Alfred E. Mann

Alfred Mann
Mann, December 2010
Born	1925 Portland, Oregon
Died	February 25, 2016 (aged 90) Las Vegas, Nevada
Nationality	United States
Education	B.A. and M.S. (UCLA)
Occupation	entrepreneur and philanthropist
Net worth	US $ 1.5 billion (December 2015)
Spouse(s)	Beverly Mann (divorced) Linda Mann (divorced) Susan Kendall Mann (divorced) Claude Mann (until death)
Children	7

Alfred E. Mann (1925 – February 25, 2016), also known as Al Mann, was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Mann was born and raised to a Jewish family in Portland, Oregon. His father was a grocer who emigrated from England; his mother a pianist and singer who immigrated from Poland. His brother is violinist and Juilliard Quartet founding member Robert Mann. In 1946, he moved to Los Angeles, California.

Mann received his B.S. and M.S. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, doing graduate work in nuclear and mathematical physics. Mann holds honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Southern California, The Johns Hopkins University, Western University of Health Sciences, and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

In 1956, Mann founded Spectrolab, the first of his aerospace companies. While at Spectrolab, an electrooptical systems company, he also founded Heliotek, a semiconductor company, that became a major supplier of solar cells for spacecraft. Among other accomplishments during his tenure, Mann's companies provided the electric power for over 100 spacecraft and constructed one of the lunar experiments. Although he sold both companies to Textron in 1960 (merged into one, Spectrolab is now a subsidiary of Boeing Satellite Systems), he continued to manage them until 1972. After he left those companies to found Pacesetter Systems, which focused on cardiac pacemakers, he sold that company in 1985 and managed it until 1992. It is now a part of St. Jude Medical. Mann then went on to establish MiniMed (insulin pumps and continuous glucose devices, now owned by Medtronic) and Advanced Bionics (neuroprosthetics, now focused on cochlear implants and owned by Sonova, while its pain management and other neural stimulation products are now owned by Boston Scientific).