Gary Burrell was the co-founder of Garmin, one of the most successful GPS and navigation technology companies ever built. At the time of his death on June 12, 2019, his estimated net worth was in the range of $1 billion to $3 billion, placing him firmly in billionaire territory based on his Garmin equity stake and the company's long-running stock performance. Because he passed away in 2019, the number is now a historical figure rather than a living estimate, but it remains well-documented and worth understanding in detail.
Gary Burrell Net Worth Estimate: How It’s Calculated
Marcus Voss
11 Apr 2026
Who Gary Burrell was
Gary Leon Burrell was an American engineer and entrepreneur born in 1940. He spent years working in the aerospace and defense electronics industry before co-founding Garmin in 1989 alongside Min Kao. The company started in Lenexa, Kansas, focused on GPS technology for aviation, then expanded into automotive, marine, and outdoor navigation products. Burrell served as co-CEO alongside Kao until stepping down from that role in 2002, after which he held the title of Chairman Emeritus. He remained a major shareholder and a deeply influential figure at the company he built until his death.
Garmin went public on NASDAQ in 2000 under the ticker GRMN. The IPO was a defining liquidity event that crystallized the value of Burrell's founding equity stake. From that point forward, his documented wealth was tied closely to Garmin's share price, dividend payments, and any shares he sold or transferred over time. Forbes tracked him as a billionaire for multiple years, listing him under the navigation equipment category on its World's Billionaires list.
The estimated net worth: a range and why it's not a single number
The most credible estimate for Gary Burrell's net worth at or near the time of his death in June 2019 sits between $1.5 billion and $3 billion. Forbes had listed him as a billionaire during the mid-2000s through the 2010s, with estimates fluctuating based on Garmin's stock price. GRMN stock was trading in the range of $70 to $90 per share around the time of his death in mid-2019, and given that he held a meaningful founding-era equity stake, the billion-plus figure is credible and well-supported by the Forbes reporting.
That said, any net worth figure for a private individual is an estimate. Here is what is known versus what is inferred: the publicly knowable pieces include Garmin SEC filings that disclose large-shareholder positions, any Form 4 or Schedule 13 filings showing insider stock transactions, and the Forbes list entries themselves. What gets estimated is the full picture: how much of his original stake he sold over the years, how his philanthropic giving reduced his taxable estate, the value of any private holdings outside Garmin, and what portion of shares may have been transferred to family trusts or foundations before his death. These gaps are why a range is more honest than a single precise number.
How his wealth was built
Burrell's wealth came almost entirely from founding and owning a large stake in Garmin. Before Garmin, he worked in engineering roles in the defense electronics sector, which built his technical expertise but not his fortune. The real wealth-building machinery started the moment he and Min Kao launched Garmin and took it from a small GPS hardware shop to a publicly traded global company with billions in annual revenue.
The key income and value drivers over his lifetime included his founding equity stake (which represented a substantial percentage of Garmin shares at the time of the IPO), executive compensation during his time as co-CEO, Garmin's consistent dividend payments to shareholders (Garmin is known for paying out significant dividends, which would have generated tens of millions of dollars annually for a major shareholder), and any shares sold on the open market or transferred over the years. Co-founders of companies that go public with the scale Garmin achieved at its IPO typically see most of their wealth creation happen in that single liquidity event, with dividend income and share appreciation driving additional accumulation afterward.
What swings the estimate up or down
Several factors can push the estimate toward the lower or higher end of the range. Understanding them helps you interpret whatever figure you find from any particular source.
- Equity stake size and dilution: How much of Garmin's original founding equity Burrell retained after the IPO, subsequent share issuances, and any secondary sales is a key variable. Smaller retained stake means a lower estimate; larger retention means a higher one.
- Garmin stock price at time of measurement: Forbes snapshots net worth at a point in time. GRMN stock traded between roughly $30 and $130 over the decade before Burrell's death, so the date of the estimate matters enormously.
- Dividend income accumulated: Garmin pays above-average dividends. A shareholder of Burrell's scale would have accumulated hundreds of millions in dividend income over the years, separate from share value.
- Philanthropic and charitable giving: Large donations to foundations or charities reduce the estate and net worth figure, but these transfers are not always publicly disclosed until after death.
- Estate and trust structures: Shares held in family trusts, spousal transfers, or charitable remainder trusts would affect both the estate valuation and any public disclosure of his holdings.
- Private assets: Any real estate, private company investments, or other non-Garmin holdings that are not reported publicly add to or change the picture in ways that are hard to verify.
Comparing what different source types can tell you
| Source Type | What It Shows | Reliability for Net Worth |
|---|---|---|
| Forbes Billionaires List | Annual snapshot estimate based on known equity and market prices | High for order-of-magnitude; point-in-time only |
| SEC Form 4 / Schedule 13 Filings | Insider stock ownership and transactions reported to regulators | High for share count; does not show full net worth |
| Garmin Annual Reports (10-K) | Major shareholders, executive compensation disclosures | High for company-related holdings |
| Probate / Estate Records | Estate value after death, sometimes filed publicly | Variable; depends on state and filing practices |
| Financial journalism (Bloomberg, WSJ) | Reported estimates, interviews, and wealth context | Medium-high; subject to editorial judgment |
| General net worth aggregator sites | Compiled estimates, often sourced from Forbes or news reports | Low-medium; useful for ballpark, verify upstream |
Where to look for documentation
If you want to go beyond headline estimates, there are a few practical places to check. The SEC's EDGAR database (sec.gov) is the first stop: search for Gary Burrell or Garmin insider filings to pull up any Form 4 filings (which document stock sales and transfers) or Schedule 13D/13G filings (which disclose large ownership stakes). Garmin's own annual proxy statements, filed with the SEC as DEF 14A documents, list executive and director compensation and sometimes name major shareholders. Forbes archived its Burrell profile over the years, and the Seattle Times and other outlets that reproduced Forbes's billionaires list provide dated snapshots of the estimates.
For post-death information, probate records in Johnson County, Kansas (where Garmin is headquartered and where Burrell lived) may be accessible through the Kansas court system's public records portal. These filings, if public, could include estate valuations. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal covered Garmin's leadership and major shareholders during its growth years, so searching their archives for Burrell's name alongside terms like 'shareholder' or 'stake' will surface relevant reporting.
How to build and refresh your own estimate
Since Burrell passed away in 2019, this is now a historical research exercise rather than a live estimate. But the methodology still applies for constructing the most accurate figure possible.
- Find his last known share count: Pull Garmin proxy statements and Form 4 filings from 2018 and 2019 on SEC EDGAR to identify how many shares he held at or near the time of his death.
- Multiply by the stock price: Use the GRMN closing price on or around June 12, 2019 (approximately $74 to $80 per share) to calculate the market value of his Garmin stake.
- Add estimated dividend income: Review Garmin's dividend history and estimate cumulative dividends paid on his share count over prior years, adjusted for any shares sold.
- Apply a discount for estate planning: Large shareholders often transfer assets before death. Apply a conservative 10 to 30 percent discount to account for charitable transfers, trusts, and gifts if you have no specific data.
- Check for probate records: Search Johnson County, Kansas court records to see if an estate value was publicly filed.
- Cross-reference with Forbes: Compare your calculated estimate against the Forbes figure that was most recently published before his death to sanity-check your number.
- Note your date: Record what date's stock price and filings you used, since the estimate is only valid for that point in time.
Other 'Gary Burrell' names to watch out for
When researching Gary Burrell's net worth, it is easy to stumble onto the wrong person. There are a few disambiguation points worth flagging. First, Gary Burrell the Garmin co-founder should not be confused with other business figures whose names sound similar. For example, profiles of Gary Berman of Tricon cover a Canadian real estate executive with a completely different career and wealth profile. Similarly, you might come across Gary Buechler's financial background, which relates to an entirely separate individual in a different industry. These mix-ups are common when searching for executives and entrepreneurs by name.
Within tech and entrepreneurship, people sometimes confuse co-founder wealth profiles. Gavin Uberti's net worth profile is one example of a tech hardware co-founder story that gets referenced alongside Burrell-era GPS innovation discussions, but Uberti is a distinct individual from a different generation and company. On the business side, a name like Gary B. Sabin (a real estate developer) occasionally surfaces in net-worth searches when people mistype or misremember similar names. Real estate investors like Gary Bimonte or marketing figures like Gary Bencivenga represent completely unrelated profiles that sometimes appear in the same search results due to name proximity. The simplest filter: the Garmin co-founder Gary Burrell died on June 12, 2019, co-founded a publicly traded GPS company, and appeared on Forbes billionaires lists. If the profile you are reading does not match those facts, you have the wrong Gary Burrell.
The bottom line on Gary Burrell's wealth
Gary Burrell built his wealth the old-fashioned way: he co-founded a company from scratch, held onto a significant equity stake through its public offering, and benefited from decades of dividends and share appreciation as Garmin became a global navigation powerhouse. The best-supported estimate for his net worth at the time of his death in June 2019 is in the $1.5 billion to $3 billion range, consistent with his Forbes billionaire listings and Garmin's stock price at that time. The number is an estimate, not a certified figure, but it is grounded in real public data: SEC filings, Forbes tracking, and Garmin's own reported shareholder disclosures. For a co-founder of a company with Garmin's scale, that range is both credible and conservative.
FAQ
Why do different sites show very different Gary Burrell net worth numbers even though they all cite Garmin?
Most differences come from valuation timing (they may use a different date than his June 12, 2019 death), how they handle the size of his remaining stake (for example, whether they assume he still held founding-era shares versus sold or transferred them), and whether they include non-Garmin assets or only publicly traded holdings. A fair comparison uses the same valuation date and the same definition of net worth (assets minus liabilities, or assets only).
Is Gary Burrell net worth based on his equity stake at death, or based on what he made during his lifetime?
Net worth estimates are typically closer to a snapshot of what his assets were worth at or near a specific date (often tied to his stake value), not a sum of income earned. For co-founders, the founder equity and dividends usually matter more than salary, so estimates often weight share ownership and share price more heavily than career earnings records.
How do dividends affect a Gary Burrell net worth estimate if they were paid over many years?
Dividends can matter in two ways, they increase cash available to the shareholder over time, and they can indirectly increase net worth if proceeds were reinvested into additional shares or other assets. Some calculators include dividends in past wealth accumulation, while others effectively ignore them and value only the current share stake. That methodological difference can move the final number noticeably.
Do I need to include liabilities when estimating Gary Burrell net worth?
Many online “net worth” figures effectively report asset values, not a true estate-style balance sheet after debts and expenses. If the goal is a higher-fidelity picture, look for any disclosed debts, major expenses, or estate costs around the relevant time, then subtract them from asset valuations. Without liabilities data, ranges are usually more reliable than single-point claims.
Can I calculate Gary Burrell net worth myself from SEC filings, and what filings matter most?
You can approximate it by combining (1) insider or large-holder transactions (Form 4 for buys and sales, Schedule 13D/13G for significant ownership), with (2) major shareholder and compensation context from the company’s DEF 14A proxy, and (3) the market price of Garmin shares on your chosen valuation date. The key limitation is that filings may not fully reveal any shares held through trusts, family entities, or transfers that are not captured in a straightforward “direct ownership” view.
What is the biggest “missing piece” that prevents a precise Gary Burrell net worth number?
Indirect holdings and timing. If he transferred shares to family trusts or other entities, the public filings may show different ownership lines than the shares he economically controlled. Also, his actual holdings could have changed after the latest filing used by a calculator, so estimates become sensitive to which exact transaction dates are included.
Why might Gary Burrell net worth estimates stop at a broad range like $1.5 billion to $3 billion instead of a single number?
Because the public record often supports a range rather than a definitive share count at a single date. Small differences in assumed share quantity, dividend reinvestment behavior, or whether certain private holdings are included can shift totals by hundreds of millions. A range also accounts for uncertainty about estate and trust structures.
Do estate and probate filings in Kansas typically provide a final “official” Gary Burrell net worth?
They can sometimes include estate valuation information, but accessibility varies and not all filings are readily public. Even when probate documents exist, they may reflect valuation methods and appraisals done by the estate at a time that does not exactly match the market value on the date of death, so you may still see differences from market-based estimates.
If someone says Gary Burrell net worth after his death, is that still meaningful?
Be cautious. After death, “net worth” for an individual usually becomes an estate value concept, which then changes with stock price movements, distributions to heirs, taxes, and administrative costs. A post-death figure can be useful, but it should be labeled as estate value at a given date, not the same as an individual’s personal net worth snapshot.
How can I avoid mixing up Gary Burrell with other people who have similar names in net worth searches?
Use identity checks before trusting any number: confirm the person was the Garmin co-founder who died on June 12, 2019, and that the company context is GPS/navigation (Garmin, NASDAQ ticker GRMN). If a profile does not match those core facts, it is almost certainly a different person and the net worth figure will be unrelated.
What’s a practical way to judge whether a Gary Burrell net worth estimate is more credible than another?
Prefer estimates that (1) tie their valuation to a specific date near June 2019, (2) explain which holdings they included (direct shares only versus shares through trusts and any other assets), and (3) show their method or at least point to identifiable inputs like reported insider transactions and market prices. If a site gives a precise number with no timing or methodology, treat it as less reliable than a range-based estimate.
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