Roland W. Betts is Founder and Chairman of Chelsea Piers, L.P. which developed and operates the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment complex in New York City. Chelsea Piers is one of the most visited sites in New York City, with annual visitation in excess of 4 million.
Mr. Betts is Founder and President of Silver Screen Management, Inc., which raised more than $1 billion in four limited partnerships from 140,000 investors to finance and produce over 75 films with the Walt Disney Company. Films include Beauty and the Beast, Pretty Woman, The Little Mermaid, and Three Men and a Baby. Additionally, Mr. Betts is the President of International Film Investors, Inc., which produced and financed numerous films including, Gandhi and The Killing Fields. Mr. Betts is responsible for the financing of approximately 100 feature films.
For nine years, Mr. Betts was lead owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club. The Texas Rangers were purchased in 1989 by a group of investors assembled by Mr. Betts and President George W. Bush.
In 1968, after graduating from Yale, Mr. Betts taught school at I.S. 201 in central Harlem and trained teachers as part of a not-for-profit corporation called The Teachers Incorporated. Mr. Betts remained in public education as a teacher and assistant principal until 1975. Mr. Betts wrote Acting Out: Coping with Big City Schools, a book published by Little Brown in 1978 which explores his experiences in the public school system.
After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1978, Mr. Betts practiced law in the entertainment department at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison until leaving to finance movies and eventually to pursue his many interests in the worlds of sports and entertainment.
Mr. Betts is the Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation and is a Trustee of numerous organizations including: the American Museum of Natural History, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Columbia University Law School, and the National Park Foundation. Mr. Betts has recently been appointed Treasurer of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
From 2001 - 2006 Mr. Betts served as a Director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. In that capacity, Mr. Betts chaired the Site Committee charged with the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.
Roland and Lois Betts will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary in 2007. They have two daughters, Margaret (Princeton '99) and Jessica (Yale '98 and Columbia Business School '06), both living and working in New York City.
Revised
9/19/2007
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