Charles Ergen
Chairman and chief executive officer, EchoStar Communications Corporation
Nationality: American.
Born: March 1, 1953, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Education: University of Tennessee, BS, 1975; Babcock Graduate School of Management, Wake Forest University, MBA, 1976.
Family: Son of William K. (Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientist) and Viola (business manager of the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, Tennessee; maiden name unknown); married Cantey (cofounder of Echostar; maiden name unknown); children: five.
Career: Frito-Lay, 1976–1978, financial analyst (certified public accountant); EchoStar Communications Corporation (formerly EchoSphere), 1980–, chairman and CEO.
Awards: Star Award, Home Satellite TV Association, 1988; Master Entrepreneur of the Year for the Rocky Mountain region, INC. , 1991; Space Industry Business Man of the Year, Aviation Week , 2000; CEO of the Year for the Satellite Industry, Frost & Sullivan, 2001; 400 Richest Americans, Forbes 1998 and 2001.
Address: 5701 South Santa Fe Drive, Littleton, Colorado 80120; https://www.dishnetwork.com/.
■ Charles W. ("Charlie") Ergen is somewhat of a legend in the satellite business. A onetime professional gambler, he launched the EchoStar Communications Corporation with practically nothing, bet large, played for high stakes, and became a major figure in the television communications industry.
Ergen originally called his company EchoSphere; it started in 1980, selling C-band full-size satellite-television dishes in rural Colorado. By 2004 EchoStar had 15,000 employees and nine satellites circling the earth and bringing hundreds of channels of television, audio, and other data to nine million direct-to-home (DTH) subscribers. EchoStar, through its DISH Network, was the second-largest satellite broadcast provider
Charlie Ergen. ©
Reuters NewMedia Inc./Corbis
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in the United States (after DirecTV), and Ergen was the largest EchoStar shareholder, owning about 51 percent of the corporate stock and more than 85 percent of voting shares. (Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation held about 12 percent of the company, even though Murdoch and Ergen were fierce competitors and business foes.)
Chairman and CEO Ergen developed the company's DTH products and services, which included direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television dishes, integrated receivers and descramblers, programming, installation, and third-party consumer financing for the company's products and services. In the early 2000s EchoStar operated nine U.S. distribution centers that served an independent network of DTH retailers, distributors, and consumer electronics outlets. EchoStar also partnered with Microsoft Corporation to provide WebTV access though EchoStar's DBS system.
Ergen first glimpsed a satellite when his father took him out to a field near their home to watch Sputnik, the pioneering Russian satellite, pass overhead in the autumn of 1957. After graduation from business school in 1976 Ergen became a certified public accountant for the snack maker Frito-Lay. He left Frito-Lay in 1978 to spend time investing in the stock market, hoping that he would later go into business for himself.
