DENVER—Dean Olmstead, president of EchoStar Satellite Services, died Oct. 16 after battling cancer. He was 55.
EchoStar Corp. announced his death Friday.
Olmstead joined Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar in 2008, after it was spun off from Dish Network Corp. He headed its satellite services subsidiary.
He had also worked for SES Global, Arrowhead Global Solutions, Loral Space & Communications, DirecTV and Hughes Electronics. Olmstead was instrumental in several mergers and consolidations.
Before moving to the private sector, he worked in Washington, D.C. as deputy director of the State Department’s Satellite and Cable Policy Branch and at NASA, where he was chief of the Advanced Communications Branch and program manager for the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite.
He was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1997 for his work with NASA.
Survivors include his wife, Mara Olmstead of Princeton, N.J., three daughters, two sons, his parents, two brothers and a sister.
A public memorial service is planned for Nov. 17 at Intelsat headquarters in Washington.
