Chris Whittle, from Athens, Tennessee, served as president of the UT student body in 1969. (His bumper sticker, produced for the election, said For a Better Education.) Upon graduation from UT in 1969, he, David White, Phillip Moffitt, and Brient Mayfield first established Knoxville in a Nutshell magazine, which morphed into Collegiate Marketing and Management Inc., then into Approach 13-30, and in 1986 became Whittle Communications. The Knoxville in a Nutshell magazine introduced incoming freshmen to campus life; the Graduate was sold to Alumni Associations for distribution to graduates. Each magazine was customized to the particular institution it served. In 1970 the group decided to devote full time to their publishing efforts and, in the case of Mayfield, to developing Computer Concepts.
In 1979 they purchased financially troubled Esquire, and Whittle served as chairman and publisher until 1986, when he and Moffitt dissolved their partnership. Moffitt got Esquire (which he later sold), and Whittle got 13-30 Corp., which he turned into short-lived communications giant Whittle Communications. In 1984 Whittle received the Publisher of the Year Award.
In 1989 Whittle Communications introduced Channel One News to public schools across the country. In return for free TV hookups to a satellite, schools watched a daily news show that contained advertising. Whittle Communications also introduced Special Reports, a series of magazines that were placed in waiting rooms, and a set of billboard posters with important civic messages and advertising. In 1992 Whittle founded Edison Schools, a private company that manages public schools. In 1994 Channel One was sold to K-III Communications.
Whittle Communications took bankruptcy, leaving the separate Edison Company intact, with Whittle as chair, and leaving the Whittle Communications Building in downtown Knoxville vacant and not salable at the cost of building it. It is now the Howard H. Baker Federal Building. In 1989 Whittle made the first of several gifts that partially funded a Whittle Scholars program.