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Theodore "Ted" Waitt (born January 18, 1963 in Sioux City, Iowa) was a co-founder of Gateway, Inc.

Waitt was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. Along with Mike Hammond, he co-founded the company – then called Gateway 2000 – on his father's cattle ranch on September 5, 1985 with a $10,000 loan secured by his grandmother. The company eventually moved to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa and later to North Sioux City, South Dakota, where they continued to develop their "down-home" branding, complete with computer boxes that patterned with black and white Holstein cow patterns.

He led a move of the company's headquarters from South Dakota to La Jolla, California in 1998. Mr. Waitt released the reins as CEO of Gateway in late 1999 to Jeffrey Weitzen, but returned to the post in January 2001.

In 2004, after the acquisition of eMachines, Waitt turned over day-to-day operations of Gateway and the title of CEO to Wayne Inouye, the former CEO of eMachines. In May 2005, he resigned as chairman of the company, ending a near 20-year run with the company he co-founded.

Mr. Waitt has been featured on numerous lists by Forbes magazine. He has held a spot on both the Forbes 400 Richest in America as well as Forbes list of the World's Billionaires. He has also been listed on Fortune Magazines "40 Richest Under 40", a list of the 40 wealthiest self-made Americans under the age of 40 in the United States. More recently in 2006, Waitt was featured with a net worth of $1.7 billion.

Labeled a maverick by national business publications, he has gone on to form two enterprises that are his chief interests: Avalon Capital Group, Inc., a wholly-owned, billion-dollar private investment company with diverse interests in technology, health care, finance, and real estate; and the Waitt Family Foundation and Institutes, nonprofit organizations dedicated to the improvement of mankind’s knowledge through historical and scientific exploration.

Through the Waitt Family Foundation, Ted has become one of America’s 50 most generous philanthropists, according to Business Week. The Foundation and its related Insititutes fund partnerships and projects that seek a deeper understanding of human history and improve mankind’s knowledge through historical and scientific exploration.

Established in 1993, the Foundation initially focused on domestic violence prevention and community development, knowing that building stronger families and societies will help foster the vision of a better world. The creation of the Waitt Institutes in 2005 --- the Waitt Institute for Discovery, and the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention --- has allowed the Foundation to broaden its program interests to the global community.

Waitt serves as the Chairman of the Founding Fathers campaign of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, just one of the efforts that he supports in the fight to prevent domestic violence. Waitt was appointed by Congress to serve on the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce and has served on numerous other corporate and philanthropic boards of directors, including the Advisory Council of the National Geographic Society and as a board member of the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

• The Waitt Family Foundation

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