Lansing, Jackson, Battle Creek, Saginaw and Traverse City, and to many rural areas in Northern Michigan. Ewert retired from the full-time practice of law in 1987, but remained Of Counsel to the Loomis Firm until his death, advising and mentoring the Firm’s attorneys and staff. A memorial service was held on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Grand Ledge, Michigan. The Loomis Firm was closed that afternoon in Mr. Ewert’s memory.