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Charles William Ergen (born March 1, 1953) is an American billionaire businessman. He is co-founder and chairman of
Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV ...
and
EchoStar EchoStar Corporation is an American company, a worldwide provider of satellite communication and Internet services through its Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Satellite Services business segments. EchoStar is based out of unincorporated Ara ...
. He stepped down as CEO of Dish in May 2011 in favor of Joseph Clayton. Ergen resumed as CEO upon Clayton's March 2015 retirement and was CEO until December 2017, when he promoted president and COO Erik Carlson to CEO, but remains as chairman. Reuters reported that the move was effected to remove the day-to-day responsibilities of running DISH and provide more time for Ergen to build out the company's emerging wireless business. Ergen owns 48 percent of Dish and 46 percent of Echostar shares. He holds 78 percent of Dish's and 72 percent of EchoStar's total voting power.


Early career

After graduating with an M.B.A. from Wake Forest in 1976, Ergen worked as a financial analyst for
Frito-Lay Frito-Lay is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods. The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-fla ...
. He "retired" in 1978 in hopes of working for himself. Afterward, he was a professional gambler, playing poker and blackjack.


EchoStar

In 1980 Ergen, his future wife Candy, and Jim DeFranco started a new business called EchoSphere Corporation, investing $60,000 to purchase two C-Band antennas, targeting rural
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
. They drove around the
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
metro area on a small budget, selling
satellite dish A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite. The term most commonly means a dish which receives direct-broadcast satellite televisi ...
es from the back of their truck. In 1990 Ergen elevated EchoStar's profile by raising $335 million in
junk bonds In finance, a high-yield bond (non-investment-grade bond, speculative-grade bond, or junk bond) is a bond that is rated below investment grade by credit rating agencies. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit eve ...
and purchasing orbital slots for
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
s. Two years later, EchoStar got a
DBS DBS may refer to: Music groups * The dB's, a power pop band of the '70s and '80s *d.b.s., a Canadian punk rock band from 1992 to 2001 * Death by Stereo, an American heavy metal/punk rock group from California Companies and organizations Schools ...
license from the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisd ...
, giving the company its own geostationary orbital slot. In 1993, EchoStar Communications was incorporated. Under Ergen, EchoStar's net income doubled to $20.4 million, in 1993.


Dish

Under Ergen, Dish was the first satellite television provider to offer two-way high-speed internet access as an investor in and dealer for StarBand Communications' geostationary Ku-band satellite internet access service in the United States and the first to introduce a
Digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
in a
set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of si ...
. He was also instrumental in making satellite receivers available for under $200. In 2012, the Big Four Broadcasters,
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
, CBS,
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
and
Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...
filed a suit against Dish after it launched AutoHop, a technology that records broadcasting programming and plays it back without
commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
. Dish filed a suit seeking a declaratory judgment asserting the legality of the judgment. Preliminary injunction by
Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...
to block the service was denied. Ergen has stated that Dish's present focus is on acquiring a significant share of the
spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of color ...
for cellular wireless services. Dish is also looking for a partner to build a
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The mos ...
network, with
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and
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
speculated to be potential partners. Under Ergen, EchoStar and Dish Network acquired multiple companies, after an $8 million deal for 22 channel assignments of DBSC.


Litigation

Various lawsuits in which Ergen has been involved include: * In 2013 and 2014, Harbinger Capital Partners, a hedge fund managed by Philip Falcone, sued Dish Network and Charles Ergen personally in federal court in New York City, alleging
racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and ...
and claiming that Dish Network had illegally tried to take away the hedge fund's control over LightSquared Inc. during its bankruptcy. In 2015, the federal court dismissed the suit. * The Iron Workers Mid-South Pension Fund filed suit against Ergen in federal court in Colorado in September 2013. Ergen bought large amounts of LightSquared's debt at deep discounts while it was in bankruptcy. Ergen then made a personal bid of $2 billion to acquire LightSquared's assets. This increased the price that Dish had to bid in order to acquire LightSquared's rights to wireless spectrum. Indeed, Ergen ordered Dish to bid $2.2 billion on these assets. The suit claims this was a breach of Ergen's fiduciary duties to Dish shareholders. Dish and Ergen prevailed in the litigation. * In 2005, a discrimination lawsuit was filed against EchoStar in federal court in Denver by an employee who said that EchoStar had engaged in "hostile conduct" against her after she had a baby in 2001. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount in August 2005.


Personal life

Ergen was born into an Episcopalian family in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. O ...
, on March 1, 1953, the fourth of five children born to Viola (née Siebenthal) and William Krasny Ergen. His mother was one of the first female accountants in the state of Minnesota. His father was an Austrian immigrant who was working in Sweden as a nuclear physicist, and left Europe prior to
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. His father coined the phrase " China Syndrome". His parents married in Minnesota in 1944 and then moved to
Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 20 ...
, before settling in Oak Ridge where his father accepted a position at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
. Ergen received a Bachelor of Arts from the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...
, where he was a member of
Phi Gamma Delta Phi Gamma Delta (), commonly known as Fiji, is a social fraternity with more than 144 active chapters and 10 colonies across the United States and Canada. It was founded at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1848. Along with Phi Kappa Psi, Ph ...
fraternity. and an M.B.A. from
Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private university, private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Wake Forest, north of Rale ...
. He was a professional blackjack and
poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
player. Ergen is well known for his frugality. His office is furnished with second-hand couches and he does not fly first class. Ergen used to sign all the checks his company issued but currently signs only checks for $100,000 or more. Ergen's supporters call his negotiating style patient and prudent. He is married to Cantey ("Candy") McAdam. They have five children. They live in