Charles William Ergen was born on March 1,1953 and is an American billionaire businessman and the is co-founder and chairman of Dish Network and EchoStar.
20 Facts About Charlie Ergen
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Charlie Ergen was CEO of Dish Network until May 2011, when he was succeeded by Joseph Clayton.
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Charlie Ergen resumed the role in March 2015 after Clayton's retirement, until December 2017, when Erik Carlson, then president and COO, was promoted to CEO.
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Charlie Ergen owns 48 percent of Dish and 46 percent of Echostar shares, which gives him 78 percentage of Dish's and 72 percent of EchoStar's total voting power.
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Charlie Ergen "retired" in 1978 in hopes of working for himself.
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In 1990 Charlie Ergen elevated EchoStar's profile by raising $335 million in junk bonds and purchasing orbital slots for satellites.
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Under Charlie 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 in a set-top box.
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Charlie Ergen was instrumental in making satellite receivers available for under $200.
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Charlie Ergen has stated that Dish's present focus is on acquiring a significant share of the spectrum for cellular wireless services.
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Charlie Ergen was born into an Episcopalian family in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on March 1,1953, the fourth of five children born to Viola and William Krasny Charlie Ergen.
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Charlie Ergen's mother was one of the first female accountants in the state of Minnesota.
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Charlie Ergen's father was an Austrian immigrant who was working in Sweden as a nuclear physicist, and left Europe prior to World War II.
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Charlie Ergen's parents married in Minnesota in 1944 and then moved to Camden, New Jersey, before settling in Oak Ridge where his father accepted a position at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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Charlie Ergen's office is furnished with second-hand couches and he does not fly first class.
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Charlie Ergen used to sign all the checks his company issued but currently signs only checks for $100,000 or more.
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Charlie Ergen was the third richest person in Colorado at that time.
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In 2000, Charlie Ergen first appeared in The World's Billionaires by Forbes and having a net worth of $11.2 billion, making him the 21st richest person in the world.
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Charlie Ergen appeared on the Forbes 400 list every year from 1999 until 2022, but he was dropped in 2023.
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Charlie Ergen was recognized with a Rocky Mountain News' Business Person of the Year Award in 1996, and honoured a second time in 2001.
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In 2012, Charlie Ergen was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.