Mary West (born 1945/46) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, the co-founder of

West Corporation Intrado, formerly West Corporation, is an American telecommunications company. It was purchased by private equity firm Apollo Global Management on October 11, 2017. Business Operations Intrado is reorganized in five main segments: Cloud Coll ...

Early life

Mary West has a high school diploma, but never attended college. She grew up in Miami, and moved to Omaha part way through high school.

Career

In 1978, with her husband Gary, she co-founded WATS Telemarketing in the garage of their house in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

, Nebraska. They sold WATS in 1980 and in 1986 she founded West TeleServices which they took

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

in 1996. In 2008, she and her husband had a combined net worth of $2.2 billion. She owned 10% of

, a publicly traded telecommunications services provider headquartered in Omaha which was taken private in 2017 as a subsidiary of

Apollo Global Management Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American asset management firm that primarily invests in alternative assets. , the company had $548 billion of assets under management, including $392 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capita ...

Philanthropy

They have given away in excess of $400 million to "senior citizen wellness and cutting the nation's health care costs".

Personal life

She is married to Gary West, and they live in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

. The Wests own

Thoroughbred racing Thoroughbred racing is a sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport – flat racing and jump racing, the latter known as National Hunt racing in ...

horses Maximum Security, Game Winner, and

New Year's Day In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is the first day of the calendar year, January 1, 1 January. Most solar calendars, such as the Gregorian and Julian calendars, begin the year regularly at or near the December solstice, northern winter ...

References

1940s births Living people Businesspeople from Omaha, Nebraska Businesspeople from San Diego Businesspeople from Nebraska American company founders American women company founders American racehorse owners and breeders American philanthropists Year of birth missing (living people) {{philanthropist-stub