Avalon Capital Group

Avalon Capital Group, Inc., is the wholly owned private investment company of Ted Waitt, co-founder of Gateway, Inc. Ted Waitt helped revolutionize how people use technology. Avalon Capital Group investments represent diverse interests in real estate, technology, health care, finance, and entertainment. Ted Waitt is the founder and chairman of the Waitt Foundation. He is the co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Gateway, Inc., where he helped pioneer the direct marketing of personal computers. Labeled a maverick by national business publications, he has since gone on to form multiple enterprises: Avalon Capital Group, Inc.; The Waitt Foundation; and The Waitt Institutes. Through the Waitt Foundation, Mr. Waitt has been named one of America's 50 most generous philanthropists according to Business Week. He currently serves on executive committee of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society where he is the Society's largest living donor, specifically working to establish an efficient and cutting edge vehicle to support of global exploration and discovery, the NGS-Waitt Grants Program. He also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Salk Institute For Biological Studies where he established the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center with a $20 million dollar challenge grant. Over the past five years he has dedicated the bulk of his time and resources to the cause of ocean conservation. Among numerous other ocean conservation endeavors, he is a founding member of Oceans 5, serves on the board of the Pristine Seas initiative, and has sponsored dozens of marine science expeditions. Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Mr. Waitt is the son of a fourth generation cattleman. He attended the Universities of Colorado and Iowa. After a nine-month stint working in the PC industry in Des Moines, Iowa, he and Mike Hammond co-founded Gateway in 1985 on the Waitt family farm. With a $10,000 loan secured by Mr. Waitt's grandmother, they grew Gateway from "two guys in a barn" to become a Fortune 500 company. Over the years, he has earned a number of honors, among them: the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award from the U.S. Small Business Association; two Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards; Marketing Computers Marketer of the Year; and he was named on of Ten Outstanding Young Americans (TOYA) by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was appointed by Congress to serve on the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, and received an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of South Dakota.