Gary Burrell, who died on Wednesday, helped popularize GPS for consumers and amassed a billion dollar fortune along the way
“Gary Burrell has been my friend, mentor and partner for more than 30 years,” Kao, who is executive chairman and worth $3.8 billion, said in a statement. “His vision, values, engineering skills and commitment to serving our customers have been the foundation for the growth of our company. It has been both a great privilege and a blessing to have known this amazing man and I know his legacy will live on.
Burrell, who retired as co-CEO of Garmin in 2002 and as co-chairman in 2004, was worth $1.8 billion at his peak in 2014. He remained chairman emeritus, but dropped from the billionaire ranks in 2016 after transferring much of his shares to his wife and son and charitable trusts. His son Jonathan sits on the board and together with his mother holds a nearly 8% stake worth approximately $1.1 billion.
In the early 1980s, when Burrell was working for aerospace and engineering firm Allied Signal, the engineering world was abuzz with talk of the federal government building a new tracking device using satellite technology. In 1989 Allied Signal cut its research budget, and Burrell and his colleague Kao, a Taiwanese engineer who had developed the first GPS receiver for planes, thought the military-grade technology would be a hit in the consumer market.
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