Roland W. Betts

Roland W. Betts is Co-Founder and Chairman of Chelsea Piers, L.P. which developed and operates the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment complex in New York. Chelsea Piers is one of the most popular destinations in New York, with annual visitation in excess of 4 million. Mr. Betts is also the Co-Chairman of Chelsea Piers Connecticut in Stamford, Connecticut.

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, Gandhiand 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 which was purchased in 1989 by a group of investors assembled by Mr. Betts and President George W. Bush.

After graduating from Yale in 1968, Mr. Betts taught school at I.S. 201 in Harlem and trained teachers as a principle in The Teachers Inc. 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 chronicles his experiences in the public school system.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1978, Mr. Betts practiced entertainment law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison until leaving to finance movies and pursue his interests in the worlds of sports and entertainment.

Mr. Betts has served as a Trustee for many not-for-profit organizations, including: Yale University (Mr. Betts was elected Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation in 2003, a position he held for eight years), the American Museum of Natural History, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Columbia Law School, the National Park Foundation, the United States Olympic Committee, the World Baseball Classic and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

From 2001 - 2006 Mr. Betts was a Director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation which was charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan. In that capacity, Mr. Betts served as Chairman of the Site Committee responsible for planning and rebuilding Ground Zero.

Roland and Lois Betts celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary in 2019. They have two daughters, Margaret (Princeton ’99) and Jessica (Yale ’98 and Columbia MBA ’06), both living and working in New York City.