By Gal Tziperman Lotan, News Staff

Richard Egan, a Northeastern alumnus, business founder, US ambassador to Ireland and former member of the university’s Board of Trustees, died Aug. 28 in his Boston home. He was 73.
Mr. Egan, who had been suffering from stage IV lung cancer, diabetes, emphysema and high blood pressure, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Boston Globe reported.
Mr. Egan, who was born in Milton and grew up in Dorchester, graduated from Northeastern’s College of Engineering with an electrical engineering degree in 1961. Mr. Egan and his former Northeastern roommate, Roger Marino, founded data storage company EMC Corporation in 1979.
At the time computer data was stored on non-specialized hardware, which many found to be inefficient. Mr. Egan and Marino developed specialized hardware and were able to charge less for their product than other data storage companies were.
In 2002, Mr. Egan told Mass High Tech the two sold office furniture for seed money.
‘We didn’t want to become office salesmen. But with a 55 percent commission and enough samples to furnish our own office, we didn’t refuse,’ he told the publication.
Today, the company employs 40,000 people, some of them Northeastern co-ops, in 78 countries. In 2008, the Hopkinton-based company reported $14.88 billion of revenue, and Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Egan’s wealth at $1.4 billion.
‘Dick’s vision became one of the world’s top technology companies, and his legacy will live on through the tens of thousands of lives he affected in so many positive ways,’ EMC Chairman, President and CEO Joseph M. Tucci said in a statement Aug. 29. ‘We have all lost a great mentor and friend.’
After serving as chief executive of the company, Mr. Egan resigned to serve as EMC’s chairman in 1992.
Mr. Egan served on Northeastern’s Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2008. The university opened the Maureen and Richard J. Egan Engineering and Science Research Center in 1996 after a donation from Mr. Egan and his wife. The center is home to nanotechnology, subsurface sensing and imaging labs partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Northeastern Chairman of the Board Sy Sternberg said in a statement to the Board of Trustees that Mr. Egan loved the university.
‘His entrepreneurial spirit inspired Northeastern to reach for excellence in research and through his generous gift of the Egan Engineering and Research Center, the university has been able to attract internationally known faculty and world renown for its cutting edge scholarship,’ Sternberg said.
Mr. Egan joined the Marine Corps Reserves after graduating from Boston Technical High School in 1953, three weeks before the Korean War ended.
President George W. Bush appointed Mr. Egan ambassador to Ireland in March 2001, where he served for 15 months.
In a statement published by the Boston Globe Aug. 29, Mr. Egan’s family members said they are ‘terribly saddened’ and asked that the public respect their privacy.
Mr. Egan leaves his wife, Maureen; five children, John, Michael, Maureen, Christopher and Catherine; a sister; 15 grandchildren.