GatesAir has announced the retirement of Joe Mack effective at the close of the business day Monday, September 30. His retirement follows a successful 43-year career with the company that includes several executive leadership roles, capping with his four-year tenure as Chief Revenue Officer, leading worldwide sales and revenue generation.
Joe joined GatesAir, then Harris Corporation, in 1981 through his association with Midwest Corporation, a longtime leader in satellite news gathering systems and services that Harris acquired in 1989. He began his career as a sales engineer in Midwest’s call center and soon found himself contributing to many of Midwest’s biggest projects, including the design and deployment of the company’s earliest satellite uplink facilities.
Along the way, Joe was instrumental in developing instant news as we know it today and managed satellite flyaway terminals and projects for major broadcast networks worldwide. Key achievements from this early phase of his career include the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland, along with the Tiananmen Square uprising in Beijing.
Joe’s understanding of how satellite and over-the-air technologies aligned to benefit the television broadcaster, as well as his expertise working across international regions, inspired a gradual rise through the ranks within Harris.
“We developed large satellite distribution models for broadcast networks, which opened their eyes to a new revenue stream through the ability to transmit ENG and SNG content over the air,” said Mack. “Harris was already making TV transmitters, but this opened a new era of exploration and innovation in the company that never ceased and continues today at GatesAir.”
Joe’s responsibilities at Harris first focused on working with partners and customers in Southeast Asia and other regions before taking on a regional sales role in North America that, by the early 2000s, led to his first leadership role as Director, TV Transmission Sales, North America for Harris Corporation’s Broadcast Communications Division.
He became Vice President of Sales, Americas upon the rebranding of Harris Broadcast’s transmission business as GatesAir in 2014, and was elevated to Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) in 2020. As CRO, Joe was responsible for all worldwide sales activity, returning to a role that found him once again working with partners and customers worldwide while leading a large and experienced global team of sales professionals.
Joe has spent the 18 months working alongside GatesAir CEO Barbara Spicek as her Deputy CEO, helping to support global business operations through the unique level of knowledge and experience that comes with such an impressively long company tenure.
Joe’s understanding of the importance that relationship building and customer commitment brings to a company’s reputation has been key to his success. His focus on the customer often contributed to record sales levels for radio and television transmission businesses, including the highly successful US spectrum repack which saw GatesAir emerge with the largest market share for repack transmitter sales. And while retirement is imminent, he will remain connected with the business he has given his professional life to as a newly elected member to the Voice of America Museum’s board of directors.
“One of the most important qualities of this businesses is the personal relationships that you develop with your partners and customers,” said Mack. “Whether it is business or personal, they know how to reach you and feel confident that they can call you at any time. These long-term relationships turn into friendships over time. I am thankful for the ability to stay in this business over all these years and to have some of the very best customers, partners and colleagues in the business. GatesAir has always been an extraordinary company and the foundation there today will ensure that continues for many years to come.”
