Betty, Charles Garrett, 1996 January 22

The following is a Living History interview conducted with Garry Betty, class of 1979, by Marilyn J. Somers on January 22, 1996, at his office in Norcross, Georgia. The subject of this interview is student life at Georgia Tech. Mr. Betty was born in Huntsville, Alabama, but moved to Columbus, Georgia, after one year. He grew up there, attending Columbus High School. His father went to Alabama, but Mr. Betty knew from an early age that he wanted to go to Georgia Tech and be an engineer. He chose Chemical Engineering because he heard that it was difficult and exclusive. His parents could not afford to pay for Tech, so he worked full time the entire time to support himself. He began Tech in the Fall of 1975 and went fourteen straight quarters until graduating in March of 1979. The summer before his senior year, he went on an exchange program with the school of Chem. Eng. to the Univ. College of London, which opened his eyes to things outside of Georgia. Mr. Betty worked as a telephone solicitor his freshman year, and slept about four hours a day. He says that he enjoyed his major classes much more than the core curriculum because he had more interest in the classes and there were about 25 or 30 people in most of his classes with him. During his last two years, Mr. Betty worked at Abrams Industries from 3-11 pm, where he learned many valuable business skills. He had very little time for a social life, but he was an associate of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Mr. Betty go a dual education from Tech and his jobs; he learned about accounting, finance, and other useful business skills during this time. He had several job offers before graduation from companies such as Shell and Union Carbide. He chose a technical sales job with Proctor and Gamble and moved to rural New Jersey. While in New Jersey, he met one of IBM's senior VPs of supplies and was hired by IBM after one year with P & G. In 1981, while he was still new, he was assigned to chairman Frank Carey's pet project, a desktop computer, which turned out to be the precursor to the IBM PC. In under two years, the group grew from 23 to over 10,000 workers. Mr. Betty was offered the job he had waited for at IBM just when Dennis Hayes contacted him about starting a new company called Hayes Microcomputer Products in Atlanta. After much deliberation, Mr. Betty moved back to Atlanta to start this company in January 1984. HMP grew from $12 million to $160 million in revenues in four years, and went from 150 to 800 employees in that time. In 1985-6, Mr. Betty set up the international distribution of Hayes products, visiting Europe, Japan, and Australia to do so. In 1987, he became senior Vice-president. Then he convinced Burt Nordine, Chairman of Digital Communications Associates, to let him help turn his company around. In September, 1989, Mr. Betty became President and Chief Operating Officer and proceeded to transform the company from hardware to software. From April, 1990, to Fall 1993, Mr. Betty was also CEO, until the company went private. He stayed until March of 1994, when the new CEO arrived. Then he got involved with a start-up company called Physicians Data Corporation, which creates information services for specialty health care offices. He had also been advisor for TSI Power since 1987 and bought the assets to save it from bankruptcy. TSI makes a full line of power supplies for computers, telephones, etc. And recently Mr. Betty got involved with a new company in Los Angeles, CA. The company, Earthlink Networks, was founded by Sky Dayton, a 24-year-old entrepreneur. Mr. Betty has now hired someone to run TSI and someone to run PDC, so he can be in California about four days a week. Mr. Betty married Kathy Taylor in 1993, who is a partner with Scott Madden, a consulting firm, and runs their reengineering practice. Mr. Betty is a "maniac" Tech basketball fan and is a life member of the GT Board of Trustees and the Alexander-Thorpe Fund. Mr. Betty has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the GT Alumni Association and was named the Young Alumni of the Year in 1993.