Bernard Ebbers, the man who built Worldcom into a telecom giant before it collapsed into bankruptcy, has died at the age of 78. Ebbers was released from prison in December after serving 13 years for fraud and conspiracy charges related to the Worldcom scandal.

Ebbers was born in Canada and operated a hotel chain in Mississippi before getting involved in the burgeoning long-distance phone business in the early 1980s. He became an investor in, and then the CEO of, a small long-distance provider called LDDS.

Through a series of acquisitions, Ebbers grew LDDS into one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies. He re-branded the company Worldcom in 1995.