Garry Betty
Garry Betty was a significant figure in the telecommunications industry, best known for his role as the chief executive officer (CEO) of EarthLink. Under his leadership, he transformed the company from a struggling start-up into a major player in the Internet service provider sector, becoming the second-largest provider in the world, just behind America Online. Betty's background included a degree in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and early career experiences at IBM and other technology firms. His tenure at EarthLink began in 1996, where he implemented traditional business practices and orchestrated a successful merger with MindSpring, which substantially increased the company's customer base and value.
Despite facing challenges such as increased competition from broadband providers, Betty pushed for innovation and expansion into new services, including cell phone manufacturing and municipal wireless networks. He was recognized for his contributions to the business community through various awards and was active on several boards. Tragically, Betty's career was cut short by a diagnosis of cancer, leading to his passing in 2007. His legacy is marked by his efforts to adapt EarthLink to changing market conditions and his commitment to customer service and technological advancement.
Subject Terms
Garry Betty
Former President and CEO of EarthLink
- Born: March 4, 1957
- Place of Birth: Huntsville, Alabama
- Died: January 2, 2007
- Place of Death: Atlanta, Georgia
- Primary Company/Organization: EarthLink
Introduction
Garry Betty's role as chief executive officer (CEO) of EarthLink dramatically transformed the Internet service provider from a floundering start-up to a global telecommunications giant. By embracing new technologies, partnering with the right people, and constantly expanding the company's reach, Betty laid a foundation for the way Internet-based companies did business. Competitive, soft-spoken, but ever-adaptable, he was always a force to be reckoned with, refusing to allow stock prices or his competitors to get the better of his can-do attitude.
Early Life
Charles Garrett “Garry” Betty was born on March 4, 1957, to Bobbie and Charles Betty in Huntsville, Alabama. He grew up in Columbus, Georgia, with his sister Rena. The children were raised with a strict southern conservative background and attended the local Baptist church. Betty graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1979 with a degree in chemical engineering. He paid for his own college tuition by selling aluminum siding. A photographic memory was probably one of the reasons that Betty graduated after only three and a half years of school.
Betty received his first taste of corporate life as an executive for computer giant IBM. After a stint at Hayes, a modem company, he moved on to work for Digital Communications Associates. In 1989, the company went public, and Betty became the youngest CEO of a company on the New York Stock Exchange.
Both of Betty's parents dealt with disabilities during their lives. Betty's father had a speech impediment and became a speech pathologist. His mother suffered from rickets as a child and struggled to walk her entire life. Betty's childhood was a source of strength and determination; he grew into a competitive, intelligent fighter who refused to back down.
Life's Work
Despite being the first Internet service provider to offer unlimited access at a set monthly fee, EarthLink was not doing well. Betty seemed like the right man to save it, and he became CEO in 1996, only two years after the company came into existence. In March 1994, surfer and child prodigy Sky Dayton had founded the company. A Scientologist, Dayton had used L. Ron Hubbard's teachings to manage the company and had nearly run it into the ground. The first thing Betty did when he took the reins was to establish more traditional business management practices. He then coordinated a merger with EarthLink's main competitor, MindSpring, which immediately improved the firm's value and added customers. Betty took the company from near bankruptcy to the world's second-largest provider of Internet services, bested only by America Online.
Early in 1997, EarthLink became a publicly traded company—one of the first Internet-based companies to do so. In the lead-up to the dot-com collapse, EarthLink remained a major player in telecommunications because Betty refused to give up. As the twenty-first century dawned, however, EarthLink began to lose customers to broadband service providers. In 2001, Betty expanded broadband services to 10 percent of the company's customers and refocused the company on providing good customer service. For EarthLink, this meant solid connections, great technical support services, and partnering with major players in the world of online content, such as Amazon and Disney. Betty decided the company should provide services such as assigning domain names and website hosting, and he pushed the company to take advantage of the emerging open access of the Internet, whereby infrastructure could be supplied by one company and services by another.
In 2005, EarthLink faced ever-growing competition from the providers of the latest broadband technology. It still had five million dial-up subscribers, but because it did not own the phone lines, telecommunication companies were refusing to host EarthLink's services, wanting to provide their established customers with the faster broadband service. As a result, EarthLink was beginning to stagnate. The company stock had fallen from $60 to $7 per share.
Betty proposed some major changes in the hope of keeping the company afloat. He decided that the company needed to embrace and compete with broadband, offering more services to its customers. Those services included manufacturing cell phones (Helio), offering commercial Wi-Fi and “line-powered voice” as an alternative to telecommunication company Internet phone bundling. It was an expensive risk. The technology and directional change cost EarthLink millions.
In January 2005, EarthLink's Helio cell phone, a joint venture with Korean company SK Telecom, was born. Betty chose Dayton to run this branch of Dayton's own company. The company was unfortunately short-lived and discontinued on May 25, 2010. Betty, who died in 2007, would never know that his effort to expand EarthLink into cell phones was not successful. The company did manage to gain market share in the landline business, offering it as a security blanket.
By providing customers with mobile wireless service they could use within their city limits, Betty thought he had found a niche that EarthLink could exploit to stay solvent if the Helio phone did not perform. By creating the infrastructure for the citywide projects, Betty realized that EarthLink's Internet services would no longer have to rely on the phone companies in order to exist. Betty scored major contracts with large cities such as Philadelphia and Anaheim, California, cornering the market in municipal wireless networks.
Acquisition of companies that provided technology solutions became a major focus for EarthLink in the new millennium. Between 2006 and 2011, EarthLink purchased eight different companies to help it stay on the cutting edge. The acquisitions provided security, data platforms, voice technology, cloud technology, research and support centers, and data carriers and communication networks. The acquisitions meant EarthLink could provide its customers with the services they required without having to restructure the company completely. By 2012, EarthLink had divided itself into two main sections—Business Services and Consumer Services. In 2011, the company reported $1.3 billion in annual revenue and more than three thousand employees. However, as the focus in internet service providers shifted dramatically in the 2010s, the company’s value fell. EarthLink was acquired by the private equity firm Trive Capital in 2019 for $330 million.
As EarthLink adapted and changed with the market, it saw continued success. Betty was integral to saving EarthLink from poor management and stagnation. His personality, business acumen, and overall desire to improve made Betty instrumental in transforming EarthLink into the telecommunications giant it is today.
Personal Life
In his spare time, Betty enjoyed collecting first-edition books and running. On November 21, 2006, however, Betty was forced to take a leave of absence from his role as CEO of EarthLink. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of adrenal cortical cancer. He never returned to work. Betty passed away from heart problems connected to his illness on January 2, 2007. He left behind his wife, Kathy, and his niece and nephews, who lived with him. He was forty-nine years old. Kathy, with the help of Betty before he died, began a foundation in her husband's name to help other families dealing with the genetic mutations that lead to cancer.
During his career, Betty received numerous accolades from the business community. While at IBM, Betty received his first professional accolade, the President's Excellence Award, in 1982. It was only three years after he graduated from college. In 2001, he received the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce's annual Technology Leadership Award. He was named one of the Most Influential Atlantans by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2004. He was inducted into the Technology Hall of Fame in Georgia in 2005. He sat on boards for several companies and organizations, including the Georgia Tech Board of Trustees Foundation and the Carter Center Board of Councilors.
Bibliography
“EarthLink CEO Passes Away at Age 49.” CNN, 3 Jan. 2007, money.cnn.com/2007/01/03/news/newsmakers/earthlink‗ceo/index.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Granelli, James S. “EarthLink Aims to Be Provider of Services Beyond Dial-Up Internet.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Feb. 2006, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-20-fi-earthlink20-story.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Mandel, Eric. “Private Equity Firm Buys EarthLink for $330M, Bringing HQ Back to Atlanta.” Atlanta Business Chronicle, 24 Jan. 2019, www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2019/01/24/private-equity-firm-buys-earthlink-for-330m.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Richtel, Matt. “Garry Betty, 49, Chief of the Internet Provider EarthLink, Dies." The New York Times, 4 Jan. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/technology/04betty.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Yang, Jia Lynn. “It's Broadband. It's Wireless. It's Cheap.” CNN, 26 Apr. 2006, money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune‗archive/2006/05/01/8375446/index.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.