Dr Garry E Hunt, now 82, was 28 when he became the first Briton selected by Nasa to be part of the Voyager project. The scientist, businessman and communicator began his career as a mathematician and atmospheric physicist, and conducted groundbreaking research on space exploration of the solar system. Hunt then turned his attention to the business world, running companies and advising governments all over the world. Hunt has also served on numerous boards as a non-executive director in the US, Europe and the UK.
As a broadcaster he has worked on many TV programmes, including co-presenting the BBC’s The Sky at Night with Patrick Moore for more than 20 years from 1973. Hunt received an OBE for his services to space science and business in the first birthday honours announced by King Charles. He lives in southwest London with his wife, Wendy.
How much money is in your wallet?
Zero. I haven’t carried cash for 20 years. I pay as securely as I can and use Apple Pay. I used credit cards for yonks, and thereafter always used my mobile phone.
What credit cards do you use?
American Express, MBNA, Barclays. American Express is my major one for flexibility and, in the past, for benefits like travel. I also used MBNA for my travel to the US, which I got cashback on and could pay in dollars and avoid transfer fees. In the old days there were often problems paying with credit cards at the garage. If it didn’t go through, you couldn’t know if it was a scam or a fault with your card or the network. So one of my cards is purely for anything to do with the car — a very low limit, which keeps it under control.
Are you a saver or a spender?
Saver. Interest rates in the Seventies and Eighties were getting up to mid-teens percentages for mortgages. When my wife and I got married at 23 in 1966 we had just enough to buy a house for £3,750 with a £200 deposit. We don’t believe in hire purchase and buy things when we can afford them. Our first mortgage application was turned down. With me on a research fellowship at the Atlas Computer Laboratory in Harwell, Oxfordshire, and Wendy’s teacher salary, they decided I was a risk.
We finally got a mortgage and had £197 left, which we later spent on a new car after ours was written off when a driver came over an icy bridge too fast. In 1970 we sold the house for £4,800 and brain-drained to America, where JPL [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, part of Nasa] paid me 20 times my £1,000-a-year England salary. We lived on half and saved the rest. Our plan was to make money, build up our career and return to Britain, which we did.
Are you better off than your parents?
Yes. My father had a difficult war in India and Burma and I didn’t know him until I was five. My parents left school at 14 and lived frugally. My father worked in a factory, my mother in a shop. They didn’t revere education. I was an only child, went to very basic state schools and at 13 a technical school. In 1961 I was the first in my family to go to university and only went because it was free. I had a scholarship, a county grant for books and travel of £25 a year, and lived at home.
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When did you first feel wealthy?
I’m not sure wealthy is the right word. But once in Asia my host, who was the head of Inland Revenue and going to an event with his wife, considered it more important that I was there, so I went as her and was announced as “Mrs”.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
In our early married life it was very tough. We decided we wanted a house as we don’t believe in renting. We were determined our three children would have the finest education so we had five-figure annual sums in private school fees to pay. But we made it work by never going on lavish holidays, rarely dining out, and running our car until the wheels nearly fell off.
What’s your most lucrative work?
When I left academia — research lab director at Imperial College on £17,000 a year — in 1985 and went into business, I was immediately on £50,000 in the UK. I started at the bottom of the tree and was soon running large businesses. Not wanting to be owned 24/7 by them, I went off to use my broad skills helping other companies and advising governments. I first went into PA Consulting, then was quickly hired for my skills managing people and technology by the software companies Logica and then ICL, where, by 1990, I was on £100,000.
In academia we were at the cutting edge of basic image processing, but with the UK lagging in recognising it I was taking those skills elsewhere. In 1992 Wendy and I set up our own company, Elbury Enterprises, advising, consulting and speaking at events all over the world. The most I’ve been paid for a speech was £10,000, in the 1990s, but I don’t charge schools.
Do you own a property?
Two, which we use and live in. We bought our first in Wimbledon for £12,000 in 1971 (now worth £1.7 million), a large five-bedroom house and garden, while living in America. We flew home from California, bought it, had things done to it, and went back to LA, returning to the UK in 1972, when I worked in the Met Office.
I spent 20 years commuting to projects in the US. There’s a special work ethic there — if it doesn’t go right, they ask what you’ve learnt, not say you’ve failed. They get the best people to do the jobs whoever they are. Things are gradually changing here too.
We bought the second property in 1988 for £96,000 (now worth £500,000), a two-bedroom flat overlooking the sea on the Bournemouth clifftop. But people are never going to buy houses when students are laden with the incredible debts they have now. It’s a falsehood that everybody should go to university, and it’s the key to many of our problems. We want the most talented people and we used to have them with polytechnics or apprenticeships starting at 16 not 20. In academia I always made sure my research students had an external link to business or industry for the opportunity for another job.
Do you invest in shares?
Not myself. As a mathematician I understand what goes wrong! We have people looking after our investments. Amateurs shouldn’t dabble in it.
What was your best business decision?
To broaden my skills from purely mathematics into computing. While doing a mathematical physics PhD I told my supervisor: “I want to do something real, so I’m going to do physics and learn how to use a computer.” That’s how I got my fellowship to Harwell, a huge leap in another direction. I had no idea what it might lead to, but loads of little steps thereafter led me to JPL, where I was able to write a proposal for Voyager, which remains one of the greatest missions of all time.
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Your worst business decision?
I don’t think I’ve made a bad decision. Turning companies around is always a toughie. Many times I was brought in because people were struggling with their projects or not using their staff and technology effectively. My role to advise the best way to use their skills was often well received. But once, working with the board of management at the BBC on its business infrastructure, the finance director and I were preparing what I was presenting to the director-general when one member banged the table, saying, “Well, I don’t agree with what the professor has said.” And then stormed out of the meeting.
What’s your money weakness?
I don’t have one, because I don’t waste money. I’m old-fashioned, a war baby coming from nothing in an environment where people always expected me to fail because I was doing something odd.
What has been your best investment?
Our houses. Also I’ve proved that a scientist can move into business and be successful. My mathematics and physics skills are transitional and can be used in business.
What lesson have you learnt about money?
The power of networking. I once gave a speech to IBM and found that my host was my university rugby tour roommate. Always get introduced to the right people. On my second day at JPL I talked to a man who’d received the Nobel prize. And spend wisely. In one country the minister for social security told me, “I’ve sent my deputy with money to pay poor people in the jungle and we haven’t heard from him for a week.” He’d disappeared.
What if you won the lottery?
Most would go to charity and we’d make sure the family was looked after.
Have you gambled?
Only with my life! Once in Asia — I’m 6ft 5in — I had an armed guard with an AK47 because it was pretty riotous, but he was only 5ft 2in so I asked Madame President for another one.
How much did you earn last year?
I’m retired. I give talks and have been paid up to four-figure sums for them. But I work mainly pro bono now, preferring to do things charitably, unless it’s for commercial companies.
Do you have a pension?
We’ve invested carefully and have good solid private pensions. The money is worth the same as it was 15 years ago, during which time I’ve been drawing money to live on from it. We spent 50 years either living in or travelling to America. My pension comes out of my investments. We have a well-managed pension fund with pensions amalgamated from different companies, and worth seven figures. I think the attitude of the chancellor is deplorable towards people who wisely look after their money, in taxing them to the hilt. It’s disgraceful. She’s not an economist; she’s an accountant and a second-rate one too.
What’s your most extravagant purchase?
We’re on our third Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate, each costing £50-60,000. The first two we financed — the second was a fabulous one we drove back from their Stuttgart factory. The third was a year or so old. They’re so sophisticated now that I had to watch YouTube for days to understand how to use it.
What was your first job?
As a teenager I delivered newspapers, worked in butcher’s shops, dug up roads for the council. I once wrote a Space Bag column for TV Times, who wanted pictures of me and Katie Boyle as if we were going to the moon. They sent us to Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. I got double-takes from drivers all the way there as we’d had to get changed in the hotel and I was wearing a spacesuit and helmet.
Contact Dr Garry E Hunt for talks on space, the digital world and climate change on LinkedIn
