Alan Gerry (born December 24, 1929)
Tuesday June 06, 2000 is an American

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

and founder of

Cablevision Industries Spectrum is a trade name of Charter Communications, used to market consumer and commercial cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2014; prior to that, these serv ...

Early life and education

Gerry was born to a Jewish family in

Liberty, New York Liberty is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 9,885 at the 2010 census. The town contains a village also named Liberty. The village is bisected by New York State Route 52 (NY 52) and NY 55, and is ...

,"BCI Broadband bringing in cable industry pioneer Alan Gerry as advisor"
By Albert Hecht,

Jewish Business News ''Jewish Business News'' is an online newspaper published in English, which primarily covers stories relating to businesses owned, or managed, by Jewish business people around the world, as is implied by the paper’s nameplate. The newspaper lau ...

the son of immigrants from Russia. His father was a frozen food distributor.The Cable Center: "Alan Gerry - Founder and Chairman, Cablevision Industries, 2000 Cable Hall of Fame"
retrieved July 30, 2013 After high school, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps where he was placed in the electronics program and afterward he studied television repair on the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

Career

In 1951,BusinessWeek: "Alan Gerry's Woodstock Notion"
March 21, 1999 he started a television sales, installation and repair business in a converted grain elevator in his hometown. Concerned with the poor reception in his hometown, which impacted television sales due to the mountainous terrain, he installed antennas on the top of many of the surrounding mountains in order to provide reception to the people who lived in the valleys or lived on the hillsides not facing New York City. In 1956, he convinced seven local businessmen to invest in starting a local

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

system utilizing large "community antennas" on mountaintops which gathered the signal and then transferred it via cable to the individual homeowners. The company was named ''Liberty Video''. He opened a store purely focused on television sales but soon realized that after an initial surge in sales, the recurring cash flows from cable subscribers was where the income was. In the early 1970s, he bought out his original partners and expanded into Pennsylvania and Massachusetts renaming the company

. In the early 1980s, he installed the East Coast's first high-powered microwave delivery system, creating 100,000 house sub-clusters. Thereafter, he expanded into Florida, the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic States and was one of the first cable operators to deploy fiber optic cable. In 1996, he sold Cablevision Industries - then the 8th largest cable company and the largest privately owned cable company in the United States with 64 cable systems covering 1.3 million subscribers in 18 statesBethel Woods Center: "Alan Gerry Bio"
retrieved July 30, 2013 - to

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

for $2.7 billion, Gerry founded and presently serves as chairman and CEO of Granite Associates, L.P., a diversified investment company focused on start up companies involved in telephony and communications.

Philanthropy and accolades

Gerry created the Gerry Foundation, an organization established to stimulate economic activity and revitalization in

Sullivan County, New York Sullivan County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,624. The county seat is Monticello. The county's name honors Major General John Sullivan, who was labeled at the time as a hero in the Am ...

. Gerry purchased and resurrected the original 1969

Woodstock Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

site, naming it the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in

Bethel, New York :''This is the article about the Sullivan County, New York town. For the Dutchess County, New York hamlet, see Bethel, Pine Plains'' Bethel is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was estimated at 4,255 in 2010. T ...

. Gerry donated $10 million to the National Cable Center in Denver. Gerry endowed a chair of orthopedic surgery at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

, established the Paul Gerry Dialysis Center in

Sayre, Pennsylvania Sayre is a borough in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is the principal city in the Sayre, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. It lies 18 miles southeast of Elmira, New York, and 30 miles southwest of Bing ...

, funded the addition of a wing on his local hospital, and is involved in a program at Boston University to find a cure for

amyloidosis Amyloidosis is a group of diseases in which abnormal proteins, known as amyloid fibrils, build up in tissue. There are several non-specific and vague signs and symptoms associated with amyloidosis. These include fatigue, peripheral edema, weight ...

. In 1995, Gerry was awarded the Vanguard Award, cable television's honor for distinguished leadership. In 1998, he received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

. In 2000, he was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame. Gerry received the Entrepreneur-of-the-Year Award from the New England chapter of the Institute of American Entrepreneurs, the Distinguished Citizen Award from the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

, and the Americanism Award from the

Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...

. He has received an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from

Roger Williams University Roger Williams University (RWU) is a private university in Bristol, Rhode Island. Founded in 1956, it was named for theologian and Rhode Island cofounder Roger Williams (theologian), Roger Williams. The school enrolls over 5,000 students and e ...

and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

. In 2014, Gerry donated $5 million for the renovations to Newhouse 2 complex at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

Personal life

He is married to Sandra Gerry, an educator and former teacher; they have two daughters and a son: Annelise Gerry, Robyn Gerry, and Adam Gerry.Gulf Shore Life: "From the Editor: Getting to Know Our Models" by David Sendler
July 2013

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerry, Alan 1929 births Jewish American military personnel Jewish American philanthropists Living people American company founders American billionaires People from Liberty, New York Philanthropists from New York (state) 21st-century American Jews