EchoStar Communications Corp. president and chief operating officer Michael Neuman resigned Monday after only eight months on the job, the company said in a regulatory filing Tuesday.
Vice chairman Carl Vogel and chief technical officer Michael Dugan will assume Neuman’s duties, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
EchoStar spokesman Mark Cicero declined to offer additional details on Neuman’s resignation.
Reaction to Neuman’s abrupt departure was mixed, with some industry watchers calling it a surprise move, while others had not expected a hire outside founder Charlie Ergen’s close circle to last long.
“I called this eight months ago. EchoStar has one of the strongest front-four around with Vogel, Dugan, Charlie (Ergen) and (co-founder and executive vice president) James DeFranco,” said Bob Scherman, editor and publisher of Satellite Business News. “If you have a really good team, to try to break into the lineup is difficult. I don’t think there’s anything more to it.”
Vogel served as president of the Douglas County-based satellite television company from 1994 to 1997. Dugan retired as president in 2004, but was named chief technical officer in December.
Neuman, 50, could not be reached for comment.
He joined EchoStar in June 2005. A native of Toronto, he previously was president of Bell Canada Enterprises subsidiary Bell Mobility, a wireless phone service provider.
In the mid-1990s, Neuman founded BellExpressVu, a Canadian satellite business. EchoStar provided set-top boxes to BellExpressVu, forging a relationship between Neuman and Ergen.
“That first job in the satellite business in Canada gave me a good grounding for what to expect in the satellite TV industry, particularly in the U.S. because the structure is so similar,” Neuman said during a December interview with The Denver Post. “Moving from that into the wireless business was … a great step for me to take in order to enable me to come to EchoStar in a leadership role.”
Neuman, married and father of a 2 1/2-year-old son, said in December that he was enjoying Denver, having only visited a few times before fully relocating.
“We’re finding it as a family a wonderful place to live,” he said.
Shares of EchoStar closed down 50 cents Tuesday, to $27.71.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
