Egan, an electrical engineer, founded EMC Corp. in 1979 with his college roommate Roger Marino. Both of them sold furniture to fund their start-up business. Under his direction, EMC was able to provide data storage solutions to many users with Symmetrix 4200 Integrated Disk Array. Products such as this placed their company in the lead, even beating IBM for a time as the best provider of tech solutions. As the company flourished, Egan and his partner acquired other companies to expand their business. By 2009, EMC had forty thousand employees and was named Massachusetts’s largest technology company.
As an entrepreneur and leader, Egan was known for his fierce competitiveness and strict implementation of rules and regulations. Only very few people knew that the billionaire CEO also had a soft side to him, giving employees and their families fair benefits. For this, Egan was named “Master Entrepreneur of the Year” by Inc. Magazine in 1994.
Egan retired in 2001 with a net worth of over one billion dollars. He participated in numerous educational, business, and technology groups in the succeeding years and even served as the United States Ambassador to Ireland. Retirement gave him more opportunities to share his knowledge and wealth to others, thereby leaving a legacy to people outside the business sector.
Just when life seemed perfect, Egan discovered that he had Stage IV lung cancer. After a long battle with the disease, he decided to commit suicide at his Boston residence at the age of seventy-three.
Despite this tragic end, Egan will always be remembered for passion for success.