Garry Betty, ChE 79

Garry Betty helped bring about the coming-of-age of the personal computer, usher in the digital era and develop the innovative technology of the Internet.

Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, now a unit of Time Warner, said in The Wall Street Journal, "Twenty years ago, long before most people were even aware of the Internet ... Garry was at the epicenter."

In November, Charles Garrett Betty, ChE 79, was diagnosed with cancer and took a leave of absence as president and CEO of EarthLink, a company he had run for the past 10 years. He died Jan. 2 at age 49.

He was born in Huntsville, Ala., and grew up in Columbus, Ga. He went through Georgia Tech in 14 straight quarters, all the while working full time at jobs that taught him sales skills and accounting practices.

After graduation he went to work with Procter & Gamble and in the early 1980s was recruited by IBM. Mr. Betty was assigned to a 23-member team working on a project to develop a small desktop computer for IBM. Within two years the department mushroomed to 10,000 employees, Mr. Betty recalled in an Alumni Association Living History interview.

In 1989, Mr. Betty became president and CEO of Digital Communications Associates in Alpharetta, Ga. He was the youngest CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company.

EarthLink founder Sky Dayton persuaded Mr. Betty in 1996 to run his fledgling Southern California company. Mr. Betty steered EarthLink away from providing Internet service by the minute and made it the first major firm to offer a fixed-rate $19.95 per month. In 1997, EarthLink went public and the following year formed an alliance with Sprint Corp. that merged the Internet access services of the two companies. In 2000 EarthLink merged with Mindspring, doubling the number of subscribers, and moved the company headquarters to Atlanta.

In competition with broadband high-speed Internet service offered by telephone and cable companies, Mr. Betty turned his focus on wireless Internet and won agreements to build wireless networks. He was developing EarthLink's Wi-Fi initiative when he was stricken with adrenal cortical cancer.

In 1992, Mr. Betty received the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award. He served as a trustee of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association and chaired the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.

"I was constantly amazed that a sitting CEO of a major company would be that generous with his time," Rich DeMillo, dean of Tech's College of Computing, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Mr. Betty was also an avid Yellow Jackets sports fan and DeMillo, PhD 72, added, "My contact with Garry was as likely to be in the hallways outside a Georgia Tech basketball game as anywhere else."