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He received his B.S. in general business and
accounting from the University of Tennessee and his M.B.A. from the Babcock
Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,
NC |
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He began as a certified public accountant for
Frito-Lay, but quit at age 27 to try his luck in Las Vegas as a poker and
blackjack player. |
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One day he saw a truck with a huge satellite-TV
dish on the back and decided to get into the dish business. He founded
Echosphere in 1980 with his wife Candy. |
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They began installing large c-band satellite TV
dishes in the backyards of mountain homes in rural Colorado. |
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EchoStar soon became a multimillion-dollar
business. Ergen surprised the satellite TV industry when he announced at a
trade show in 1987 that EchoStar would launch its own satellites and begin
delivering programming to its customers using 18-inch satellite dishes. |
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A key to Ergen's success is that he gives away
dishes and set-top box receivers to customers who sign up for long-term
packages of the TV programming he offers. |
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He once
gave free dishes to the entire town of Boulder, Colorado, in order to win
customers away from a rival. |
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Today, EchoStar has over 10,000 employees
worldwide serving over 5 million customers and more than 23,000 DISH
Network retailers. |
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As of April, Ergen owned 50.2 percent of
EchoStar's stock. Last year, his salary was set at $1 million dollars. |
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He currently ranks 35th on Forbes
100, the ranking of the world's richest people, with an estimated worth of
8.8 billion dollars. |
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Notes