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The National Herald’s 11th Annual Survey of the 50 Wealthiest Greek Americans

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Wealthiest Greek Americans 2009THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 14, 2009 3


By Evan C. LambrouSpecial to The National Herald

NEW YORK – At 89 years of age,arguably the single wealthiestGreek American, who made his for-tune in the petroleum industry, haslived through the Great Depres-sion, and is deeply concerned aboutthe recent economic crisis and theworld’s depleting natural re-sources.

George Phydias Mitchell wasranked 128th among FORBES 400richest Americans this past Septem-ber, just before the economic melt-down hit, with an estimated networth of $3.2 billion. Among theworld’s billionaires, FORBESranked him 349th last year (thisyear’s list had not yet been generat-ed at press time).

Mr. Mitchell is the son of Greekimmigrants who came to the Unit-ed States from the Peloponnese atthe turn of the 20th Century. Heand his wife Cynthia have ten chil-dren, seven sons and three daugh-ters; 26 grandchildren; and twogreat grandchildren. They reside inThe Woodlands, Texas – an award-winning planned community 27miles north of Houston which Mr.Mitchell founded himself – and areconsidered among Houston’s lead-ing citizens.

In a rare interview, Mr. Mitchellspoke to the National Herald abouthis family history; growing upGreek in America; his path to suc-cess; philanthropy; and his viewsabout the economy, energy, the en-vironment and historical preserva-tion.

HIS IMMIGRANT ROOTSHis father, Savas Paraskevopou-

los, emigrated from Nastani, asmall village about 30 miles northof Tripolis. Mr. Mitchell, who wasborn in Galveston back in 1919,first visited his father’s native homewhen he was in his forties.

“It’s a beautiful little village upin the mountains,” Mr. Mitchellsaid in his low, quick yet veryfriendly manner of speaking. “Myfather took a ship from a little towncalled Kalmara in 1901, whichmade its way to Ellis Island.”

Savas, who was a goatherd inGreece, eventually made his way toGalveston, but first went toArkansas, and then to Utah, towork on the railroads. It was whilehe was working on the railroads inArkansas that his name waschanged. The timekeeper, the per-son who was in charge of the pay-roll, told him he was going to“make things easy” by giving Savasa new name, Mike Mitchell, whichwas also the timekeeper’s name.

“He worked on the railroads forfour years, and then he went to

Houston in 1905. He had a cousinthere who was also from Nastaniwho was operating a small drycleaning shop and shoeshine parloracross the street from the Rice Ho-tel, and my father joined him,” Mr.Mitchell said.

The Rice Hotel was a very popu-lar and upscale establishment, hesaid, so his father and the cousincame into frequent contact with“big-time players” like Jesse Jones(1874-1956) – the famous Houstonpolitician and entrepreneur who al-so served as U.S. Secretary of Com-merce (1940-45) and headed theReconstruction Finance Corpora-tion (1932-45), the federal agencywhich played a major role in com-bating the Great Depression and fi-nancing industrial expansion inWorld War II – “the movers andshakers of Houston.”

Then Savas moved to Galveston,where he opened his own pressingshop.

“Many respected Galvestoniansnew him quite well and liked himvery much, even though he was noteducated and had very little money.He was so well thought of, that thedoctors, lawyers and other profes-sionals and business people helpedhim out. He had a lot of friends,”Mr. Mitchell said.

In matters of love, it turns out,Savas was quite a determined man.

Mr. Mitchell’s mother, KatinaEleftheriou, immigrated to thiscountry after his father did. Sheemigrated from Argos around1907-08, settling in TarponSprings, Florida. Savas saw a pic-ture of her in a Greek newspapercirculating there; liked what hesaw; and decided he needed to goto Florida to meet her. When he gotto Florida, Savas not only won Kati-na’s heart, he persuaded her tochoose him over another fellow.

“There was an article in theGreek paper about this Greek beau-ty that came from Greece, so he cuther picture out of that paper, andcarried it with him in his wallet forsix months while he tried to figureout a way to get to Florida. He fi-nally went there and found her. Heconvinced her not to marry anothersuitor her sister had all lined up forher, and persuaded her to come toGalveston and marry him,” Mr.Mitchell said.

Savas and Katina had threesons, Christie, Johnny and George,and one daughter, Maria. Mr.Mitchell’s oldest brother died 29years ago; his brother Johnny, withwhom he entered into the oil busi-ness, passed away 13 years ago;and his sister married a physician,and still lives in Houston.

Mr. Mitchell’s father passedaway in 1980 at the ripe old age of

91, but his mother died whenyoung George was only 13 yearsold.

Asked for his earliest recollec-tions growing up as a Greek Ameri-can in Galveston, Mr. Mitchell saidGalveston’s Greek community waswell-liked and well-respected. Healso said he remembered his moth-er was very active in it, and notedthat his father was a well known lo-cal businessman.

“The Greek community inGalveston was a very, very finecommunity, just as it is all acrossthe country. There were a numberof Greek people living there backthen. My father was very wellknown as an entrepreneur. Mymother was very active in it. Shewas very highly-regarded as a goodperson who helped the communitya lot,” he said.

“The community was mixed atfirst. There was a Serbian andGreek Church – Greeks and Serbs

together, with a Serbian priest – be-fore the Greeks got enough moneyto start their own church and gettheir own priest. I remember walk-ing around that church about tentimes at Easter when I was aboutten years old before the Greekchurch was built at its current loca-tion. I never understood why wehad to do that so many times,” hesaid chuckling.

“But the Greek community wasa strong community. We had a goodname and a good reputation ashonest, hardworking people. Andas time went on over the years,Greek people were very wellthought of in Galveston,” he added.

Mr. Mitchell still considers him-self active with the Greek Americancommunity in Texas. He said hesupports the Annunciation Cathe-dral in Houston and its annual fes-tival. He also said he helps the As-sumption Church in Galveston,which sustained extensive damage

from Hurricane Ike this past Sep-tember, when needed.

During his interview with theHerald, Mr. Mitchell lamented thedwindling of the Greek Americancommunity in Texas.

“The churches still do prettywell, all things considered. YoungGreeks, however – it’s unfortunate,but they leave. So Greeks can havea tough time supporting thechurches,” he said.

Mr. Mitchell recently gave a$10,000 donation to the Greek Or-thodox Archdiocese of America, hesaid, but wasn’t sure if he wouldcontinue giving to the Archdioceseon a regular or sustained basis. Heprefers to keep his philanthropy lo-cal.

“I have so many commitmentsbetween the Greek churches andthe Episcopalians here, and whatI’m doing with the medical centers,I’ve got to watch out,” he said.

Mr. Mitchell is now an Episco-palian. “I was Orthodox, and mywife was Catholic, so we compro-mised and became Episcopalians,”he said chuckling. “We were prettyactive at Saint Francis EpiscopalChurch, where we were membersfor many years. We’d go to theGreek Church for vacations (Christ-mas and Easter), but my wife and Itook our kids to the Episcopalchurch most of the time.”

Mrs. Mitchell suffers fromAlzheimer’s Disease. “It’s a verytough disease. We haven’t foundany solutions, but we keep looking.There’s no magic bullet, but there’sa report every six months aboutwhat’s going on around the worldwith the research,” Mr. Mitchellsaid, noting that he has given tensof millions to Baylor University &Methodist Hospital, The Universityof Texas Medical Branch in Galve-ston (UTMD-Galveston), UTHealth Science Center in Houston,and M.D. Anderson Cancer Centerfor Alzheimer’s and cancer re-search.

HOW IT ALL STARTEDMr. Mitchell grew up in an im-

migrant neighborhood in Galve-ston known as the “League of Na-tions,” and lived in the same build-ing which housed his father’s drycleaning shop. He attended bothgrammar school and high school inGalveston. He had a natural affinityfor math and science from a youngage, and graduated high schoolwith honors. He initially consid-ered going to medical school, be-

fore wildcatting for oil and naturalgas got into his blood.

“Galveston had a very good highschool at that time, so I was able toget a good education. I was verygood at mathematics. There was agreat professor at Ball High, and Itook all the advanced math classesthey had. My mother wanted me tobe a doctor, so I applied to Rice In-stitute – which eventually becameRice University, and which was verydifficult to get into – and they ac-cepted me. But I was only 16 then,and my father thought I was tooyoung to go off to college. He want-ed me stay in high school one moreyear, so I had to go back and do an-other year of additional studies be-fore I could start college. By thetime I finished high school, I endedup taking three years of Latin,which was required for the pre-med program,” he said.

The summer before he was tostart his freshman year at Rice, hedecided he needed to earn some ex-tra money, and joined his brotherJohnny in the oil fields. That’swhen he got his first taste of the en-ergy industry, which sparked his in-terest in the field of petroleum en-gineering.

“That summer, I worked in theoil fields with my brother Johnny,who was ten years my senior. John-ny was a chemical engineer withExxon, and then he went out on hisown to work the oil wells inLouisiana, and make judgments onthose wells. So I worked with mybrother that summer, and I decidedI wanted to be a petroleum engi-neer,” he said.

“I started out as a field hand inthe summertime with him, doinganything. I was a roustabout. That’swhat they called us in those days. Iwas on the field. I didn’t do anydrilling. If you work on a rig, that’svery dangerous work, and a 16-year-old boy shouldn’t do that. So Iworked around, moving pipes andpipeline all along the field – that’swhat a roustabout does – and then Ibecame so enamored with the pe-

troleum industry, I naturally want-ed to pursue that interest. So I hadto switch universities because Ricedidn’t have a petroleum engineer-ing program. I had to go to a uni-versity that did, so I went to TexasA&M to study geology and engi-neering,” he said.

“Johnny graduated from A&Min 1934, long before I went there.He left Exxon, and went on his ownwith a group of investors, whospent some money to try and getproduction on some oil wells. Hestarted drilling wells in these littlefields. So while I was a student atA&M, my brother was out on thefield trying to make money,” headded.

As a student at A&M, Mr.Mitchell operated a laundry con-cession and sold stationery to helppay his way through school. Heearned a degree in petroleum engi-neering, with an emphasis on geol-ogy. He was also in the university’sReserved Officers Training Corps(ROTC) program. After he graduat-ed, he went to Louisiana to workfor Amoco, but was soon called tofulfill his military obligation withthe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“A&M enjoyed the recognitionof being the largest university to of-fer reserve officers training for theArmy. When I got out after my se-nior year, the Army offered me apermanent position. But I knew Iwanted to be in the oil and gas in-dustry. That’s what I spent fouryears studying to do, so I didn’twant an Army career,” he said.

“I wanted to get a job in the oilfields, and Amoco hired me to godown to Southern Louisiana, so af-ter I graduated in June of 1940, Iwent down to Louisiana. But as areserve officer, I knew it was only amatter of time before they wouldput me in the service. The Armycalled me a year and a half later.The Corps of Engineers brought meout from my work in the oil fieldsfor a time,” he said.

“I had three or four superiors inthe Corps of Engineers, and wewere busy at that time working onmajor projects in Houston becauseof the Second World War. We hadbetween two and three thousandpeople working on one 2,000-acreproject, and only three army offi-cers running that. Then we had abig gun plant making anti-aircraftweapons to worry about. So Iworked for three or four years atthose locations. At the tail end of

those very big projects, I was work-ing with a district engineeringgroup in Galveston, where we de-signed all the airfields for the Armyand the Navy in Texas, Louisianaand New Mexico,” he said.

“So I had tremendous experi-ence working stateside with theCorps of Engineers during the War,while Johnny, who was also a re-serve officer, was fighting in Pat-ton’s army overseas. He was a cap-tain in the field artillery, and hewent through hell. He was in all ofPatton’s assaults. Patton had 30 di-visions under him. The main divi-sion only had 25,000 people in it,but they had 23,000 casualties in-side two and a half years of war.Now that’s a terrible thing,” hesaid.

“I didn’t go overseas. I made acouple of requests – one was to goto Burma, and the other was to goto France – but my colonel who wasresponsible for my activities inHouston said, ‘No. I can’t let yougo. You’ve got too big a job goingright now.’ So the fact that I was do-ing a good job for him kept me inHouston and prevented me fromgoing overseas,” he added.

AFTER THE WARAfter the War, Mr. Mitchell re-

joined his brother Johnny in Hous-ton. The Mitchell brothers teamedup with a group of investors theycalled the “Big Nine,” and startedputting deals together. He and hisbrother would go out and surveythe land late at night; search for oiland gas reserves; and, if they foundany, give the investors the largerportion of the profits and then taketheir own 1/32nd share of the cut.

“Johnny got out of the service afew months before they let me out.He got back together with his oldgroup and started working on pro-duction on some oil wells. He wasvery good at working the oil fields.I started doing the geological sur-veys for him and his friends. Eventhough I was ten years his junior, Iwas very well versed in what had tobe done geologically because of my

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George Phydias Mitchell Struck it Rich Wildcatting for Gas & Oil

George P. Mitchell next to a bronze statue of himself at The Wood-lands, Texas, an eco-friendly planned town he founded in 1974.

Sheridan Mitchell-Lorenz, right, admires a bronze sculpture of her fa-ther, George P. Mitchell, unveiled at The Woodlands in Nov. 2007.

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experience with the Corps of Engi-neers,” he said.

“During the War, while I was do-ing work for many companies, acouple of them tried to get me tojoin them afterwards. I said, ‘No,thank you.’ They were mostly in oiland gas production. It was a goodopportunity, but I wanted to joinmy brother in the petroleum engi-neering field,” he said.

“So I told Johnny, ‘Let’s team uptogether.’ He had a group of Jewishinvestors supporting him – the ‘BigNine,’ that’s what we called them –and I got six of them to pay me $50each a month, so we could lease awell and keep an interest in it if itwas successful. I started puttingdeals together, and I’d be workingat night because we had to borrowthe electrical equipment I neededto interpret the geology of the well.We couldn’t afford to buy theequipment at the time because itwas too expensive, so I had to bor-row it at night and return it thenext morning” he said.

“I would analyze the geologyand prepare the maps that showedthem where we had a chance tofind oil and gas. And Johnny andanother person he had workingwith him would try to lease theland. Then I’d send them down toEsperson drug store, where all thebrokers would have breakfast andcoffee in the morning, to do thedeal. They’d end up selling a pack-age for enough money to drill thewell, and then if we made a welland got a 1/32nd interest, we’d behappy,” he said.

“We had a very small interest.There were just three of us. But wemade a lot of discoveries over thenext 40-50 years after that, and webecame the largest independent oiland gas company by the time wesold it to Devon in 2002 (for $3.5billion). We had 2,000 peopleworking for us by then,” he added.

Devon Energy, consistently rat-ed by FORTUNE magazine amongthe top 100 companies to work for(ranked 48th in 2008), is one of theworld’s leading independent oiland gas exploration and produc-tion companies, with operations fo-cused primarily in the UnitedStates and Canada. It is NorthAmerica’s largest processor of nat-ural gas liquids, and owns naturalgas pipelines and treatment facili-ties in many of its producing areas.

Mr. Mitchell and his family stilloperate some of their own wells,and have a “big block of stock” withDevon. His son, J. Todd Mitchell, ison Devon’s board of directors.

Long before Devon came along,the original name of the Mitchellbrothers’ company was RoxoilDrilling, which eventually becameMitchell Energy & DevelopmentCorp. Johnny Mitchell stayed in-volved until the 1970’s, whenGeorge finally bought him out. Butthe steady drive to profits and suc-

cess had its share of pitfalls andheadaches along the way.

The way around those pitfallswas to concentrate on natural gas,Mr. Mitchell told the Herald.

“We had a lot of bumbling bombspins along the way, and we basi-cally had a tough time selling deals.There were a lot of big-time playersclose to the money, and they wouldtake our deals pretty quick. If youworked in an oil area, they proba-bly wouldn’t do a deal with you be-cause they were really after the oilfor themselves,” he said.

“So we concentrated mainly onnatural gas because I knew that gaswas going to be the most importantsource of energy. We found outthat, if you worked on a lease youwanted in a gas area, the companywould make a deal with you, sothat’s what we set our sights on,” headded.

The Mitchell brothers and theirpartners drilled their first well inNorth Texas, making one of thebiggest gas strikes in industry histo-ry, in Wise County near Fort Worth,with the discovery of the rich gasresources in the Boonsville Field.

“The first well we made had gasin it, and we got three and a halfcents per thousand cubic thousandfeet of gas. It’s now over $4 perthousand. The first three quartersof last year, it was anywhere from$8 to $12.60, so it’s gone downsome. But throughout our history,we concentrated most of our effortson how to do the best job possiblewith natural gas,” he added.

In 1953, the Christie, Mitchell &Mitchell Company, a subsidiary of

Roxoil Drilling, was formed and be-gan acquiring leases and drillingrights in North Texas. In 1954 thecompany arranged to supply natur-al gas to the Chicago metropolitanarea through the Natural GasPipeline Company of America.

Company headquarters were inHouston from 1955 to 1971. In1957, the firm diversified into gasprocessing with the construction ofits GM&A Gas Products plant inBridgeport, Texas. Mr. Mitchell be-came president and chief executiveofficer of Roxoil Drilling in 1959,and H. Merlyn Christie retired fromthe company in 1962, leaving theMitchell brothers to split theirshares 70-30, with George takingthe bigger slice.

After 1955, the firm began to di-versify into real estate. Mr. Mitchellformed Mitchell Development ofthe Southwest, a subsidiary, to pur-chase Pelican Island, a 3,000-acreindustrial area at Galveston harborwhich eventually attractedPennzoil, Shell and other major pe-troleum companies.

In the late 1960’s, Mr. Mitchellalso began to acquire beachfrontproperty in Galveston, including Pi-rates’ Beach, his first subdivision.At the same time, he became inter-ested in developing both onshoreand offshore gas and oil prospectsin the vicinity of Galveston Island.Worried that offshore drillingmight pollute the beaches anddamage the tourist trade, someGalveston residents respondedwith a coalition called “Save OurShores,” which voiced disapprovalof the company’s drilling plans.

The company was eventually al-lowed to drill, and the first wellcame in 1972. By 1989, Galvestonoil and gas operations had earned$11 million in royalties, of whichthe city of Galveston received 16percent, and had generated morethan $5 million in state and localtaxes.

By the early 1990’s, the compa-ny was involved in gas transmis-sion, as well as oil and gas explo-ration and production, and was al-so involved in real estate develop-ment in the Houston-Galvestonarea. The firm had assets of morethan $2 billion, including roughly1.7 million acres of mineral leasesand 60,000 acres of real estate. Itowned 57 gas-processing plantsand a network of 5,000 miles of in-trastate pipeline. By the end of thefiscal year 1993, the corporationwas producing 58 billion cubic feetof natural gas annually and morethan 19 million barrels of naturalgas liquids, crude oil and otherproducts from its holdings in NorthTexas, East Texas and SoutheasternNew Mexico.

THE ENVIRONMENT ANDHISTORIC PRESERVATIONBack in the 1980’s, Mr. Mitchell

and his wife took a very active in-terest in the city of his birth, andstarted restoring Galveston’s Victo-rian buildings, helping to revive itfrom decades of decay.

In 1984, Mitchell Developmentestablished the San Luis Hotel &Condominiums at the former site ofFort Crockett on Galveston Island.By the 1990’s, Mr. Mitchell owned18 buildings, housing, shops and

restaurants in Galveston’s historicStrand area, to include the historicTremont House, one of the area’spremiere hotels.

“Many of us who left Galvestonand fought in high-pressure arenaslike Houston saw opportunitiesthat the locals didn’t see,” he said.

Mr. Mitchell won the GalvestonHistorical Foundation’s Spirit ofElissa Award in 1999, and both heand Mrs. Mitchell were given oneof the country’s top awards for his-toric preservation in 2001, the Na-tional Trust for Historic Preserva-tion’s Crowninshield Award. “Cyn-thia did so much work for Galve-ston, so they decided to recognizeher for that,” he said.

Mr. Mitchell’s interest in historicpreservation is also strongly con-nected to his keen interest in envi-ronmental conservation, and hehas advocated for oil companies toquickly phase out single-hulltankers, which are more prone todamage and oil spillage.

He also favors sustainable devel-opment (a combination of social,economic and environmental pro-tection), which for him started inthe early 1970’s when concernsabout overpopulation and strain onnatural resources surfaced. This in-spired him to found The Wood-lands in 1974, a 28,000-acre subdi-vision north of Houston which hesold in 1998.

The Woodlands has been Texas’best-selling master-planned townsince 1990. It carefully integrates arange of recreational amenities,residential neighborhoods, com-mercial office space, retail shopsand entertainment venues in a nat-urally beautiful setting. Fully 28percent of The Woodlands is dedi-cated to green space, includingparks, pathways, open spaces, golfcourses and forest preserves.

Although Mr. Mitchell is nolonger the developer, he still keepstabs on The Woodlands’ progress.Executives with The WoodlandsDevelopment Company often seekhis advice on projects, and Texasartist Jay Hester created a life-sizebronze sculpture in Mr. Mitchell’slikeness, which was unveiled in thetown’s Green Park on November 8,2007.

Mr. Hester also created two oth-er sculptures for The Woodlands.One is of Mr. Mitchell sitting on abench, visiting with two of hisgrandchildren; the other is of hiswife reading to three children. Bothsculptures are at the north entranceof The Cynthia Woods MitchellPavilion.

The sculptures are three of 49throughout the community, and thecollection is part of the town’s pub-lic art program Mr. Mitchell startedwhen he first opened The Wood-lands. He established an art fund inwhich businesses contribute 0.25percent of their construction coststo help buy public artwork, and

Mitchell Energy & Developmenthad also added 0.50 percent of allcommercial land sales by TheWoodlands to the fund.

The artwork is a tribute to Mr.Mitchell’s accomplishments andleadership in developing what isnow considered one of the coun-try’s premier planned towns, andthe Nature Conservancy of Texasrecognized Mr. Mitchell last yearfor his sensitivity to the environ-ment in the overall development ofThe Woodlands community, andgave its 2008 Corporate Conserva-tion Leadership Award to TheWoodlands Development Companyfor developing the 1,700-acreGeorge Mitchell Nature Preserve inthe village of Creekside Park.

Some of his critics have ques-tioned Mr. Mitchell’s environmen-tal conscience, “but you can’tplease everybody. The thing is, youcan run a gas company with the en-vironment in mind, and land devel-opment can be environmentallyfriendly,” he said.

“I knew that all the cities acrossthe country could not managethemselves. That’s why people fledthe cities for the suburbs. So TheWoodlands is a good example ofhow we can could do a better job inthe new towns and developmentsthat started springing up,” headded.

Mr. Mitchell is the recipient ofnumerous awards. Honors accord-ed to him include the Texas A&MDistinguished Alumnus Award(1977); the Horatio Alger Award(1984); The Galveston Daily News’Citizen of the Year and the ImaHogg Historical AchievementAward (1988); Merrill Lynch, Ernst& Young Magazine’s Master Entre-preneur of the Year (1992); theTexas Business Hall of Fame Awardand the National Preservation Hon-or Award (1994); the Governor’sAward for Historic Preservation(presented to Mr. and Mrs. Mitchellby George W. Bush in 1995); theNature Conservancy of Texas’ Life-time Achievement Award (1997);and the Prevent Blindness Texas’People of Vision Award (presentedto Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell in 2000).

LOVE AND PHILANTHROPYPeople close to Mr. Mitchell

would say his wife had a lot to dowith his historic and environmentalconsciousness. If nothing else, Mr.Mitchell clearly loves Cynthia verymuch. In recounting the storyabout how they first met, he seemsto have taken after his father inmatters of the heart. He met hiswife and her twin sister Pamela ona train ride back to Houston fromCollege Station after going to anA&M football game with his broth-er Johnny.

“The girls were originally fromNew York City, but had moved toIllinois when they were nine, after

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George P. Mitchell, left, and his brother Johnny, right, with their partner H. Merlyn Christie at companyheadquarters in Houston back in the 1950’s. Johnny, ten years George’s senior, died 13 years ago.

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their father died. Their mother re-located to Jacksonville, Illinoiswhere they went to high school,and then their mother took them toHouston so they could go to collegethere. That’s how they ended up inTexas,” he said.

“Johnny was a very strong foot-ball fan, and every time there was afootball game, we’d get on a trainfrom Houston to College Station,and have a big party. On the wayback from one of those games, rightbefore Thanksgiving, I met thesetwo beautiful young ladies. Theywere identical twins,” he said.

“One of them had a boyfriend –the man she finally married – but Iwas able to get acquainted with theother one, and somehow, I got herphone number, and that’s the one Icalled later on. I ended up having adate with her, and we becamesteady. I was a lieutenant in theArmy at the time, but I had alreadystopped working in Louisiana, andwas working in Houston on thosebig projects,” he added.

Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell’s commit-ment to education and scientific re-search is equally zealous.

When Texas A&M commemorat-ed the conclusion of its seven-year,$1.5 billion “One Spirit, One Vi-sion” fundraising campaign with acampus celebration on March 30,2007 – a celebration attended by1,000 of the university’s top donorsand corporate partners – it was an-nounced that Mr. Mitchell and hiswife had donated $35 million fortwo new physics buildings, withfloor space totaling more than150,000 square feet for laborato-ries, classrooms, offices and an au-ditorium. The Mitchells con-tributed by far the largest sum to

the $57 million project.It was just one in a series of gen-

erous donations Mr. and Mrs.Mitchell have made to supportA&M’s scientific advancement.With previous gifts supporting aca-demic chairs, professorships andthe Giant Magellan Telescope pro-ject, the Mitchells are the universi-ty’s most supportive benefactors ofthe modern day, with donationsnow totaling nearly $49 million forthe sciences alone.

Mr. Mitchell’s contributions tothe study of science have broughtsome of the world’s most brilliantscientists to Texas, to include thegreat Stephen Hawking who, alongwith some of his closest colleagues,spent time at Mr. Mitchell’s ranchnear Magnolia, where they suppedon high cuisine – much of it, such aswild boar, from the ranch itself.

“George is a remarkable manand a wonderful supporter of fun-damental physics,” Dr. Hawkingtold the Houston Chronicle back inApril 2007. “He has enabled us tobring together leading experts andpromising young researchers totackle some of the most challeng-ing problems in cosmology.”

THE FUTUREHis philanthropic devotion to

historic preservation, environmen-tal conservation, education and sci-entific and medical research aside,Mr. Mitchell is worried aboutAmerica’s future.

He is old enough to rememberthe Depression and what it’s like tobe poor, and says that, while no oneis referring to today’s financialmeltdown as an economic depres-sion, rising unemployment, theslump in the housing market andthe overall decline in the stock mar-ket are clearly cause for deep con-cern.

The other problems, which hesaid are directly linked to the eco-nomic crisis, and ultimately havean overarching effect on not justthe American but also the globaleconomy, are global warming andthe world’s declining fossil fuel re-serves.

He told the Herald he believesnatural gas is still a big part of thesolution to the country’s energyproblems, but that alternativesources and more prudent use ofenergy are necessary. Oil and nat-

ural gas are finite sources of energy,he pointed out, so it’s important toseek and find alternatives – not toreplace but to supplement fossil fu-els.

“Natural gas is a very clean andefficient form of fuel, and it’s still abig part of the solution, but we’re inshort supply of it. We’re importingnatural gas from the Middle Eastand places like Trinidad because,right now, we’re short on natural gasby 25 percent. So a lot of our gas isneeds to be imported. Sixty percent

of our oil is being imported, so we’rein big trouble all the way aroundwith gas and oil,” he said.

“We have to import it becausewe can’t find enough of our own.We’ve already explored the countrypretty thoroughly. There are still alot of big discoveries to be made,but our demand will keep any newreserves from being enough. Theworld is going to be in deep troublein 20 or 30 years, so we’ve got to dosomething about what’s going on,”he said.

“Global warming is a big prob-lem, too. We’ve got to figure outhow to cut back on carbon emis-sions. We’ve got to figure out howto get natural gas across the ocean,and we’ve got to make environ-mental conservation more effec-tive. We’ve got a real problem onour hands,” he said.

“Those who think solar andwind energy can solve the problemare dreaming. Even with solar andwind energy – and other things thatmight help, like ethanol – it’s notenough. Solar and wind energycould be 20-25 percent of the solu-tion. But you still need oil and gasbecause the petroleum era is stillgoing to be here for another 30-50years,” he said.

“Conservation is also a very im-portant part of the solution. I thinkwe’re going to have to figure outhow we’re going to cut back oneverything. Conservation needs tobe about 25 percent of the solu-tion,” he added.

Asked if he thought the judi-cious use of nuclear power was alsopart of the answer, Mr. Mitchellsaid yes, but noted that nuclearpower is still a thorny issue, andthat the U.S. has a lot of competi-tion for energy from other coun-tries like China and Russia.

“Nuclear power will be impor-tant, too, but it’s so costly with allthe environmental considerations.But there’s no doubt that nuclearpower will be necessary. China andother developing nations are tryingto sop up all the oil, so the wholepetroleum industry is working real-ly hard to find alternatives to com-pensate for the oil and gas shortfall.Russia has a lot of reserves, andthey’re going full blast, but not allof what they have is readily accessi-ble,” he said.

Mitchell Dedicated to the Enivornment, Medicine and Historic PreservationContinued from page 5

One of the two new Physics buildings currently under construction at Texas A&M University, a $57 millionproject to which George P. Mitchell donated $35 million. Mr. Mitchell is a 1940 graduate of Texas A&M.

1. HASEOTES FAMILY$3.2 BILLION

FOOD, PETROLEUM PRODUCTS,CONVENIENCE STORES

Greek immigrants Vasilios andAphrodite Haseotes bought a one-cow dairy farm in Cumberland,Rhode Island for $84 in 1938.Cumberland Farms (incorporatedin 1957) eventually grew to be-come the largest dairy farm opera-tion in Massachusetts, with herdsof more than 3,000 cows, heifersand calves. In 1956, the companyopened a jug-milk store in Belling-ham, Massachusetts. Few conve-nience food stores, offering dawn-to-midnight service every day ofthe week, existed in the 1950’s, andmost of them were limited to theSouth. But by 1967, there weresome 8,000 with more than $1 bil-lion per year in sales. With some400 stores, Cumberland Farms wasamong the industry leaders. Mostof the stores were in rural and sub-urban areas, where land wascheaper and crime rates lower thanin the cities. By the early 1990’s,Cumberland Farms ranked thirdamong the country’s conveniencestore chains, and was also a leaderin both the retail and wholesale dis-tribution of petroleum products. Aclosely held family-owned compa-ny since its inception (LilyHaseotes-Bentas is company chair),Cumberland Farms has since grownto become a multi-billion-dollarcorporation. Company headquar-

ters are in Canton, Massachusetts.Cumberland Farms owns and oper-ates convenience stores and gasstations throughout New England,New York, the Mid-Atlantic Statesand Florida under the CumberlandFarms, Exxon and Gulf names. ItsGulf Oil arm sells gasoline to fran-chised service stations. The compa-ny first added a gas station to oneof its stores in 1970. When majorgasoline dealers abandoned theirservice stations in the wake of the1973-74 Arab oil embargo, Cum-berland Farms was quick to snap upchoice locations in the Northeastand Florida, even though the com-pany itself had been badly hurt bythe gas shortage. By 1975, howev-er, Cumberland Farms opened its1000th store. The following year, itopened a 550,000-square-foot bak-

ery and warehouse in Westbor-ough, Massachusetts, and pur-chased 550 Gulf and Chevron ser-vice stations and related assets inten Northeastern states for $250million. The transaction included25 marketing terminals and con-tracts to supply gasoline to about1,700 Gulf dealers and 2,000 sta-tions supplied by jobbers, makingCumberland Farms the largest in-dependent seller of gasoline inAmerica, and also a supplier ofheating oil and aviation fuel. At onepoint, Cumberland Farms had1,200 stores, about half of whichwere selling gas. Now a company of900 stores, FORBES ranked Cum-berland Farms the past November35th among the country’s largestprivately held companies, with6,500 employees and $8.1 billionin revenues in 2007, up from $7 bil-lion in 2006.

2. GEORGE P. MITCHELL$2.8 BILLION

ENERGY, REAL ESTATE

Ranked 128th among FORBES’“400 Richest Americans” this pastSeptember with an estimated networth of $3.2 billion, Mr. Mitchellis chairman of GPM Inc., and is now89 years of age. The son of a Greekimmigrant goatherd, he grew up inGalveston, Texas – in the samebuilding where his father’s dry

50 Wealthiest Greek Americans Stand Strong, but also Grapple with Economy

Each year since 1999, based on available information, the National Herald has done its level best to presentthe 50 wealthiest members of our community. We do this because people like to read and learn about suc-cessful people, and learn from them. This is confirmed by the interest this particular insert generates, with-out fail, year after year.

We don’t want to suggest that having a lot of money is the only measure of success. There are people in variousprofessions and careers, dedicated to helping and serving others, who are immensely successful, but who don’tmake vast amounts of money.

Material success is nonetheless an undeniable indicator of keen native intelligence and tremendous ambition.Those who succeed in making a lot of money for themselves, and hopefully for others, clearly demonstrate certainaptitudes many of us don’t have. They tend to be very shrewd and astute businessmen who, among other qualitieslike determination and drive, share particular traits:

They are able to recognize opportunities almost immediately, even when those opportunities are largely hidden;they have no fear in seizing those opportunities; and they know how to get to the heart of a matter without wast-ing anybody’s time. They also tend to read people very well, possessing, as they do, an inherent understanding ofhuman nature and motivation.

They are not without their flaws, of course – no one is – but there’s something just a little bit different about veryaffluent people, and the Herald’s “50 Wealthiest Greeks in America” celebrates their greatness; it is not intended tobe a commentary on human failings.

That said, it’s important for our readers to understand that this very special annual insert is not published light-heartedly. It requires a colossal amount of effort and research, and “available information” is definitely the goingterm.

When we make our estimations on the net worth of those who are on our list, we do so from a variety of angles,and always with a conservative eye:

Some were actually willing to give us a figure they were comfortable with; many of them declined to do so,telling us we were free to make an educated guess. In making our own calculations, we considered reliable sourcesof information – reputable publications like FORBES and FORTUNE magazines, the New York Times, numerousbusiness journals and local newspapers.

This year’s list has a few “newcomers.” We use the term loosely because, in many ways, they are well knownquantities in the corporate world, and have been around for a long time. And because of current market conditions,which left virtually no one unscathed, some who had made it onto the list in previous years, were dropped.

Others we have probably underestimated; still others may have been overestimated a little. Traditional mem-bers of this elite club – e.g., billionaires listed in FORBES – were “downgraded” because the economy went south.We’re confident their formidable business sense shielded them from the financial meltdown somewhat, but eventhey couldn’t have protected themselves completely.

Finally, while we believe our new list is authoritative, by no means do we claim final authority on this subject.We know there are other intensely private individuals who probably could be included. We also know there are oth-ers who remain to be discovered. And we will keep trying to find them.

Continued on page 8

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cleaning shop was located. A 1940graduate of Texas A&M Universitywith a degree in petroleum engi-neering, he served in the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers during WorldWar II before founding RoxoilDrilling, which eventually becameMitchell Energy & DevelopmentCorp, with his brother Johnny in1946. He struck it rich in oil andnatural gas. He made his fortune bywildcatting (i.e., searching for, andfinding, reserves) in North Texasand Southern Louisiana oil and gasfields, and then selling most of hiscompany’s interests to Devon Ener-gy for $3.5 billion in 2002. He in-vested the proceeds of the sale inreal estate: e.g., Bald Head Island,a popular eco-friendly vacationdestination in North Carolina. Healso owns more than 20 hotels andprivate buildings. He resides in TheWoodlands, an environmentallyfriendly master-planned he found-ed backing 1974, with his wife,Cynthia. They have ten childrenand 28 grandchildren. TheMitchells are one of A&M’s largestprivate benefactors. Their gifts insupport of the University’s Physicsdepartment include $35 million al-location to a $57 million project forconstruction of two new facilities.The couple has an active interest inhistoric preservation, and has tak-en a leading role in rejuvenatingGalveston’s historic Strand Districtand helped revitalize the city’s mid-winter Mardi Gras celebration,which now draws 500,000 visitorsannually. Mr. Mitchell still goes tohis office almost every day, and stilltravels regularly for business pur-poses. He is a major benefactor ofthe Houston-Galveston area’s hos-pitals. He is also a nature enthusi-ast, and a believer in environmen-tal and energy conservation. He isopposed to oil drilling in the Alaskawildlife refuge, and has funded a$10 million National Academiesstudy on sustainable developmentand population growth.

3. PETER G. PETERSON$2.2 BILLION

ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS

Ranked 147th among theFORBES 400 with an estimated networth of $2.8 billion this past Sep-tember, Mr. Peterson, 82, is co-founder and former chairman ofthe Blackstone Group, one of theworld’s largest private investmentfirms with holdings in New York,Boston, San Francisco and Wash-ington. Mr. Peterson co-foundedBlackstone with Stephen Schwarz-man in 1985 with $400,000; sincethen, the firm has invested in over110 companies. Net profits in 2006were $2.3 billion. Blackstoneagreed to buy Hilton Hotels for $26billion in July 2007. The firm also

paid $39 billion for Sam Zell’s Equi-ty Office Properties in November2006. As of this past December,Blackstone was managing $91 bil-lion in fee-earning assets, and end-ed 2008 with $504 million in avail-able cash, which exceeded all out-standing borrowings. Its financialadvisory board reported record rev-enues of $411 million in 2008, a 12percent increase from 2007, andnet fee-related earnings of $428million, up 11 percent from ProForma Adjusted net fee-relatedearnings for 2007. Blackstone’s realestate funds, hedge funds and GSOCapital Partners (its credit-orientedalternative asset manager, with ap-proximately $26.6 billion of assetsunder management as of Septem-ber 30, 2008) credit-oriented fundsall reported net inflows during2008. Despite adverse global mar-ket and economic conditions in2008 (shares were down 25 per-cent last year), the firm is movingahead with its new buyout fund.Neither Mr. Peterson nor Mr.Schwarzman received any bonusesin 2008. The son of Greek immi-grants, Mr. Peterson grew up in Ne-braska. He studied at NorthwesternUniversity, and earned his MBAfrom the University of Chicago. Heserved as secretary of commerceunder President Nixon, and be-came chairman of Lehman Brothersin 1973. He also headed the Feder-al Reserve Bank of New York from2000 to 2004. He is the author ofseveral books, and lectures andspeaks on television frequentlyabout issues of fiscal responsibility.He has also committed $1 billion ofhis own money (in stages) to estab-lish the Peter G. Peterson Founda-tion, which will help educateyounger generations about how tosolve what he believes are Ameri-ca’s most significant economicchallenges. Mr. Peterson now re-sides in New York. He is married toJoan Ganz Cooney, founder andchairman of Children’s TelevisionWorkshop (“Sesame Street,” “Elec-tric Company” and “3-2-1 Con-tact”), and is the father of five.

4. MICHAEL JAHARIS$1.8 BILLION

PHARMACEUTICALS

Ranked 246th among theFORBES 400 with an estimated networth of $1.9 billion, Mr. Jaharis,80, was chairman of Miami-basedKOS Pharmaceuticals. He earnedhis bachelor’s degree at Carroll Col-lege in Wisconsin, and his law de-gree at DePaul University. A veter-an of the Korean War, he became asales rep for Miles Laboratories,

and earned his law degree at night.He partnered with Phillip Frost in1972, and acquired Key Pharma-ceuticals. Key increased sales from$2 million to $200 million with atop asthma drug and cardiovascu-lar patch. It was sold to Schering-Plough for $836 million in 1986.He launched KOS two years later,investing $200 million to developand commercialize cholesterol-control drugs. KOS, named afterthe Greek island where Hip-pocrates founded the science ofMedicine, went public in 1997 anddominated the market with nias-pan, which helps raise good choles-terol. KOS was sold to Abbott Labsfor $4.2 billion in 2006, adding an-other $700 million to Mr. Jaharis’fortune. He now oversees a privateequity firm, Vatera Capital, and has

focused on life sciences invest-ments. A Greek culture enthusiast,he and his wife Mary are majorbenefactors of the New York Metro-politan Museum of Art. He alsosupports medical and nutrition re-search at Tufts University, wherehis son Steven studied Medicine,and donated $10 million to TuftsUniversity to help establish the $60million Jaharis Family Center forBiomedical & Nutrition Sciences.The facility has been hailed as thefirst in the country to bring biomed-ical science, nutrition research andpublic health policy together underone roof. Mr. Jaharis has been vicechairman of the ArchdiocesanCouncil of the Greek OrthodoxChurch in America since 2000. Heis the son of Greek immigrants; hastwo children; and resides in NewYork City.

5. JOHN A. CATSIMATIDIS$1.8 BILLION

OIL, REAL ESTATEAND SUPERMARKETS

Ranked 215th among theFORBES 400 with an estimated networth of $2.1 billion this past Sep-tember, Mr. Catsimatidis, 60, ischairman & CEO of the Red AppleGroup. Ranked 100th this past No-vember among the country’slargest privately held companies byFORBES, with 7,800 employeesand estimated annual revenues of$3.95 billion, Red Apple has hold-ings in oil refining, retail petroleumproducts, convenience stores, su-permarkets and real estate. Mr.Catsimatidis’ fortune acceleratedwith rising oil prices in 2007-08.His parents came to America fromthe island of Nisyros while he was achild. He grew up in New York City

on Manhattan’s west side. He at-tended New York University, butdropped out before completing hisdegree requirements because ofbusiness demands. He opened hisfirst grocery store in 1969, andowned ten stores by the age of 24,making $25 million a year in rev-enue. He plowed $5 million intoManhattan real estate in 1977; thatproperty was worth $100 millionjust five years later. Today, Red Ap-ple reportedly owns $500 millionworth of property and the Grist-edes’ supermarket chain. He stum-bled upon the Chapter 11 proceed-ings of United Refining in Warren,Pennsylvania and purchased the oilrefiner’s stock for $7.5 million. To-day, the firm owns 372 gas stationsand convenience stores all alongthe Eastern Seaboard. He is also re-portedly on the lookout for buyingrefineries from oil firms looking toshed assets. He created the blankcheck company United RefiningEnergy in December 2007, andraised $450 million in a public of-fering. Mr. Catsmatidis is a licensedpilot. He has helped raise millionsfor Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Ju-venile Diabetes research. He servedas co-chairman and founder of theBrooklyn Tech Endowment Foun-dation. The $10 million fund is thelargest gift to a secondary school inthe United States. He funds theJohn Catsimatidis ScholarshipFund at the NYU School of Business(two scholarships awarded annual-ly since 1988). He is a past presi-dent of the Manhattan Council ofBoy Scouts of America. He is alsothe publisher of the Hellenic Times.He married and the father of twoyoung children. His wife Margo

runs his company’s in-house adver-tising agency. Together, they helprun the Hellenic Times ScholarshipFund, which has awarded hun-dreds of thousands in scholarshipsto Greek American students all overthe country over the past 17 years.Mr. Catsimatidis has said he plansto run for mayor of New York Citythis year. If he runs and wins, hewould be the Big Apple’s secondbillionaire mayor after current, out-going Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

6. GEORGE L. ARGYROS$1.4 BILLIONREAL ESTATE

Ranked 262nd in the FORBES400 with an estimated net worth of$1.8 billion this past September,Mr. Argyros, 72, made his fortunein real estate and investments. Heearned his bachelor’s degree at

Chapman University. A second-gen-eration American of Greek descent,he was born in Detroit and raised inPasadena. He went into real estatein 1962, selling land at busy inter-sections to oil companies to set upgas stations. Today, his privatelyheld Arnel & Affiliates owns andmanages 5,200 apartments and 2.5million square feet of commercialspace. Mr. Argyros founded the pri-vate equity firm Westar Capital in1987; he invests in pet products(Doskocil), coolers (Igloo) and au-to technology (Amerigon). His is al-so a former U.S. ambassador toSpain, appointed by PresidentGeorge W. Bush in 2001, after lead-ing GOP fundraising efforts in Cali-fornia in 2000. Mr. Argyros is oneof the top Republican fundraisers inthe country. He hosted a $25,000-per-couple dinner for U.S. SenatorJohn McCain (R-Arizona) at hishome last year, an event whichraised over $1 million for Mr. Mc-Cain’s 2008 Presidential bid. Mr.Argyros also served on the FederalHome Loan Mortgage Corporationunder the President George H.W.Bush. He lives in a $4.5 million es-tate on Harbor Island in NewportBay, California. He is a recognizedbusiness leader and philanthropist.He was the 1993 recipient of theHoratio Alger Award of Distin-guished Americans, and a 2001 re-cipient of the Ellis Island Medal ofHonor. He has served on the boardof trustees for several communityorganizations, including vice chair-man of the business & finance com-mittee for the California Institute ofTechnology; as chairman of theboard for the Beckman Foundation;chairman emeritus and treasurerfor the Horatio Alger Association;and as a member of the ChapmanUniversity board of trustees, onwhich he served as chairman for 26years prior to his appointment asambassador. Mr. Argyros is marriedwith three children, and enjoyssailing, skiing and hunting.

7. JOHN P. CALAMOS$1.4 BILLION

MUTUAL FUNDS

Ranked 281st among theFORBES 400 with an estimated networth of $1.7 billion, Mr. Calamos,68, earned both his bachelor’s de-gree in economics and his MBA fromthe Illinois Institute of Technology. Ason of Greek immigrants, he is aproduct of Chicago public schools,and grew up above his family’s gro-cery store on Chicago’s west side. He

developed his passion for the stockmarket as a teenager after investinghis parents’ $5,000 nest egg. Afterearning his MBA, he became an ear-ly authority on convertible securi-ties, and launched an investmentoutfit which eventually becameCalamos Asset Management in1977. The company went public in2004. A much-lauded moneymanover the last few years, Mr. Calamos– worth $2.7 billion just two yearsago, according to FORBES – is feel-ing the economic pinch as his fundsfalter. His firm was managing $23.3billion in total assets at the end ofJanuary 2009, as opposed to $42billion at the end of January 2008,and was forced to lay off 7 percentof its staff. In a recent interview withthe Chicago Tribune, Mr. Calamossaid that while other financial giantsare crumbling, his firm is “not in fi-nancial trouble,” and said economicdownturns also create conditionsfor new opportunities. “We’ve beenat this level before, and we doubledour assets when we were at this lev-el last time,” he said. Mr. Calamosalso has a private real estate arm,Calamos Real Estate LLC, and leasesspace for a project off Interstate 88and Highway 59, and a complexacross the street which includes a re-cently opened hotel, office and retailspace. Some 50,000 square feet ofspace remain vacant, “but we’re do-ing okay considering the environ-ment,” he told the Tribune. Mr.Calamos was the first member in hisfamily to graduate from college; hejoined the U.S. Air Force and flew O-2 Skymasters as a combat pilot inVietnam, earning the rank of major.He keeps his aviation skills honed byflying his Marchetti jets. Mr. Calam-os is chairman & CEO of Calamos In-vestments, which he runs along withhis nephew Nick and his son John.The company provides money man-agement services to major corpora-tions, institutions, pension funds, in-surance companies and individuals.He donated $2 million to Chicago’sHellenic Museum & Cultural Center.“We have embarked on a grand mis-sion,” he said. “We are building a na-tional institution to honor our par-ents and grandparents: to honor ourrich Hellenic history. The only insti-tution of its kind, we are building sothat we, as Greeks in America, aswell as those who support Greekarts, history and education, canshowcase and celebrate Greek her-itage and contributions for genera-tions of Americans of all back-grounds.”

8. ARTHUR S. DEMOULAS$1.4 BILLION

FOOD INDUSTRY

Demoulas Supermarkets, morecommonly known as Market Bas-ket, is a chain of 58 supermarkets ineastern New England. Ranked168th by FORBES among the coun-

try’s largest privately held compa-nies, with 13,000 employees and$2.5 billion in revenues in 2007,Market Basket has stores from cen-tral New Hampshire to BristolCounty, Massachusetts with head-quarters in Tewksbury, Massachu-setts. Supermarket News rankedMarket Basket #45 in 2008’s “Top75 North American Food Retailers.”The grocery retailer also managesreal estate interests. Market Basketsupermarkets are typically locatedin shopping centers with other re-tail outlets, including propertiesowned by the company through itsreal estate arm, Retail Management& Development (RMD Inc.). Greekimmigrants Athanasios (Arthur)and Efrosini Demoulas opened agrocery store in Lowell, Massachu-setts in 1917, specializing in freshlamb. In 1954, they sold their storeto two of their six children,Telemachus (Mike) and George De-moulas. Within 15 years, the twobrothers had transformed their par-ents’ mom-and-pop grocery storeinto a more modern Supermarketchain consisting of 15 stores. De-moulas Markets became a virtualcategory killer in the MerrimackValley area, often leading other Su-permarkets in the area to close.George Demoulas died of a heartattack in 1971 while vacationing inGreece, making Mike the sole headof the Demoulas supermarketchain. Although Mike hadpromised to provide for his broth-er’s family in the event of his death,a lawsuit filed in 1990 by GeorgeDemoulas’ heirs alleged that Mikehad defrauded them out of all but 8percent of company stock by mov-ing assets into shell companies andclaiming those were separate com-panies from DeMoulas itself. Theensuing legal case threatened to re-quire the sale of the chain. In 1994,Judge Maria Lopez ruled that MikeDemoulas had defrauded George’sfamily out of nearly $500 million,transferring 51 percent of De-moulas’ stock to George’s family. InMarch 2006, Boston Magazineranked Arthur S. Demoulas (son ofGeorge) 8th among the Bostonarea’s 50 wealthiest persons, as-cribing to him a net worth of $1.6billion, including assets.

9. C. DEAN METROPOULOS$1.2 BILLION

FOOD, MANAGEMENTAND ACQUISITIONS

Mr. Metropoulos, 62, is verywell known in the private equity,investment banking and financialcommunity, having spent the pasttwo decades building, restructur-ing and growing numerous busi-nesses in the U.S. and Europe.Many of these were subsequentlytaken public or sold to strategic cor-porations. He was chairman & CEOof Pinnacle Foods, the parent com-pany of staple food brands such asDuncan Hines, Armour, Vlasic, Mrs.Paul’s, Swanson and Celeste. Pur-chased by the Blackstone Group formore than $2 billion in February2007, Pinnacle’s signature wasbuying well-known brands, andthen expanding their lines byadding new products. Mr.Metropoulos is still chairman &CEO of C. Dean Metropoulos & Co.,an exclusive $2 billion per yearmanagement services companywith offices in New York andGreenwich, Connecticut. The firmfocuses on the acquisition and op-eration of companies with con-sumer brand products, and hasbeen involved in more than 48 ac-quisitions involving over $12 bil-lion in invested capital since 1993,featuring some of the world’s bestknown brands of food products.“I’m in the acquisition business,and I love it,” he says. “I love find-ing opportunities; negotiating thedeals; and repositioning the busi-nesses, many of which are trou-bled, though many are not. Thereare many opportunities out therethat need energy, focused hands-onmanagement and financial exper-tise. If we’re proud of anything, it’sthat no one has ever lost money

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with us.” Mr. Metropoulos. He usedto own a company called Interna-tional Home Foods, which includedChef Boyardee canned pasta prod-ucts, PAM cooking spray, BumbleBee tuna, Jiffy Pop popcorn andGulden’s mustard in its repertoire.He sold it to ConAgra in 200 for$2.9 billion (including $1.3 billionof debt). Born in Greece, he cameto America at nine years of agewhen his father came looking for abetter future for his children. TheMetropoulos family lived in Water-town, Massachusetts where JimmyMetropoulos worked at the StarMarket and later owned a restau-rant in Newton called Cabot.Metropoulos went to college on ascholarship, and after graduateschool at Babson College and a yearand a half towards his doctorate atColumbia, he went to work for theGTE Corporation, which is nowVerizon. By the time he was 24, hewas traveling to Paris, Geneva, Lon-don and Hong Kong, and was run-ning GTE’s international division,which operated in 62 differentcountries, as the youngest seniorVP in the company’s history. Jointventures in Argentina, Mexico, In-dia and Japan sparked his interestin the acquisition business. Thefirst acquisition was a companybased in Italy and Belgium whichmanufactured space heaters andair conditioners for $72 million.One day, as he was flying back tothe United States for a Greek wed-ding, he happened to be sittingnext to a Honeywell executive incharge of that company’s joint ven-tures in Europe, and offered hiscompany’s services to Honeywell.The executive agreed to give Mr.Metropoulos’ company a trial run,so Mr. Metropoulos didn’t even goto the wedding. As soon as he gotoff the plane, he flew right back toget the Honey well executive’s or-der, and had to apologize to thebride and groom for not being ableto make their wedding. C. DeanMetropoulos & Co. has grown con-siderably since then, and the dealsnow range in the billions. The com-pany has been involved in morethan 45 acquisitions involving over

$12 billion in invested capital overthe past 12-15 years. Mr.Metropoulos already had an veryimpressive track record prior tothat. From 1983 to 1993, he servedas president & CEO of Stella Foods,a national manufacturer, marketerand distributor of specialtycheeses. He served as chairman &CEO of the Morningstar Group Inc.from 1994 to 1997, when Morn-ingstar was sold to Suiza Foods for$960 million, and served as presi-dent & CEO of Stella Foods, a na-tional manufacturer, marketer anddistributor of specialty cheeses. Mr.Metropoulos served as CEO ofBumble Bee Seafoods, and as exec-utive and non-executive chairmanof Premier Foods PLC from Septem-ber 1999 to May 2004. He alsoserves as a director of GhirardelliChocolate Company, and as a direc-tor of LIN Television Corporation.Mr. Metropoulos and his wife Mari-anne have two sons, Evan and Dar-ren, who also play an active role inthe Metropoulos enterprise. TheMetropoulos family owns and oper-ates Castle on the Hudson, a luxuri-ous hotel overlooking the HudsonRiver in Tarrytown, New York.

10. ALEX G. SPANOS$1 BILLION

REAL ESTATE ANDPROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

Mr. Spanos, 85, owns the Na-tional Football League’s San DiegoChargers. Ranked 1014th amongthe world’s billionaires by Forbeslast year with an estimated networth of $1.1 billion, where it hasbeen listed for the past severalyears, it is safe to conservatively as-sume his fortune had, in fact, in-creased since 2004, and thendropped some since the sharp dropin the real estate market these pastfew months. FORBES currently listsA.G. Spanos Companies as the403rd largest privately held firm inthe country, with estimated rev-enues of $1.13 billion. The son ofGreek immigrants, Mr. Spanos re-ceived his bachelor’s degree at Pa-cific Lutheran University. He beganhis career as a baker, but when hisbusiness nearly went bankrupt, heopted for a change in direction. In1951, he used an $800 loan to pur-chase a small trucking company,which he turned into a successfulenterprise. He then used his profitsto invest in real estate, and by 1960,he had an incorporated business.

Today, his firm is one of America’slargest housing developers, and isthe largest family-owned construc-tion and property managementcompany in the United States. Itbuilds, manages and sells multi-family housing units and developsland. It has built more than 80,000units in 18 states, and claims to becontaining market downturn be-cause it is not as nationally exposedas other builders. Mr. Spanos wasinducted into the California Build-ing Industry Hall of Fame in 2005.He bought 60 percent of the Charg-ers from then-majority owner Eu-gene Klein in 1984. Over the nextten years, he bought out the sharesof several small co-owners, bringinghis control of the team to 97 per-cent. His son Dean now managesthe team. Mr. Spanos has consis-tently been the largest single pri-vate contributor to the RepublicanNational Party during Presidentialelection years, and has been astaunch supporter of PresidentBush. He helped raise over $2 mil-lion for Senator John McCain’s2008 Presidential bid, and con-tributed $5 million to 527 groupswhich supported the Bush Cam-paign in 2004. President Bush ap-pointed Mr. Spanos to the KennedyCenter board in 2004. Mr. Spanoshas also contributed millions toschools, hospitals and charity.Though the San Diego Union-Tri-bune recently reported that Mr.Spanos now suffers from a fadingmemory, he remains in good health.He is still an early riser (up by 5:30AM almost every morning); still hitsthe gym; and still goes to the officeeach morning. But he lets his kidsrun the business these days, andsaid he likes to play cards with hisfriends. “What the heck. I’m 85years old, and my kids are doing agood job. It’s their turn now,” hetold the National Herald. He hasmaintained strong ties to the Bushfamily; plays golf with William Bar-ron Hilton; and was good friendswith the late Bob Hope. He has beenmarried to his wife Faye for almost50 years. They have four childrenand 15 grandchildren.

11. GEORGE D. BEHRAKIS$900 MILLION

PHARMACEUTICALS

Mr. Behrakis, 75, is chairman ofGainesborough Investments, a Lex-

ington, and Massachusetts-basedprivate investment company since1998. A 1957 graduate of North-eastern University, Mr. Behrakis al-so studied at Boston University, andis a recognized leader in the phar-maceutical industry. He began hiscareer at McNeil Laboratories (a di-vision of Johnson & Johnson), andlater founded Dooner Laboratorieswhich, during this tenure, devel-oped and manufactured a leadingasthma medication. He purchasedMuro Pharmaceuticals in 1978.Muro developed drugs for asthma,allergies and respiratory disorders.Mr. Behrakis sold Muro in 1997, re-tiring as president & CEO in June of1998. After selling Muro, hepledged 10 percent of his earningsfrom the deal on charitable causes.He and his wife Margo have estab-lished chairs and scholarships atvarious universities and medicalcenters. In 2003, Northeasternopened the Behrakis Health Sci-ence Center. He gave $8 million forthat project, the largest private do-nation in the University’s history. Arecipient of numerous awards forhis contributions to business, sci-ence, the arts and the Greek Ortho-dox Church, he has served on theboards of Northeastern University,Tufts University Medical School,the Boston Symphony Orchestraand the Boston Museum of FineArts. He also serves as a trustee ofBrigham and Women’s Hospitals.But perhaps no institution has re-ceived as much from Mr. Behrakisas the Boston MFA. His relationshipwith the Museum dates back to hishigh school days, when his uncle,John Zaroulis, took him to see thegalleries. Later, when he ran a suc-cession of companies, Mr. Behrakiswould host parties at the Museum.He became a member in 1989, apatron in 1996, and an overseer in1998. Then, one day in 2001, Mr.Behrakis showed up for lunch withMFA Director Malcolm Rogers andhanded him a sealed envelope. In-side was a check for $2 million toendow Christine Kondoleon’s posi-tion as curator of Greek & RomanArt. In 2006, he gave the Museumanother $10 million, and becamethe biggest identified contributoryet to the MFA’s planned $500 mil-lion expansion campaign. That giftbrought the total he has given to$25 million over the last five years.Mr. Behrakis is a member of theArchdiocesan Council’s ExecutiveCommittee, and is an Archon of theEcumenical Patriarchate. He is alsopublisher of the Hellenic Voice. Hehas four children and eight grand-children.

12. PETER NICHOLAS$800 MILLION

BIOMEDICAL INDUSTRY

Ranked 1014th by Forbesamong the world’s billionaires lastyear, with an estimated net worthof $1.1 billion, things have changedpretty dramatically for Mr.Nicholas, 67, in the last few years.In 2005 he was ranked #78 amongthe FORBES 400, with an estimat-ed net worth of $4 billion. He is noton the current list, the cutoff pointof which is now $1.3 billion, andhis fortune continues to dwindleamid bad publicity and legal woes.In May of 2008, a federal jury ruledin favor of rival Medtronic in a

patent infringement suit, andBoston Scientific, the biomedicalgiant Mr. Nicholas co-founded withJohn Abele, was ordered to pay $19million in damages (they are ap-pealing the ruling). Mr. Nicholasand Mr. Abele, who rarely sold anyof their stock over the decades,were sitting on shares worth nearly$9.9 billion between them, but theBoston Scientific founders ownmany fewer shares worth much lesstoday. Their current company stockholdings are worth only about$550 million. That’s a long waydown. The two men, who wereamong the very richest people inMassachusetts five years ago, haveseen the value of their companystock holdings dissipate at a pacerivaled only by those of the dot-com era’s bubble billionaires, who


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rarely had substantial businesseslike Boston Scientific behind theirinflated fortunes. Boston Scientificshares have plunged from about$45 apiece to less than $7 eachover the last five years. Even worse,the founders have been caught in afinancial squeeze which forced theliquidation of about half their stockat distressed prices in recentmonths. The founders had alreadystepped down from Boston Scien-tific’s daily management in 2004,but Boston Scientific’s $27 billionacquisition of Guidant Corp in2006 dealt a serious blow to thestock. The company outbid John-son & Johnson in a wild corporatecontest, and ended up losing bywinning. Mr. Nicholas himself wasamong the deal’s most aggressiveadvocates. Proponents saw a bignew business base for Boston Sci-entific. What the company got in-stead was $10 billion of debt. It al-so got saddled with thousands ofsafety recalls tied to Guidant’s de-fibrillators. And investors soldBoston Scientific shares which keptfalling. The crisis, which struck fi-nancial markets last summer andfall and clobbered most stocks, hitBoston Scientific shares, too.Worse, both Mr. Nicholas and Mr.Abele had big loan problems. Col-lateral which backed their borrow-ings was losing value, and theyneeded to make up the difference.Both men had assets on account atLehman Brothers, but they werefrozen in the brokerage’s bankrupt-cy proceedings. So the lenders soldMr. Nicholas and Mr. Abele’sBoston Scientific stock to raise themoney. It started last October andhasn’t stopped. Mr. Nicholas andMr. Abele combined have soldmore than 64 million Boston Scien-tific shares in involuntary transac-tions, raising about $500 million.Mr. Nicholas has seen more thanhalf his company stock sold (over$300 million worth). Mr. Abele,who has sold more than 23 millionshares since October, had 31.6 mil-lion shares left after the most re-cent transaction ($181.1 million).Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Abele haven’texplained what triggered the all thesales, and probably won’t, but exec-utives with large holdings of com-pany stock do often borrow againstthe shares. The loans give them ac-cess to cash without stock saleswhich would diminish their compa-ny holdings and trigger expensivetax bills. On the bright side, Mr.Nicholas and Mr. Abele, who is stillranked among the FORBES 400 at#321 with $1.5 billion, still haveample fortunes and own lots ofBoston Scientific stock, and thecompany acquired heart-devicemaker CryoCor last May for $17.6million despite lawsuits to blockthe deal. Mr. Nicholas earned hisbachelor’s degree at Duke Universi-ty and his MBA at the University ofPennsylvania’s Wharton School. Hemet Mr. Abele at a kids’ soccergame. The pair co-founded BostonScientific in 1979. Mr. Nicholas andhis wife Virginia made a series oflarge donations to mainly educa-tional causes, including a stunning$72 million pledge to Duke Univer-sity in 2003, the largest charitablecontribution in that institution’shistory, and had headed up a $1 bil-lion pledge drive for Duke whichexceeded its goals.

13. GEORGE ANDREAS$760 MILLION

ART, REAL ESTATE,INVESTMENTS

A painter and investor in real es-tate among other industries, Mr.Andreas (Andriopoulos) was bornin Athens was born in Athens in1938. Before studying at the Na-tional Military Academy in Athensand the University of Thessaloniki,he was an apprentice to Greekartist Constantine Artemis. In1952, at the age of 14, he began hisstudies with Mr. Artemis, a painterwho specialized in portraits andlandscapes. At the time, Mr.Artemis was restoring the interiorof Saint Basil’s Church in centralAthens. Mr. Andreas worked as Mr.

Artemis’ apprentice for four years,grinding pigments and mixingpaints, learning about techniqueand studying composition. Whilestudying with Mr. Artemis, Mr. An-dreas also discovered the paintingsof Constantine Parthenes, a pro-gressive artist who spurned tradi-tion. Parthenes’ works helped Mr.Andreas further expand his ownoriginal thoughts and creativeideas. In 1967, a tyrannical regimeled by Col. George Papadopoulosseized power in Greece, and Mr.Andreas, by now a distinguishedmilitary officer, immigrated to NewYork. Since then, he has divided histime between his studios in Vir-ginia, Florida and New York City.Mr. Andreas has established severalpolicies for himself regarding hisart and his dealings with the artworld: He has intentionally notsold an original piece since 1993.His Monographia project, his Seri-graphs and his “Works on Paper”are available for purchase. Mr. An-dreas is currently working on sever-al significant new projects, to in-clude one consisting of at least tenpaintings. This body of work will bea reflection of a social criticism ofthe Anarchist movement over time.The series is almost complete. Art isnot the only component of his for-tune. Among several other businessventures, he has substantial real es-tate assets, and also owned and op-erated a very successful car dealer-ship, employing hundreds, whichwas ranked the second most prof-itable dealership in the country. Mr.Andreas’ wife Ursula is also an ac-complished artist. He has one son,Christopher.

14. TED J. LEONSIS$700 MILLION

COMPUTERS, MARKETING,PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

Mr. Leonsis, 52, is vice chairmanemeritus of America Online. Mr.Leonsis is also the founder, chair-man and majority owner of LincolnHoldings LLC, a sports and enter-tainment company which holdsownership rights in several entities,including 100 percent of the Na-tional Hockey League’s WashingtonCapitals and the WNBA’s Washing-ton Mystics. Lincoln Holdings alsoowns approximately 44 percent ofWashington Sports & Entertain-ment Limited Partnership, whichowns the National Basketball Asso-ciation’s Washington Wizards, theVerizon Center and the Baltimore-Washington Ticketmaster fran-chise. After surviving an airplanecrash landing in 1983, he drafted alist of 101 things to do in life, andhas completed many of the tasks, toinclude owning a sports franchise.Few people have roots as deep inthe computer industry, or as muchknowledge and experience of itshistory and potential. A pioneer ofthe Internet and new media and ba-sically present at its inception, Mr.Leonsis he participated in launchesof the Apple MacIntosh, the IBM PCand the Wang office automation.He has led four businesses whichhave grown at record rates: Hebuilt Wang WP (the first wordprocessor) from a $200 million to a$1 billion company with the largestfemale management team in thecountry. He was founder & CEO ofRedgate Communications Corpora-tion, considered the first new-me-dia marketing company. He built

AOL into the first $1 billion interac-tive services company and theworld’s biggest media company,helping to increase its membershipfrom fewer than 800,000 to morethan 8 million in a four-year span(1994-97). He has also boosted theCapitals’ attendance and revenuesthrough state-of-the-art consumerand interactive initiatives. Mr.Leonsis was born to a family ofmodest means in Brooklyn, andspent his early years there. His fam-ily moved back to his mother’shometown of Lowell, Massachu-setts. He graduated from LowellHigh School in 1973 and attendedGeorgetown University. After grad-uating in 1977, he moved back tohis parents’ home in Lowell and be-gan working for Wang Laborato-ries. In 1980, Mr. Leonsis startedhis own company, which grewquickly, and sold it to InternationalThompson for $60 million in 1981.He then started Redgate, which hesold to AOL in 1993, commencinghis relationship with AOL, holdingnumerous positions during hisyears there, completing his tenureas the audience group’s presidentand vice chairman before steppingdown in 2006 to pursue other inter-ests. Once the mayor of Orchid,Florida, Mr. Leonsis sits on theboards of Georgetown Universityand several charities, where he hasused the interactive medium to en-courage involvement, in additionto financial contributions. Amonghis favorite charities are the SeeForever Foundation and YouthAIDS. He also sponsors his ownphilanthropic foundation, theLeonsis Foundation, which is dedi-cated to creating “opportunities for

children that enable them to reachtheir highest potential.” Mr. Leonsishas gotten involved in documen-tary filmmaking through producing“Nanking,” which made its worldpremiere at the 2007 SundanceFilm Festival, after reading “TheRape of Nanking” by the late IrisChang. His latest film, “Kicking It,”which explores how the lives of sixhomeless people are changed for-ever through an international soc-cer competition, was released lastyear. He refers to his filmmakingendeavors as “filmanthropy,” whichuses the medium of documentaryfilms as a matrix for social change.

15. JOHN PAPPAJOHN$700 MILLION

VENTURE CAPITALISM

Mr. Pappajohn, 80, is presidentof Equity Dynamics and PappajohnCapital Resources, of which he is al-so sole proprietor. Equity Dynamicsis a financial consulting entity; Pap-pajohn Capital Resources is a ven-ture capital firm. Mr. Pappajohnfirst came from Greece to the Unit-ed States when he was just 9months old. His father died whenhe was 16 years of age, and he had

to work to pay his way through col-lege. He graduated from the Uni-versity of Iowa’s College of Busi-ness Administration in 1952.Throughout his career, he has es-tablished dozens of investmentfirms dedicated to advancing thebiomedical and biotechnology in-dustries. Mr. Pappajohn is one ofIowa’s most successful entrepre-neurs. He and his wife Mary, withwhom he has one daughter, havepartnered in philanthropic endeav-ors which have provided millionsfor scholarships, business opportu-nities and community enhance-ments. His charitable donations in-clude the John & Mary PappajohnClinical Cancer Center, and Pappa-john Entrepreneurial Centers atfive Iowa universities and colleges.In 2005 alone, the PappajohnScholarship Foundation distributed$366,500 in grants to support eth-nic, disadvantaged and/or minori-ty students. Included were scholar-ships to 32 college students, whoseparents were members of SaintGeorge Church in Des Moines,Iowa and the TransfigurationChurch in Mason City, Iowa. He isthe recipient of many prestigiousawards, to include the Horatio Al-ger Award (1995), the Ellis Island

Medal of Honor (2000) and theWoodrow Wilson InternationalCenter Award for Corporate Citi-zenship (2007). He is the firstIowan and the second Greek Amer-ican (Pete Peterson was the first) toreceive the Woodrow WilsonAward. Iowa Governor Chet Culverproclaimed March 2, 2007 “JohnPappajohn Entrepreneurial Day” inIowa. Mr. Pappajohn is an avid artcollector, and is the recipient of sev-eral honorary doctorates.

16. JOHN PAYIAVLAS$650 MILLION

FOOD INDUSTRY

Mr. Payiavlas is president of AVIFoodsystems, the country’s largestindependent, family-owned and -operated contract food service

company, providing vending, insti-tutional dining and coffee serviceoperations. Founded in 1960, AVIcurrently employs thousands;serves millions of consumers daily;and serves some of the most presti-gious institutions in America, in-cluding industry, corporate head-quarters complexes, universities,school systems and healthcare fa-cilities throughout the Midwesternand Eastern United States –Carnegie Mellon University, East-man Kodak, Good Year, Honda ofAmerica Manufacturing, Kmart,Kraft Foods, Ohio State University,Phillips, Toyota Motor Manufactur-ing, University of Pittsburgh Med-ical Center, UPS, the U.S. PostalService, Toyota Motor Manufactur-ing, Verizon and Xerox amongthem. Intensely private, Mr. Payi-avlas runs the company along withhis son Anthony and his daughterPatrice. Based in Warren, Ohio AVIhas more than 50 branch offices inthe Midwestern and Eastern UnitedStates, and makes $2 billion insales annually. Mr. Payiavlas andhis wife Marissa were honored dur-ing Cleveland’s annual 1921 Soci-ety Dinner, held on September 14,2006 at Severance Hall. The din-ner, attended by more than 300people, honored friends who havegiven $1 million or more to support

the Cleveland Clinic’s mission. Dur-ing the event, the Clinic conferredits highest philanthropic honor, theDistinguished Fellow Award, uponMr. & Mrs. Payiavlas. Mr. Payiavlastraces his origins to the island ofRhodes. He loves the Church, hav-ing served as chairman of the Arch-bishop Iakovos Leadership 100 En-dowment Fund, and is an Archon ofthe Ecumenical Patriarchate.

17. EFSTATHIOS(STEVE) VALIOTIS

$600 MILLIONREAL ESTATE

Mr. Valiotis, 62, is president andfounder of the Astoria-based ALMARealty Corporation, one of thelargest real estate firms in the NewYork metropolitan area. He wasborn was born in Vordonia, Greecenear Sparta, and immigrated to theUnited States in 1972. He workedin the food industry and estab-lished a custom-made furniturebusiness, Knossos Inc., in Astoria in1976. Within two years, the busi-ness expanded to include a show-room on Manhattan’s Park Avenueand a furniture-manufacturing fac-tory in Queens. Mr. Valiotis contin-ued to own and actively manageKnossos until 1994. He began ven-turing into real estate in 1978. Hishighly successful real estate trans-actions include the purchase, sale,construction and management ofboth residential and commercialproperties. Mr. Valiotis, along withthree associates, founded ASCOTManagement Corporation in 1985.ASCOT managed all of his real es-tate holdings for the next threeyears. He founded ALMA in 1988.ALMA serves as the vessel throughwhich Mr. Valiotis develops, builds,manages and acquires real estate.ALMA maintains a managementportfolio consisting of approxi-mately 6,000 units and more than1.2 million square feet of commer-cial retail and office space. Themanagement department includes21 property managers (at variouslocations), three in-house attor-neys, five accountants, and 12 staffmembers. Mr. Valiotis also estab-lished his construction company,Vordonia Construction Corpora-tion, in 1988. Vordonia Construc-tion presently serves as the generalcontractor for the majority of Mr.Valiotis’ projects. Vordonia Con-struction is a subsidiary of ALMA,and is manned by over 100 employ-ees. Vordonia is currently manag-ing $200 million and 2 millionsquare feet of works in progress. In1989, Mr. Valiotis, along with sev-eral other investors, formedMarathon National Bank. Mr. Valio-tis served on the bank’s board of di-rectors for eight years. Marathonwas acquired by Piraeus NationalBank of Greece in 2001. Mr. Valio-tis remains a 5 percent shareholder

of Marathon. He earned his degreein Philosophy at the University ofAthens, and had also studied The-ology. He is married with three chil-dren.

18. ANGELO K. TSAKOPOULOS$600 MILLIONREAL ESTATE

Mr. Tsakopoulos, 72, was bornto a farming family in the village ofRizes. His father, a butcher, strug-gled to feed five children. He firstcame to the United States in August1951, sailing past the Statue of Lib-erty on his 15th birthday. As a col-lege student at Sacramento StateUniversity, he waited tables at nightin the Tony Del Prado restaurantand sold real estate on weekends.He would eventually leave SacState a few credits shy of gradua-tion to work full time. At 21 yearsof age, he had already stockpiled

experiences likely unfathomable tomany of his fellow undergraduates:war, deprivation, emigration andstints as both a shoeshine boy inChicago and a farmhand in Lodi.And he had begun laying thegroundwork for his future, ar-guably becoming the most signifi-cant force to shape Sacramentosince John Sutter. He boxed in col-



lege. His former boxing teammatessay the elements of his larger-than-life persona were present even inthe days when he was studyingbusiness, philosophy and historyunder the Americanized surnameof Chicos, a name he later droppedto reclaim his family name. Mr.Tsakopoulos has since climbed toprominence through uncommonbusiness acumen and sheer tenaci-ty. He turns on the charm withpoliticians; plays hardball with en-vironmental regulators; and pro-motes big ideas for the region. Inrecent years, he’s offered to donatefarmland he controls in PlacerCounty for a private university, andto help fund its construction by de-veloping adjacent acreage. The uni-versity project would spur a penin-sula of growth amid thousandsmore acres of farmland held by Mr.Tsakopoulos and his partners. Hehas proposed that the region openthousands of acres of ranchland hecontrols along the Sacramento-ElDorado County line for develop-ment, using some of those proceedsto fund a new arena for the NBA’sSacramento Kings. He also growswine grapes on his Borden Ranch insouthern Sacramento County, andwalnuts at an orchard outsideWheatland. Development has be-come a family business. Mr.Tsakopoulos’ older brother George,80, followed him to Sacramento,and also went into real estate.George’s family controls thousandsof acres in the region. The patri-archs maintain separate opera-tions, but sometimes invest togeth-er. Angelo is founder of AKT Devel-opment Corporation, which con-trols about 40,000 acres of land inthe region and neighboring SanJoaquin County. He has also carvedout a niche for himself as a majorplayer in and fundraiser for the De-mocratic Party, and as a standardbearer for Greek political and cul-tural interests in America. The de-veloper and his children haveraised and contributed millions onnational, state and local cam-paigns, as well as on ballot mea-sures and political action commit-tees, over the past decade. Democ-ratic Presidential candidates aside,a few of the major recipients in-clude former Governor Gray Davis,State Senate President Pro TemDon Perata, State Insurance Com-missioner John Garamendi, U.S.Senators Dianne Feinstein and Bar-bara Boxer, and House SpeakerNancy Pelosi. Mr. Tsakopoulos is al-so dedicated to advancing the ca-reers of Greek American politi-cians. He hired a young Sacramen-to resident named Phil Angelides;mentored him in the developmentbusiness; and later became his pri-mary political patron. Mr. An-gelides was California’s state trea-surer for eight years, but lost hisgubernatorial bid to ArnoldSchwarzenegger in 2006. Mr.Tsakopoulos counts some of themost influential leaders in both theUnited States and Greece amonghis friends. His family has hostedfundraisers for Bill and Hillary Clin-ton, and he was invited to sleep inthe Lincoln Bedroom at the WhiteHouse when Mr. Clinton was Presi-dent. He also entertained Constan-tine Mitsotakis, the former primeminister of Greece, and his daugh-ter Dora Bakoyanni, then mayor ofAthens (now the foreign minister ofGreece), during their visit to Stan-ford University in the fall of 2006.Mr. Tsakopoulos and his familyhave established Hellenic Studieschairs at several major Americanuniversities across the country,Georgetown, Stanford and Colum-bia among them.

19. P. ROY VAGELOS, M.D.$500 MILLION

PHARMACEUTICALS ANDHEALTHCARE

Dr. Vagelos, 79, served as CEOof Merck & Co., the pharmaceuti-cals giant, for nine years from July1985 to June 1994. He was firstelected to the Board of Directors in1984, and served as its chairmanfrom April 1986 to November

1994. He joined the worldwidehealth products firm in 1975 as se-nior vice president of research, andbecame president of its research di-vision in 1976; starting in January1982, he served as senior vice pres-ident of strategic planning of Mer-ck. He continued to hold both posi-tions until 1984, when he waselected executive vice president.Before assuming broader responsi-bilities of business leadership, Dr.Vagelos had won scientific recogni-tion as an authority on lipids andenzymes, and as a research manag-er. This followed a decision early inhis career to put his principal ener-gies into research, rather than thepractice of medicine. Dr. Vagelosearned his bachelor’s degree in1950 from the University of Penn-sylvania, where he was elected toPhi Beta Kappa, the academic hon-or society. He received his M.D.from Columbia University in 1954,and was elected to Alpha OmegaAlpha, the medical honor society.After an internship and residencyat Massachusetts General Hospitalin Boston (1954-56), he joined theNational Institutes of Health inBethesda, Maryland. At NIH (1956-66), he served in the NationalHeart Institute, holding positions incellular physiology and biochem-istry – first as Senior Surgeon, andthen as head of section of Compara-tive Biochemistry. In 1966, Dr.Vagelos joined the Washington Uni-versity in St. Louis School of Medi-cine as chairman of its BiologicalChemistry Department. The authorof two books and more than 100scientific papers, he was elected tothe American Academy of Arts &Sciences and the National Academyof Sciences in 1972, and to theAmerican Philosophical Society in1993. After retiring from Merck,Dr. Vagelos was chairman of theUniversity of Pennsylvania’s Boardof Trustees from October 1994 toJune 1999, having served as a

trustee since 1988. He was alsopresident & CEO of the Ameri-

can School of ClassicalStudies in Athens

from 1999 to 2001, and served onthe National Research CouncilCommittee on Science & Technolo-gy for Countering Terrorism in2002. Much of his wealth camefrom stock options at Merck, whichwas very profitable under his lead-ership. During his tenure there,Merck developed the cholesterol-lowering statins, mevacor and zo-cor. Dr. Vagelos is sometimes calledthe father of pharmaco-philan-thropy for freely providing the drugmectizan to cure millions ofAfricans of river blindness. He useshis wealth to fund full scholarshipsfor 100 Vagelos Scholars at his al-ma mater each year, and also sup-ports an incentive program for stu-dents at his old high school in Rah-way, New Jersey. He is currentlychairman of Regeneron Pharma-ceuticals and Theravance, twobiotech companies developingdrugs to treat cancer, bacterial in-fections, respiratory disease andautoimmune, eye and gastrointesti-nal disorders. He is also chairmanof Columbia University MedicalCenter’s Board of Visitors, and ischairing the Center’s capital cam-paign, which has already met itstarget of $1 billion by 2011. Dr.Vagelos is married to the former Di-ana Touliatos. They live in New Jer-sey, and have four children and sev-en grandchildren.

20. JOHN J. VERONIS$490 MILLION

MEDIA, INVESTMENTS

Mr. Veronis is co-founder, man-aging partner, chairman & co-CEOof New York-based Veronis SuhlerStevenson, a private equity firmwhose investments are exclusivelyconcentrated in the media industry,and a senior managing member ofthe general partner of the firm’sfund. Founded in 1981 by Mr. Vero-nis and John S. Suhler, VSS is a pri-vate equity and mezzanine capitalinvestment firm dedicated to serv-ing the media, communications,education and information indus-tries in North America and Europe.VSS provides capital for buyouts,recapitalizations, growth financingand strategic acquisitions to middlemarket companies and manage-ment teams with a goal of buildingcompanies both organically andthrough a focused add-on acquisi-tion program. Since 1987, VSS hasmanaged five private equity fundswith committed capital exceeding$2.8 billion. VSS generally investsas a majority equity investor intransactions where the enterprise

value of the company is between$75 million and $1 billion. “Todate, VSS equity and structuredcapital funds have invested in morethan 50 platform companies, whichhave together completed over 220add-on acquisitions resulting in aportfolio with realized and unreal-ized enterprise values of more than$10.2 billion,” according to infor-mation posted on VSS’s website(www.vss.com), down from the “inexcess of $14 billion” it posted lastyear at this time. VSS is well knownfor its expertise in the Media indus-try, and is viewed as a value-addedinvestor more akin to a strategicpartner than solely a financial in-vestor. The firm has become aprominent source of authoritativemedia and communications data.Every year since 1987, it has pub-lished the highly acclaimed Com-munications Industry Forecast,which relates five-year historicaland five-year forward forecastingwith the key market forces drivingindustry growth. Last year at thistime, VSS projected that overallcommunications spending wouldexceed $1 trillion in 2008, and saidInternet advertising is expected tobecome the largest ad segment by2011, surpassing newspapers. Thecompany has since revised its fore-cast, predicting dramatic declinesin traditional advertising spending,and noting that 2009 will mark thefirst two-year decline in traditionalmedia spending (newspapers andbroadcast television) in 75 years.Mr. Veronis’ own involvement inmedia spans over four decades, andreflects a rare combination of cor-porate and entrepreneurial suc-cess. He has founded, owned, oper-ated, served on the boards and/orserved as an executive across abroad spectrum of media, includ-ing magazine and book publishing;radio and television broadcasting;

cable television; college textbookpublishing; book clubs; education-al films; and newsletters. Prior toco-founding VSS, Mr. Veronis co-founded “Psychology Today,” oneof the most successful magazinelaunches of its time, which expand-ed its operations into textbooks,book clubs and educational films.He subsequently started Book Di-gest magazine, which grew to a cir-culation of 1 million under his di-rection. Earlier in his career, he waspresident of Curtis Magazines, thepublisher of “Ladies’ Home Jour-nal.” Mr. Veronis is a board memberof the Metropolitan Opera, and aformer trustee of Carnegie Hall. Heis a past director of the U.S. Cham-ber of Commerce, the MagazinePublishers of America, Curtis Circu-lation Company and WRGB-TV, theCBS affiliate in Schenectady. Mr.Veronis received his bachelor’s de-gree from Lafayette College, andattended the New York UniversityGraduate School of Business.

21. GEORGE N.HATSOPOULOS, PH.D

$450 MILLIONTECHNOLOGY

Dr. Hatsopoulos wanted tochange the way the world makeselectricity. On the road to failure,he founded Thermo Electron in1956 because he wanted to create acompany which would foster inno-vation and allow outstanding engi-neers, scientists and entrepreneursto apply technology to emergingsocietal needs. Thermo Electrongrew into an international compa-ny recognized as a global leader inenvironmental monitoring andanalysis instruments, and a majorproducer of paper-recycling equip-ment, biomedical products, alter-native-energy systems and otherproducts and services related to en-vironmental quality, health andsafety. By 1981, it was ranked739th among Fortune’s 1,000largest industrial firms. By the timeit merged with Fisher Scientific inNovember 2006, Thermo Electronwas seeing annual revenues of over$2 billion, and employed 11,000people in 30 countries. Dr. Hat-sopoulous’ work led to rapid ad-vances in thermo-ionic power con-version. His training began in hisnative Greece at the National Poly-technic Institute in Athens. He con-tinued his studies at MIT, where hereceived his bachelor’s (1949),master’s (1950) and doctorate(1956), all in Mechanical Engineer-ing. In addition to his work at Ther-mo Electron, Dr. Hatsopoulos hastestified at numerous congressionalhearings on national energy policyand capital formation, and hasserved on many national commit-

tees on energy conservation, en-vironmental protection

and in-

ternational exchange. He is alsonoted for his and Joseph Keenan’sfamous textbook, “Principles ofGeneral Thermodynamics.” In1996, Dr. Hatsopoulos won theJohn Fritz Medal, the highestAmerican award in the engineeringprofession. In 2007, he was one ofthe nine prominent Greek Ameri-cans who were selected by Presi-dent Carolos Papoulias to be hon-ored with the Hellenic Republic’sprestigious Commander of the Or-der of Honor award. At 81 years ofage, Dr. Hatsopoulos is still goingstrong. He is now chairman ofAmerican DG Energy Inc., the lead-ing on-site utility offering electrici-ty, heat, hot water and cooling tocommercial, institutional and in-dustrial customers. He founded thecompany with his brother, John,with whom he co-founded ThermoElectron.

22. PETER G. ANGELOS$425 MILLION

LAW, PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL

Mr. Angelos, 79, is an Americantrial lawyer and the current chair-man & CEO of Major League Base-ball’s Baltimore Orioles. He becameowner of the Orioles in August1993, leading a group of investorsin purchasing the team for $173million, a record price at the time.Mr. Angelos’ group, which included

prominent Marylanders like novel-ist Tom Clancy, comic book mogulStephen A. Geppi, producer and di-rector Barry Levinson and broad-caster Jim McKay, among others,bought the team from Eli S. Jacobsby submitting the winning bid dur-ing a bankruptcy auction. Accord-ing to the Baltimore Business Jour-nal, the Orioles were worth $398million in April 2008. The Oriolesenjoyed some success early underMr. Angelos’ ownership, makingthe postseason as a wild card teamin 1996 and winning the AmericanLeague East Division title in 1997.But Mr. Angelos fired ManagerDavey Johnson after the 1997 sea-son, and 11 straight losing seasonsensued. The team went throughfive different managers during thatperiod. But things are definitelylooking up for 2009. The Oriolesjust signed star Outfielder NickMarkakis and star 2nd BasemanBrian Roberts to $66 million and$40 million contracts this winter,respectively, and are rebuilding theteam around their formidable tal-ent. Mr. Angelos was born in Pitts-burgh on July 4, 1929. He came toBaltimore at 11 years of age. He is agraduate of Eastern College andthe University of Baltimore Schoolof Law, where he was class valedic-torian, and went onto a lucrative


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c a -reer in trial law,specializing in cases involvingharmful products, professionalmalpractice, and personal injury.His firm, the Law Offices of Peter G.Angelos, has attorneys and loca-tions in Maryland, Delaware andPennsylvania. Mr. Angelos beganworking as a criminal defenselawyer following graduation. Formost of his legal career, he made aliving as an attorney representingBaltimore labor unions and theirmembers through his own privatepractice, which he founded in1961. Beginning in the 1980’s, herefashioned his firm’s focus fromcriminal law to civil class actionsuits. His law firm and wealth ex-panded exponentially in 1982,when he represented a large num-ber of plaintiffs in asbestos litiga-tion and won. He reportedly madeover $100 million on this one case.Mr. Angelos was also enormouslysuccessful in suing Wyeth, the mak-ers of the diet pill fen-phen, andrepresenting the state of Marylandas lead attorney in a lawsuit againstcigarette maker Phillip Morris. Hestarted out being owed more than$1 billion in Maryland’s settlementwith the tobacco giant, though heended up with $150 million. It wasafter that he became a major playerin the Baltimore community. A life-long Democrat, he won election tothe Baltimore City Council, andserved on the Council from 1959 to1963. He ran for mayor as an inde-pendent in 1964, but lost. He alsounsuccessfully challenged Republi-can incumbents in the MarylandState Legislature three times in the1960’s. He has recently become in-volved in politics again, publiclysupporting the Republican incum-bent, Bob Ehrlich, for governor ofMaryland and criticizing Democra-tic candidate (now Governor) Mar-tin J. O’Malley. Mr. Angelos hasbeen instrumental in the creationof many local museums and attrac-tions. He is married, and has twosons. He has given $1 million to hisalma mater; has given millions toother worthy causes; and says heplans to give more.

22. JOHN G. RANGOS SR.$425 MILLION

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr. Rangos, 81, founded theChambers Development Corpora-tion, a company which providedwaste treatment services and de-veloped commercial recycling pro-grams, and broke ground with spe-cially lined, layered landfills to pro-tect ground water supplies. He is adecorated Veteran of the KoreanWar. His father was a restaurateurfrom Greece. He was born in Ohio,and was raised by his mother andgrandfather in Virginia. He madehis fortune with the transportationand disposal of industrial wastes.He began his career with the Rock-well Manufacturing Company,where he enjoyed the distinction ofbecoming the youngest generalagent in company history. Duringthe 1960’s, he formed several com-panies and pioneered technologicaladvances in waste transportationand disposal. He founded Cham-bers in 1971. Chambers went pub-lic and eventually merged withUSA Waste, the second largestwaste management company in thecountry. USA Waste Services latermerged with Waste ManagementInc., the country’s number-1 trashhauler. Mr. Rangos’ many innova-tive achievements include convert-ing power plant boiler-ash into auseful component of cinder blocksand anti-skid material for high-ways. He was also instrumental ininventing techniques for recyclingbituminous byproducts and dispos-ing of sewage and sludge. He devel-oped techniques for liquid industri-al waste disposal, and created a re-source recovery system which con-verts waste-generated methane in-to energy. But Mr. Rangos’ successwas not without its share ofheadaches. In October 1991,Chambers Development ownedand operated 14 landfills, and hada market value of $1.7 billion, andMr. Rangos was listed among theFORBES 400 for the third consecu-tive year. One year later, the bubbleburst. Chambers had disclosed itwas changing its accounting meth-ods and taking a $27 million after-tax charge. Widespread selling ofChambers stock then prompted aninvestigation by the Securities &Exchange Commission and theAmerican Stock Exchange. The liti-gation lasted for several years. Bythe time it was over, it was deter-mined that Mr. Rangos was notguilty of any wrongdoing, and was

acquit-ted. “Itwas acomplex

issue, but wegot through it.

And if you held on-to your Chambers stock

and bet on the Rangoses, youbought the stock for a dollar, andafter the merger, it went up to $50.That doesn’t happen because of anaccident. Chambers was a big partof USA Waste,” he told the NationalHerald. In recent years, Mr. Rangoshas managed to remove the stainwhich unjustly tarnished his good

name, concentrating his efforts onphilanthropy. He currently headsthe John G. Rangos Sr. CharitableFoundation, which has donatedmillions to help advance medicaland scientific research at major in-stitutions: Johns Hopkins, CarnegieMellon and Duquesne Universities,and the University of PittsburghMedical Center. Mr. Rangos lovesthe Church, and is founding chair-man and honorary lifetime presi-dent of International OrthodoxChristian Charities. This weekend,he is being honored by the Ameri-can Hellenic Institute at AHI’s 34thannual Hellenic Heritage Achieve-ment & National Public ServiceAwards Dinner for his philanthropyand business success.

24. PETER GEORGIOPOULOS$400 MILLION

SHIPPING INDUSTRY

Mr. Georgiopoulos, 47, isfounder, chairman & CEO of Gener-al Maritime Corporation, operatescrude oil tankers, mostly in the At-lantic Ocean, which includes portsin the Caribbean, South and Cen-tral America, the United States,Western Africa, the Mediterranean,Europe and the North Sea. Thegroup’s principal activity is provid-ing international seaborne crudeoil transportation services. Its fleetconsists of 21 wholly owned ves-sels, consisting of ten Aframax-class and 11 Suezmax-class vessels(75-110,000 and 110-150,000thousand metric tons, respective-ly). GMC’s customers include inter-national oil companies such asChevron, CITGO, Conoco Phillips,Exxon Mobil, Hess, Lukoil, and SunInternational LTD. Mr. Georgiopou-

los is also founder and chairman ofGenco Shipping & Trading LTD, acompany listed on the New YorkStock Exchange, and chairman anddirector of Aegean Marine Petrole-um Network, also listed on NYSE.Genco Shipping transports dry car-go such as coal, as well as steelproducts, through a fleet of some15-20 oceangoing dry bulk carriers.Ninety percent of the global tradevolume is carried by ships and facil-itated by seaports, while oil and gasfound offshore remain criticalsources of energy to power theworld economy. So the Wall Streetmeltdown and global economic cri-sis’ resultant credit crunch, slump-ing trade and loss of consumer buy-ing power have, in turn, con-tributed to a slowdown in maritimefinancing, which has had an ad-verse impact on shipping and portoperations, as well as offshore oiland gas exploration and produc-tion. GMC has hung in there prettywell, however, all things consid-ered. Its voyage revenues increased

to $326.1 millionfor the year ended

December 31, 2008compared to $255 mil-

lion for the prior year (expenseswere $54.4 million and $38.1 mil-lion in 2007 and 2008, respective-ly). Genco did not fare as well,recording a net loss of $111.3 mil-lion for the fourth quarter of 2008,due to a $159.7 loss “from unusualevents,” although its revenues actu-ally increased 55 percent to $101.6million for the three months endedDecember 31, 2008 – versus $65.7million for the three months endedDecember 31, 2007 – due to the op-eration of a larger fleet and highercharter rates for our vessels. So Mr.Georgiopoulos’ net worth probablyhas not changed much from lastyear, and while he ended up in ahistorically traditional position as aGreek shipping magnate, he toldthe New York Times in an April2007 interview, “I never thought ofmyself as Greek. My family hasbeen in the United States since the1800’s; I’ve got blond hair and blueeyes; and like most American kids, Iliked only plain foods like ham-burgers and steak.” Mr. Geor-giopoulos is a graduate of BronxScience and Fordham University.His father was a successful mar-itime lawyer, and many of hisclients were wealthy Greek ship-ping tycoons whose lifestyles ap-pealed to the young Peter, andwhen he graduated from college,one of them offered him a job inAthens. After two years of workingfor someone else, he decided hewanted to start his own shippingcompany, so he left Greece andwent to Dartmouth College, wherehe earned his MBA. When he grad-uated in 1985, he took a job atDrexel Burnham Lambert. He did-n’t like investment banking, andstill wanted to be his own boss, buthe made a lot of money, and met alot of people. From 1990 to 1991,he was affiliated with MalloryJones Lynch & Associates, an oiltanker brokerage firm. From 1991to 1997, Mr. Georgiopoulos was theprincipal of Maritime Equity Man-agement, a shipping and invest-ment company which he foundedin 1991. It was a time when a lot ofshipping partnerships had formedin Norway to take advantage of taxlaws. When Norway changed its taxlaws in the 1990’s, and partnershipshares plummeted over there, Mr.Georgiopoulos convinced a groupof investors to buy some ships, andGMC was born in 1997. The com-pany went public in 2001. By 2003,it was the fourth largest tankercompany in the world. And thatwas when people started referringto him as a Greek shipping tycoon.He is a member of the AmericanBureau of Shipping, and lives in atownhouse in Manhattan’s Green-wich Village, which was featured in“Angels in America,” the 2003 Em-my-winning mini-series on HBO.“I’m proud to be Greek. I got mar-ried two years ago, and my wifeconverted to Greek Orthodox. I wasnamed after my grandfather, PeterConstantine, because that’s theGreek custom. And while I still likeplain foods best, I’ve learned tolike, and even to cook, Greek food,too. But I never forget that, if I had-n’t been brought up American, Imight never have made it so big ina classic Greek career,” he said.

24. MICHAEL E. KALOGRIS$400 MILLION

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Mr. Kalogris, 59, was chairman& CEO of SunCom Wireless, a wire-less carrier which had operated inthe Southeastern United Statessince 1999, and in parts of theCaribbean since 2004. Founded inJanuary 1999 as Triton PCS Hold-ings, Triton changed its name toSunCom in 2005. Based in Berwyn,Pennsylvania, SunCom wentthrough several deals with othermajor cellular carriers. Before itwas finally acquired by T-Mobilefor $1.6 billion in cash and $800million in assumed debt in Febru-ary 2008, SunCom provided digitalwireless communications servicesto more than 1.1 million sub-scribers in the markets with inter-national, national and regionalcalling plans and access to thelargest GSM network in the coun-try. Mr. Kalogris has a long historyin the “buy it, build it, sell it” busi-ness. In November 1999, hereached an agreement with RuralCellular Corporation, which pur-chased portions of Triton’s assetsfor $1.24 billion in early 2000 (Ver-izon eventually acquired Rural for$2.66 billion in cash and assumeddebt in August 2007). He also builtout Triton’s network with CingularWireless in 2004 before changingTriton’s name to SunCom and ulti-mately selling SunCom to T-Mo-bile. A stocky, graying zealot of thewireless industry, he still lives out-side Philadelphia with his wife of38 years (his high school sweet-heart), with whom he has two chil-dren. Besides Mr. Kalogris’ reputa-

tion of making money for his in-vestors, it was a deal with AT&T inthe 1990’s which attracted in-vestors. In exchange for a small eq-uity stake, AT&T gave Triton licens-es covering 11 million people in ar-eas contiguous with AT&T’s territo-ries in the Southeast. Mr. Kalogrisearned his MBA at Columbia Uni-versity Business School in 1982. Af-ter working at IBM for a spell, heentered the telecommunicationsbusiness by taking a job with aPhiladelphia-based outfit calledMetrophone, helping to buildMetrophone into a $1.1 billion cel-lular company in Philadelphia andits suburbs before its owners soldMetrophone to Comcast in 1991.Mr. Kalogris had no equity inMetrophone, so he left to buildHorizon to operate mostly in subur-ban Pennsylvania and Washington,D.C. Five years later, Horizon wassold in a series of deals for the $575million, but Mr. Kalogris and hisfellow managers got to share just$10 million of that among them.This only made him determined toget more of the action, so he foundbackers in J.P. Morgan, Chase Capi-tal Partners and Desai Capital Man-agement to give him 10 percent ofTriton as compensation for runningthe deal. The money flowed in:Even before the bonds were placed,Mr. Kalogris got a $425 millionbank revolver loan and $140 mil-lion in equity commitments. Thatand junk bond proceeds built hissystem, and he has since neverlooked back. Mr. Kalogris has con-sistently distinguished himself as aleader in the highly competitivewireless industry, and is a formerboard member of the CellularTelecommunications & Internet As-sociation (CTIA), which he had alsoserved as its chairman.

24. GEORGE M. MARCUS$400 MILLIONREAL ESTATE

Mr. Marcus, 66, is founder andchairman of Marcus & MillichapReal Estate Investment Services,one of the country’s premierproviders of investment real estatebrokerage services, and the parentcompany of a diversified group ofreal estate, service, investment anddevelopment firms. It has estab-lished itself as a leading real estatefirm with more than 1,300 brokersin markets throughout the UnitedStates. Its stated mission is to helpclients “create and preserve wealthby providing the best real estate in-vestment sales, financing, researchand advisory services available.” Itsfoundation is the depth of its localmarket knowledge. “Our 38-yearhistory of maintaining investor re-lationships in local markets enablesus to be the best information sourceand transaction service providernationally.” With more than 50 of-

fices nationwide, the firm focuseson investment brokerage, and pro-vides financing and research ser-vices to both buyers and sellers. To-gether with his partner, William A.Millichap, Mr. Marcus launched anew business model 38 years ago,based on matching each propertywith the largest pool of pre-quali-fied investors. Last year, Marcus &Millichap closed more than 4,000investment transactions for privateand institutional investors. Includ-ed in these transactions were shop-ping centers, office and industrialbuildings, apartment properties,hotels/motels, senior citizenshomes, manufactured home com-munities, and land. “By closingmore transactions annually thanany other firm, its investment pro-fessionals have been able to pro-vide clients with an unparalleledperspective on the investment realestate market locally, regionallyand nationally,” according to infor-mation on its website (www.mar-cusmillichap.com). Mr. Marcus isalso chairman of Essex PropertyTrust, a publicly held, multi-familyreal estate investment trust (REIT).Located in Palo Alto, California andtraded on the New York Stock Ex-change, Essex is a fully integratedREIT which acquires, develops andredevelops apartment communitiesin select West Coast communities.The company currently has owner-ship interests in 132 apartmentcommunities and 26,862 units, andhas 1,256 units in various stages ofactive development. Mr. Marcus isalso one of the original foundersand directors of Plaza CommerceBank and Greater Bay Bancorp,both publicly held financial institu-tions. Mr. Marcus served onGreater Bay’s board of directors un-til it was sold to Wells-Fargo in2007 for $1.5 billion. He came toSan Francisco from Greece at theage of four. He completed his un-dergraduate studies in Economicsat San Francisco State University injust two and a half years, andfounded the university’s first eco-nomics club. He also served as amember of the Board of Trustees ofthe California State University Sys-

tem in 1981-89, and has helped se-lect several SFSU presidents. Hewas named SFSU Alumnus of theyear in 1989 and one of its 11 Dis-tinguished Centennial Alumni in1999. Mr. Marcus has long support-ed SFSU and its programs. He andhis wife Judy helped create its In-ternational Center for the Arts witha $3 million gift. The Center cele-brates some of the world’s most in-novative art and artists, with a fo-cus on documentary films and visu-al art. Mr. Marcus also helped de-velop SFSU’s Greek Studies pro-gram, and chairs its Modern GreekStudies Foundation, which sup-ports the Nikos Kazantzakis Chairfor Modern Greek Studies. He is al-so a graduate of the Harvard Busi-ness School’s Owners/PresidentsManagement Program and theGeorgetown University LeadershipProgram. Among Mr. Marcus’ pro-fessional memberships are theBoard of Regents of the Universityof California, the Real EstateRoundtable and the Policy AdvisoryBoard of the University of Califor-nia in Berkeley’s Center for Real Es-tate & Urban Economics.

27. D. JAMES BIDZOS$350 MILLION

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Bidzos, 64, is founder, chair-man and interim CEO of VeriSign,the world’s leading provider of In-ternet and telecommunications se-curity software, securing billions ofonline transactions every day. Bornin Greece, he came to the UnitedStates as a boy. His father workedas a barber, and his mother man-aged a restaurant. A former com-

puter programmer, he is creditedwith foreseeing the need for onlinesecurity in the early 1990’s. Mr.Bidzos is an Internet and securityindustry pioneer whose accom-plishments include building RSASecurity, an Internet identity andaccess management solutionprovider, into the early standard-


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bearer for authentication and en-cryption, and launching VeriSign asa spin-off in 1995 to develop thedigital certificate infrastructure forInternet commerce. VeriSign oper-ates infrastructure services whichenable and protect billions of inter-actions every day across the world’svoice, video and data networks.The Mountainview, California-based company offers a variety ofInternet and communications-re-lated services in its global affiliatenetwork. VeriSign’s business con-sists of two segments: the InternetServices Group and its Communi-cations Services Group, which itjust sold to TNS for $230 million.VeriSign reported a 3rd quarterprofit which beat Wall Street expec-tations on the strength at its corebusinesses and said it was on trackto meet its full-year forecast,though its fourth-quarter revenuefell short of market estimates, dueto the impact of the slowing econo-my. “We’re less sensitive to the eco-nomic downturn, but we’re not im-mune to it,” Mr. Bidzos toldReuters. VeriSign had $650 millionin cash and cash equivalents by theend of last year. From March 2008to March 2009, its stock value fluc-tuated between $42 and $16 pershare, but the New York Times re-ported its market capitalization at$3.9 billion. And this past January,VeriSign agreed to acquire Cana-da’s Certicom Corp for $40 million,after Blackberry maker Research inMotion (RIM) withdrew its bid. Mr.Bidzos served as VeriSign’s firstpresident and CEO. He also servedas chairman of its board of direc-tors from April 1995 until Decem-ber 2001, and as vice chairmanfrom December 2001 to July 2007.He served as president and CEO ofRSA Security from 1988 to Febru-ary 1999, and then served as RSA’svice chairman from 1999 to May2002. He has been named one ofTIME magazine’s “Digital 50,” andis in CRN’s “Computer IndustryHall of Fame.”

27. NICHOLASGALAKATOS, PH.D

$350 MILLIONBIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Dr. Galakatos, 50, is a newcom-er FORBES “Midas List,” where heis currently ranked 24th out of 100corporate executives. He has beenManaging Director of Clarus Ven-tures since the Cambridge, Massa-chusetts-based firm’s inception in2005. Clarus Ventures is a life sci-ences venture capital firm foundedby a team of “accomplished invest-ment professionals with extensiveand complementary industry back-grounds which have enabled themto establish a long history of suc-cess in creating value,” accordingto its website (www.clarusventures.com), which also reports$1.2 billion of assets under its man-agement “across two life sciencesdedicated funds.” Dr. Galakatos hasover 21 years of industry and in-vestment experience in the health-care sector. From 1997 to 2000, hewas vice president of New Businessat Millennium Pharmaceuticals, aleading biopharmaceuticals com-pany purchased by the Takeda On-cology Company for $8.8 billion inMay 2008, and a member of itsmanagement team. During thattime Dr. Galakatos co-founded Mil-lennium Predictive Medicine andTransForm Pharmaceuticals, wherehe was chairman. Prior to his stintat Millennium, he was an associateat Venrock Associates focusing onearly stage biotechnology invest-ments. Before Venrock, he washead of Molecular Biology Re-search at Novartis. Dr. Galakatosearned his doctorate in OrganicChemistry from MIT and per-formed his post-doctoral studies atHarvard Medical School. He is thelead director of Affymax, a biophar-maceutical company creating noveldrugs for patients suffering fromkidney disease. Affymax went pub-lic in 2006, and Dr. Galakatosraised $660 million for the compa-ny last year. But times are alsotough for those companies which

went public before the economysoured. Affymax has dropped from$25 to $14 a share since 2006. Still,Dr. Galakatos “made out well with2007 sale of Hypnion to Eli Lilly for$315 million,” FORBES reports.Hypnion, where Dr. Galakatos wasalso lead director, was engaged inthe discovery and development oftherapeutic drugs to treat disordersof the central nervous system, par-ticularly sleep and wake-alertnessdisorders and circadian rhythm ab-normalities.

27. EMMANUEL A. KAMPOURIS$350 MILLION

INDUSTRIAL GOODSCORPORATE MANAGEMENT

Mr. Kampouris, 73, served aschairman, president & CEO of theAmerican Standard Companies(now known as Trane), the leadingglobal manufacturer operating in34 countries, which was known asIdeal Standard in Europe. Its prod-ucts included technologically ad-vanced air conditioning systems;bathroom and kitchen fixtures andfittings; and vehicle control sys-tems. Prior to joining AmericanStandard, Mr. Kampouris workedin Greece and Egypt, and joinedAmerican Standard’s Greek plumb-ing products subsidiary in 1966 asgeneral manager of manufacturing.In 1999, he capped his 35-year ca-reer with American Standard byleading the company to recordsales of $7.2 billion. It was listed asa Fortune 500 company in 2004,with sales exceeding $9.5 billion.The company divested all but theair conditioning aspect of its busi-ness in 2007, and renamed itself.

Mr. Kampouris, now retired, has al-so served on the boards of StanleyWorks, Altocor Inc., Click Com-merce Inc., and the SmartDisk Cor-poration. Stanley Works is, a manu-facturer of tools and hardwarefounded in 1843, reported over$4.4 billion in sales in 2008, up 2percent from 2007. Alticor Inc.,ranked 44th among America’slargest private companies, is theparent company of Amway, QuixtarInc., and Access Business Group.Through its subsidiaries and affili-ates, Alticor manufactures, marketsand distributes consumer productsand logistics services in more than80 countries. Subsidiary Amwayalone, which accounts for the ma-jority of revenues, sells more than450 different products through 3million independent distributors.Alticor employs more than 12,000people and reported $7.1 billion insales in 2007. Click Commerce,provided industrial software whichenabled millions of users in 70countries to support the businessprocesses of manufacturing, aero-

space and defense and high-techindustries (e.g., Alaska Airlines,Citibank, Delphi, Eastman Kodak,Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Pier 1,Ryder, and Verizon). Acquired byIllinois Tool Works for $292 millionin October 2006, the unit’s revenuewas $67 million in 2007. Smart-Disk, the maker of CrossFire USB,FireWire and SOHO NAS desktophard drives, as well as portablehard drives, warrants its productsto be free of defects in material andworkmanship under normal useand service for a period of 1 yearfrom the date of purchase or 3years from the date of manufac-ture, whichever occurs first. Mr.Kampouris earned a master’s inLaw from Oxford University, and adegree in Ceramic Technology fromNorth Staffordshire College ofTechnology. He currently serves onthe board of Horizon Blue CrossBlue Shield of New Jersey, and is atrustee of the Hudson Institute, anon-partisan policy research orga-nization dedicated to research andanalysis which promotes global se-curity, prosperity and freedom. Hehas served on the boards of the Na-tional Endowment for Democracy,the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,Oxford University Council for theSchool of Management Studies,and the Eisenhower Exchange Fel-lowship. Mr. Kampouris is also thepublisher of Kairos, a journal whichseeks to embolden, educate andsupport pastors as they strive to re-store the national moral conscienceand prophetic voice of the Church,which he views as essential to thereformation of culture.

30. PETER KARMANOS JR.$340 MILLION

COMPUTER SOFTWARE,PROFESSIONAL HOCKEY

Mr. Karmanos is the owner ofthe National Hockey League’s Car-olina Hurricanes and CEO of Com-puware Corporation, a Detroit-based software company withproducts aimed at the informationtechnology departments of largebusinesses. Compuware’s servicesalso include testing, developmentand management software for pro-grams running on mainframe com-puter and client-server systems.Compuware customers include 90percent of the Fortune 100 compa-nies, with more than 23,000 cus-tomers around the world. As ofMarch 2006, Compuware reported7,510 employees in 84 officesacross 60 countries worldwide.Compuware develops, markets andsupports systems software productsdesigned to improve the perfor-mance of information technologyorganizations. The company alsoprovides professional services,which include business systemsanalysis, design, communication,programming and implementation,as well as software conversion andsystems planning and consulting.From March 2008 to March 2009,its stock value ranged from a highof $12 to a low of $5 a share, butthe New York Times lists its marketvalue at $1.4 billion, and Com-puware acquired Hilgraeve Inc., acommunications software compa-ny, in February 2008. Born into aGreek immigrant family, Mr. Kar-manos’ father owned a diner,where he ran the cash register as ayoung boy. Mr. Karmanos did notactually start speaking English untilhe was in grade school. He graduat-ed from Wayne State Universityand founded Compuware in 1973with two partners, Thomas Thewesand Allen Cutting. Mr. Karmanosalso co-founded the Detroit Com-puware Hockey organization in thelate 1970’s. The organization in-cludes all levels of hockey fromrecreational to AAA & Junior Aleagues. The Ontario HockeyLeague awarded an expansionfranchise in December 1989 knownas the Detroit Compuware Ambas-sadors. The team later became theDetroit Junior Red Wings, and isnow called the Plymouth Whalers.Mr. Karmanos also purchased theNHL’s Hartford Whalers for $48million in 1994. The team wasmoved to North Carolina and re-named the Carolina Hurricanes af-

ter the 1996-97 season. Mr. Kar-manos received the Lester PatrickTrophy for outstanding service tohockey after the 1997-98 season.The team went onto win the Stan-ley Cup in 2006, and is worth a re-ported $168 million today. Mr. Kar-manos is remarried and resides inMichigan with his third wife,Danielle. He has three sons fromhis first marriage, Peter III, Nickand Jason. His first wife, BarbaraAnn, died of breast cancer. He hasdonated millions to cancer researchin her memory, and the BarbaraAnn Karmanos Cancer Institute(formerly the Prentis Cancer Cen-ter) is one of the country’s leadingcancer centers, and the only majorcancer center named after awoman.

31. KOSTA & TOM KARTSOTIS$325 MILLIONWATCHES AND

LEATHER ACCESSORIES

Kosta Kartsotis, 55, is president& CEO of Fossil Inc., and Tom Kart-sotis, 48, is chairman of the board.Fossil is based in Richardson, Texasand operates factories in China,Switzerland and France. It sellsproducts in more than 90 countriesaround the world, and is listed onFORBES “400 Best Big Compa-nies,” with $1.6 billion in sales anda profit margin of 9.2 percent in2008. Its stock fell more than twothirds in the past year, however,from a high of $38 to a low of $11 ashare between March of 2008 andMarch of 2009. A stronger dollar al-so hurt its 4th quarter last year(earnings dropped 13 percent com-pared to the previous year), andthe company expects more of thesame in the 1st quarter of 2009.Founded by Tom Kartsotis in 1984,Fossil is a designer and manufac-turer of clothing and accessories,primarily watches and jewelry, butalso sunglasses and wallets. Itsbrands include Fossil, Relic, Aba-cus, Michele Watch and Zodiac.Fossil watches are common in mid-

dle-income retail stores, as well asat most department stores. Fossilalso branched into the sale ofleather goods and other accessoriesin the 1990’s. Fossil’s desire to es-tablish a Swiss presence led to thepurchase of Zodiac Watch in 2001to offer a higher-end brand. The2004 purchase of Michele Watchcompleted the cycle by offering ahigh-end Swiss watch with design-er flair. Fossil has also been verysuccessful with its own brands(2007 sales were reportedly morethan $1.4 billion), and this successhas led to companies coming toFossil to create licensed watchlines. The watch lines Fossil de-signs, manufactures and distributesinclude Burberry, DKNY, EmporioArmani, Columbia Sportswear,Diesel, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobsand Adidas. Fossil also produces

collectibles, some of which arebased on popular films or pop cul-ture characters. Previous designshave included Superman, Batman,Wonder Woman, Elvis Presley, “Pi-rates of the Caribbean,” Flash,Green Lantern, Snoopy, Pokemon,“Star Wars,” “Chronicles of Nar-nia,” and Disney’s “Cars.” In 2006,Fossil released a Caller ID watch,and teamed up with the NFL tomake the official watch collectionfor each team.

31. WILLIAM S.STAVROPOULOS, PH.D

$325 MILLIONCORPORATE ADMINISTRATION

Dr. Stavropoulos, 69, is a direc-tor at Tyco International Limited, amajor multi-national group of man-ufacturing and services providingcompanies active in healthcare,flow control, security, telecommu-nications and electronics. He joinedTyco in March 2007. Tyco is a di-versified manufacturing conglom-erate incorporated in Bermuda,with U.S. operations headquar-tered in New Jersey. It employs250,000 people worldwide.Through mid-2007, its major busi-ness areas included electronic com-ponents, healthcare, fire safety, se-curity and fluid control (no connec-tion with Tyco Toys, a division ofMattel, or with Ty Inc., the manu-facturer of Beanie Babies). In May2007, just two months after Dr.Stavropoulos became a boardmember, Tyco agreed to pay almost

$3 billion to defrauded investors,the largest such payment evermade by a single company. FromMarch 2008 to March 2009, Tycoshares went from nearly $48 to$19.40 a share, but the New YorkTimes lists its market value at $9billion. Prior to joining Tyco, Dr.Stavropoulos was chairman, presi-dent & CEO of Dow Chemical Com-pany, where his career spanned 39years. His career with Dow beganin Indianapolis with pharmaceuti-cal research in 1967. While he waswith Dow, he held various positionsin research, marketing and generalmanagement. He also served in avariety of research and business po-sitions in pharmaceuticals and di-agnostics. Dr. Stavropoulos wasnamed president of Dow USA in1990, and was elected vice presi-dent of Dow Chemical Company.He was then elected a senior vicepresident of Dow in May 1991, andbecame chief operating officer in1993. He served as CEO in 1995-2000 and again in 2002-04, andwas a member of Dow’s board of di-rectors from July 1990 to March2006 (he was succeeded by An-drew Liveris, a Greek Australian).Dr. Stavropoulos graduated fromFordham University with a bache-lor’s in Pharmaceutical Chemistry,and from the University of Wash-ington with a doctorate in Medici-nal Chemistry. He serves on theboard of the American EnterpriseInstitute for Public Policy Research,and is a trustee of the FidelityGroup. Dr. Stavropoulos is also adirector of the BellSouth and NCRCorporations, and past chairman ofthe American Chemistry Council,Society of Chemical Industry, andAmerican Plastics Council. He is amember of the Notre Dame Univer-sity College of Arts & Sciences’ Ad-visory Council and the J.P. MorganInternational Council, and is the re-cipient of many awards and hon-ors. “Institutional Investor” maga-zine named him one of America’sbest CEO’s three times (1998, 2003and 2004). Dr. Stavropouloos andhis wife Linda have two children,Bill and Angela.

33. JAMES T. DEMETRIADES$315 MILLION

COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Mr. Demetriades, 45, is thefounder of SeeBeyond TechnologyCorporation (formerly SoftwareTechnologies Corporation), a soft-ware company which was sold toSun Microsystems for $387 millionin June 2005. Mr. Demetriades wasraised in a family of scientists, andwrote his first software program atthe age of 9. A child prodigy, he be-gan his scientific career at the Cali-fornia Institute of Technology whenhe was just 11 years old, and is a1980 graduate of the Webb School.He is one of the pioneers in EAI (en-terprise application integration)technology. Mr. Demetriades wasinterested in computers from anearly age. His father was a scientistat Cal Tech, providing him access toa computer while most of his peerswere still churning out term paperson electric typewriters. When hisdad went into business designingportable rocket engines, Mr. Deme-triades also absorbed the day-to-day functions of an entrepreneur,including mundane tasks like bal-ancing the budget and payroll. Aftergraduating from Loyola Mary-mount with a dual major in Com-puter Science and Economics and aminor in Business Marketing, Mr.


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Demetriades worked for two com-panies designing software for insur-ance companies and hospitals.When he noticed that work beingrepeated up to 70 percent ofthe time, he created a prod-uct which would reducethe cost and time neces-sary to integrate applica-tions. “I took the idea tomy boss, and he said hedidn’t want to focuson that aspect of thejob, so I said, ‘Doyou mind if I quitand work on this?’” In less than adecade, Demetri-ades found him-self at the helm ofa multi-milliondollar, publicly-traded company.In 1989, he wasdeveloping inter-face engines to in-tegrate applica-tions running on avariety of propri-etary operating sys-tems. In 1991, hefounded STC,which was basedin the Los Angelessuburb of Mon-rovia. STC becameone of the leadingproviders of integration so-lutions. Starting with oneemployee and one customer, Mr.Demetriades turned it into a compa-ny with more than 200 staff mem-bers working on R&D, and 350 pro-fessionals supporting more than1,000 EAI installations worldwide.“I invented something new, andwith that there was a certainamount of self doubt at first, butconfidence is something that is keyto an entrepreneur’s success. We areall born with a variety of skill, luckand other attributes. The real po-tential is in our own minds,” he toldthe Webb School back in August2007. “People got carried awaywith the promise of technology,” hesaid of the dot.com fallout. “But realproducts like ours (SeeBeyond) thatwork in thousands of companieshave a fundamental effect on howthose companies operate and theyare willing to pay real money for it.”Dungeons & Dragons was a favoritecerebral challenge during his youth,and it helped cultivate his businessacumen. “I loved that you had toroll the dice in the game, and thenyou had to explore each possibility.It really made me use my imagina-tion, but at the same time, you hadto follow rules. It was a lot like busi-ness in that you had to predict whatwas going to happen, articulate a vi-sion and then deliver that vision,”he said. Mr. Demetriades is now in-volved with real estate develop-ment in California, and likes to par-ticipate in competitive yacht races.

34. MICHAEL D. CAPELLAS$300 MILLION

CORPORATE ADMINISTRATION

Mr. Capellas, 53, has been chair-man & CEO of First Data Corpora-tion, the world’s leading paymentprocessing company, since Septem-ber 2007, and is on the board of di-rectors for Cisco Systems, a hugemultinational corporation with66,000 employees and reportedrevenues exceeding $39.5 billion in2008 (Cisco designs and sells net-working and communications tech-nology and services for Cisco,

Linksys,WebEx, Iron-

Port and ScientificAtlanta). He was also

senior advisor for SilverLake Partners, a $16 billion

private equity firm focused solelyon making large-scale investmentsin leading technology companies,From October 2006 to July 2007(Silver Lake’s portfolio has includedtechnological leaders such as Amer-itrade, MCI, NASDAQ, Philips,Sabre Holdings and Seagate Tech-nology). Mr. Capellas’ earlier execu-tive roles include chairman & CEOof Compaq Computer Corporationbetween 1999 and 2001. FollowingHewlett-Packard’s acquisition ofCompaq, he stayed on as presidentof HP for six months to ease the in-tegration of the two companies. Hethen left HP to become chairman &CEO of MCI WorldCom between2002 and 2006, presiding over theeventual Verizon-MCI merger. Hehad joined WorldCom, which wasin bankruptcy, to help it overcome amassive accounting scandal. Afterthe transfer to Verizon was complet-ed, Mr. Capellas received a $40 mil-lion severance package. A 30-yearveteran of the IT industry, he tookcharge of First Data shortly afterKohlberg Kravis Roberts acquiredthe credit card giant for $29 billionin April 2007. Spun-off from Ameri-can Express in 1992, FDC handles e-commerce processing services, in-cluding merchant and bank transac-

tions, credit, retail and debit card is-suing and processing. It also pro-vides money orders and papercheck processing. FORBESranked FDC 38th this past No-

vember among the country’slargest private companies, listingits assets at $52.3 billion and its

2007 revenues at $8 billion.Mr. Capellas says he inherit-

ed his gritty determinationfrom his father, a Greekcitizen who fought withthe Greek Army againstthe Germans in Italyduring World War II.After the War, the el-der Capellas met andmarried his wife Juli-et in Italy. The familythen immigrated toOhio, where Mr.Capellas’ fatherworked his way upfrom laborer to super-intendent at the Re-public Steel Corpora-

tion, where he workedfor 30 years. Mr. Capel-

las developed an interestin computers as an under-

graduate at Kent State Uni-versity. Shortly after he grad-

uated, he met his wife, MarieAngelillo, a former nurse. The

two married in 1979, and for thenext 20 years, they traveled aroundthe world as Mr. Capellas climbedthe corporate ladder of each compa-ny he joined. He was a senior vicepresident of Oracle Corporation in1997-98. In 1999, he helped repairthe relationship between Microsoftand Compaq, which had erodedover the years. His efforts resultedin Compaq becoming Microsoft’skey strategic partner for the releaseof its Windows 2000 operating sys-tem. In December 2006, Mr. Capel-las was appointed acting CEO ofSerena Software, selected by SilverLake, which took Serena private inMarch 2006. Mr. Capellas and hiswife have two children. He likesgolf and rock and roll. He is also ac-tively involved in community andcharitable work. In 2002, he be-came the first recipient of the HopeTechnology Award from the Centerfor Missing & Exploited Children.He is a member of the Board of Gov-ernors of the Boys & Girls Clubs ofAmerica, and plays a leadershiprole in supporting City Year, an or-ganization which advocates andsponsors voluntary national servicefor young people. Mr. Capellas is al-so a member of the American Uni-versity Board of Trustees, and is rec-ognized as a global thought leaderin the technology industry.

34. NICHOLAS S. GOULETAS$300 MILLIONREAL ESTATE

Mr. Gouletas, 71, is chairman ofAmerican Invsco, a pioneering firm

in the residential real estate indus-try, and one of the country’s leadingcondo developers. It typically buysexisting properties in desirable lo-cations, and converts them intoluxury condominiums. Its AI Realtyaffiliate provides brokerage ser-vices. Many of AI’s properties fea-ture commercial space managedand leased by the company. In all,the firm has developed and man-aged more than 40,000 condomini-ums in more than 40 markets sinceit was founded by the Gouletasfamily in 1969. With property val-ues in excess of $4 billion (accord-ing to AI’s website, www.american-invsco.net), AI continues to pavethe way in condo conversions andnew construction developments.From converting landmark high-rises in New York City to designingand delivering luxurious privateresidences in Chicago, AI displaysan innovative and intuitive edge tomeet the needs of today’s home-buyer. The firm has 250 fulltimeemployees in its Chicago headquar-ters. Mr. Gouletas amazing rags-to-riches journey spans from Athens toChicago, to Las Vegas and 40 mar-kets in-between. It is the story of apoor 8-year-old immigrant boywho was filled with hope and de-termination. In 1944, near the endof World War II, the Gouletas fami-ly fled Greece in search of a betterlife, and a place to have the oppor-tunity to build their own Americandream. Mr. Gouletas came to theUnited States from Greece with hispoverty-stricken parents in 1944.He founded AI in 1969, at age 31,primarily as a real estate brokeragefirm. His son, Steven, is now com-pany president.

34. JOHN A. THAIN$300 MILLION


Mr. Thain, 54, was born in theUnited Kingdom and grew up inAntioch, Illinois. His father was anofficer in the U.S. Air Force, and hismother is a Greek American fromIndiana. He became chairman andchief executive officer of Merrill

Lynch this past December 1. Previ-ously, he was CEO of the New YorkStock Exchange, presiding over itsMerger with Euronext, and waspresident, chief operations officerand CFO of Goldman Sachs. Mr.Thain also owned more than 3.3million shares of Goldman Sachsstock, which was put into a blindtrust before he became chief execu-tive of NYSE-Euronext. Assumingno shares were sold, that stakealone was worth more than $290million at the beginning of March(last year at this time, his GoldmanSachs stock would have been worthover $740 million). Known as WallStreet’s clean-up man, Mr. Thainreceived starting compensationworth about $50 million at MerrillLynch. He received an additional$19 million to make up for stockawards, and received a $15 millioncash sign-in bonus in December2007. His initial pay included asalary of $750,000; restricted stockworth $28 million at current mar-ket values; and a three-tier grant of1.8 million stock options worthabout $20 million, by conservativevaluation assumptions. The big op-tion grant was an incentive for himto bolster Merrill’s share price,

while shielding him from the riskthat the job is a bad fit. Things did-n’t go so well at Merrill Lynch,which was hit hard by the WallStreet meltdown last September,less than a year after Mr. Thaintook the helm of the storied broker-age firm. Even Mr. Thain couldn’tsave Merrill from the economic col-lapse which claimed the lives ofseveral Wall Street giants like BearStearns and Lehman Brothers. Butwhile Mr. Thain couldn’t hold backthe force of Merrill’s intractablelosses, he still managed to cut thebest possible deal for Merrill stock-holders by facilitating Merrill’s $50billion acquisition by Bank ofAmerica, then the country’s largestcommercial bank, last fall. The dealworked out okay for Merrill Lynch,but it turned out to be a disaster for



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Bank of America, whose stock hasplummeted more than 80 percentsince September. Mr. Thain, whobecame the number-2 man at Bankof America after the merger wascomplete this past December, wasfired by BA CEO Ken Lewis at theend of January because of an addi-tional $15.3 billion in losses at theend of 2008. He also saw to it thatMerrill execs got $3.6 billionbonuses before the merger was fi-nalized, and is now being pres-sured by NYS Attorney General An-drew Cuomo to speak about thetiming and nature of those bonus-es, though Mr. Thain himself endedup with none. Mr. Thain earned hisbachelor’s degree in Electrical Engi-neering from MIT in 1977 and hisMBA from Harvard Business Schoolin 1979. He is a member of the MITCorporation, the Dean’s AdvisoryCouncil at the MIT Sloan School ofManagement, U.S. National Advi-sory Board, James Madison Councilof the Library of Congress, FederalReserve Bank of New York’s Inter-national Capital Markets AdvisoryCommittee, the French-AmericanFoundation, the National UrbanLeague’s board of trustees, and theNew York Presbyterian Foundation,which he served as governor. Heand his wife Carmen have two chil-dren. Their son Alex went to MIT,and their daughter Nicole is a stu-dent at Yale.

37. PETER DION$275 MILLION

FURS, REAL ESTATE

Mr. Dion is president ofYarmuth-Dion in Garden City, LongIsland. He was born in Greece, andmade his fortune in furs and realestate. He is a distinguished design-er, manufacturer and wholesaler offine fur garments. He immigratedto the United States in the early1950’s, and changed his legal namefrom Dionysiou to “Dion” in 1973.He began his career at the NewYork firm of Hiller & Becker, arenowned fur manufacture, and histalents soon became evident. In1974, the firm began to manufac-ture coats under the Peter Dion la-bel. Eventually, Mr. Dion becamethe owner of the business andchanged its name to Peter DionInc., and later acquired YarmuthFurs Inc., a fur jobber, and called itYarmuth-Dion. Mr. Dion entered in-to an agreement in 1982 withJames Galanos, a leading fashiondesigner from Philadelphia (alsoknown for his silk fabrics), underwhich Mr. Dion manufactured furgarments designed by Mr. Galanos.Galanos furs were distributed onlythrough the country’s best-knowndepartment stores catering to thecarriage trade, such as Bergdorf-Goodman and Nieman-Marcus.The Galanos label appeared onthese furs together with that of thestore. The luxurious designs em-ployed the most exacting work-manship, and are extremely expen-sive. Mr. Galanos’ most famousclients were Diana Ross and NancyReagan, wife of former PresidentRonald Reagan, for whom they de-signed inaugural gowns of rich fab-rics, and Mr. Dion, who also soldgarments of his own design andmanufacture to retailers in Chica-go, was the furrier who made surethe quality of the pelts and theworkmanship support the innova-tive design. It is a lucrative businesswith estimated annual sales of $10

million. In an article published onJune 6, 1987 the New York Timescites, “At the top of the line, twocoats made of lynx bellies, so softand fluffy they look airborne. Theshort style is $200,000, the longone $300,000.” Mr. Dion is one ofthe founding members of Leader-ship 100 and an Archon of the Ecu-menical Patriarchate.

38. JAMES DIMON$260 MILLION


Mr. Dimon, 52, is chairman &CEO of JPMorgan Chase, one of thecountry’s largest banks. Currentlyranked 82nd among FORBES high-est paid CEO’s, which lists histhree-year compensation at $88.9million and stock ownership at$189.1 million, Mr. Dimon hasmanaged to keep JPMorgan well

ahead of the curve since taking thehelm in 2006. At a time when allthe country’s major banks – e.g.,Bank of America and Citigroup –are barely managing to stay afloat,JPMorgan is thriving, earning Mr.Dimon praise from President Oba-ma and the respect of his peers. Mr.Dimon was born in New York. Hisgrandfather, a Greek immigrantfrom Smyrna, was a broker andpassed his knowledge of the busi-ness onto his son and partnerTheodore, Mr. Dimon’s father. As aboy, Mr. Dimon attended theBrowning School, a prestigious all-boys prep school on the Upper EastSide. He later majored in Psycholo-gy and Economics at Tufts Universi-ty, and earned his MBA from Har-vard University Business School.Upon graduating in 1982, SanfordWeill convinced him to turn downoffers from Goldman Sachs andMorgan Stanley, and join him as anassistant at American Express.Through a series of unprecedentedmergers and acquisitions which en-sued, they formed Citigroup, thenthe largest financial services con-glomerate in the world. Mr. Weillwas the one who made the deals,but Mr. Dimon was the “whiz kid”who made the numbers work. Mr.Dimon left Citigroup in November1998 due to an internal conflictwith Mr. Weill. But those days areclearly behind him now, and he hasbeen in the limelight, attending theWorld Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland in January and testify-ing before Congress about the stateof the nation’s banking system inFebruary. He is married to JudithKent, with whom he has threedaughters.

39. NICHOLAS J. BOURAS$250 MILLION

STEEL INDUSTRY

Mr. Bouras was born in Pontiac,Michigan and grew up in Chicago.He graduated from the Northwest-ern University School of Commercein 1955. He worked for the UnitedStates Steel Corporation from 1940to 1960. He left U.S. Steel to starthis own steel construction compa-ny with his wife, Anna. Mr. Bouraswas the owner and president ofBouras Industries Inc., which con-sisted of four operating companiesand four manufacturing operationsin three states – New Jersey, Penn-sylvania and South Carolina.Bouras Industries was the holdingcompany consisting of NJB Inc.,United Steel Deck Inc., Prior Coat-ed Metals Inc., ABA Trucking Cor-poration, and the New ColumbiaJoist Company. Bouras Industriesemployed over 650 people andmaintained offices in over 20 dif-ferent cities. Texas-based steel pro-ducer Commercial Metals boughtnearly all of Bouras Industries’ op-erating assets – United Steel Deck,ABA Trucking and New ColumbiaJoist – for more than $63 million inMarch 2007 to expand its manufac-turing of steel joists (lengths ofsteel supporting part of a building’sstructure, typically arranged in par-allel series to support a floor or ceil-ing). Mr. Bouras is a veteran ofWorld War II. He enlisted in theU.S. Army Air Corp in 1942, andserved three years in the Europeantheater of operations. He flew 44combat missions in B-26 and A-26medium bombers as a lead bom-bardier and navigator until the endof the war in Europe. Honorablydischarged with the rank of major,Mr. Bouras was awarded the Distin-guished Flying Cross, eight airmedals and five battle stars. He is afounding member of Holy TrinityChurch in Westfield, New Jersey.He is very dedicated to the GreekOrthodox Church, and has mademany philanthropic contributionsover the years. He is a past presi-dent of its parish council, andserved as chairman of the church’sbuilding committee for 33 years.He is a member of the Archdioce-san Council’s Executive Commit-tee, and an Archon of the Ecumeni-cal Patriarchate, serving on the Ar-chons National Council.

39. JOHN PATERAKIS$250 MILLION

BAKED GOODS, REAL ESTATE

Mr. Paterakis, 79, is president ofBaltimore-based H&S Bakery, thelargest privately owned bakery inthe country, which bakes buns forthe fast-food industry, as well asEnglish muffins, bagels and rolls.Founded in 1943 he company wasnamed after the initials of itsfounders, Greek immigrants HarryTsakalos, Mr. Paterakis brother in-law, and Isidoros “Steve” Paterakis,his father, and is still run by familymembers. The story of H&S Bakeryreads like a classic American suc-cess story. It is a classic tale ofGreek immigrants, the Paterakisand Tsakalos families, who came tothis country seeking the AmericanDream. The Bakery’s founders be-gan selling hearth-baked breadsout of a basement in the family’srow house near Johns HopkinsHospital. Steve baked Italian breadby hand, while Harry delivered it intheir sole bakery truck. Thefounders had simple old-fashionedprinciples: work hard; pay atten-tion to detail; focus on product ex-cellence; and provide superior cus-tomer service. Mr. Paterakis joinedthe business at 23 years of age, andhelped transform it to a nationalcompany. Through the years, fami-

ly pride has maintained those stan-dards of excellence. Today, over 65years later, H&S, employs about1,000 people in the Baltimore area,and supplies stores like Giant andSuper Fresh with hearth breads androlls which are then sold under thesupermarkets’ own brand names.Its products are distributed as farnorth as Long Island and Massa-chusetts and as far south as NorthCarolina. Mr. Paterakis also ownsNortheast Foods Inc., which makesthe buns for McDonald’s. He hasbuilt a McDonald’s distributioncenter in Ireland, and supervisesproduction of rolls for the companyin Singapore and India. The bakerymagnate is also a behind-the-scenes political heavyweight whosefundraising has helped leadingpoliticians, including the late gov-ernor and vice president Spiro T.Agnew, former Governor MarvinMandel, retired U.S. Senator PaulSarbanes and former BaltimoreMayors William Donald Schaeferand Kurt L. Schmoke. Mr. Paterakisalso owns H&S Properties Develop-ment Corp., a development compa-ny which has built several buildingseast of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, toinclude the Baltimore Marriott Wa-terfront hotel. Others includeCourtyard by Marriott and officesfor Sylvan Learning Systems andFidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance.

41. STRATTON SCLAVOS$225 MILLION

COMPUTERS ANDCELLULAR TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Sclavos, 47, was chairman,president & chief executive officerof VeriSign for 12 years before heresigned in May 2007, leading thatcompany through many acquisi-tions. He abdicated the helm atVeriSign, in part, because of inter-nal opposition to his drive for diver-sification. He is now a director onthree multi-billion-dollar compa-nies, Juniper Networks, Intuit andSalesforce.com. Juniper designs,develops and sells products andservices which provide its cus-tomers with performance networkinfrastructure which creates re-sponsive and trusted environmentsover a single Internet protocol-based network. From March 2008

to March 2009, Juniper stock en-joyed a high of $29.50 and a low of$13.20 per share (market value, ac-cording to FORBES: $7 billion). In-tuit provides business and financialmanagement solutions for smalland medium-sized businesses, fi-nancial institutions, consumers andaccounting professionals. FromMarch 2008 to March 2009, its 52-week high and low was $32 and$20 per share, respectively (marketvalue: $7 billion). Salesforce.comprovides software to businesses ofall sizes and industries worldwide.Its 52-week high and low was $75and $21 (market value: $4 billion).Mr. Sclavos earned his bachelor’sdegree in Electrical & ComputerEngineering from the University ofCalifornia in Davis. From October1993 to June 1995, he was vicepresident of worldwide marketing& sales for Taligent Inc., a softwaredevelopment company which was ajoint venture among Apple Com-puter, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.He joined VeriSign in July 1995 asone of its first employees. Sincejoining VeriSign, he helped estab-lish the company as a global corpo-ration used by millions of con-sumers and businesses daily as theyinteract on the world’s voice anddata networks. Mr. Sclavos led thecompany through a decade of ro-bust growth and technological in-novation. His last years withVeriSign were taken up with inves-tigations into the company’s stockoption program, but it is not be-lieved that Mr. Sclavos personallybenefited from the option grants inquestion, though it did occur underhis watch. Mr. Sclavos was born tosecond-generation Greek Americanparents in San Francisco. He stilllives in California with his wifeJody and their two children. A life-long Bay Area resident, Mr. Sclavosformed the Sclavos Family Founda-tion to support charitable efforts inchildren’s education and medicalresearch. He likes to play basket-ball. In June 2002, he was honoredwith the Ernst & Young NorthernCalifornia Entrepreneur of the YearAward. He was also honored withthe 2001 Morgan Stanley MorganLeadership Award for Global Com-merce; named to Forbes’ Top 50CEO’s list; and served alongside 30technology experts on PresidentGeorge W. Bush’s National SecurityTelecommunications AdvisoryCommittee, advising the Presidenton national security and emer-gency preparedness policy for thecommunications industry.

42. EVANGELINE GOULETAS$215 MILLIONREAL ESTATE

Ms. Gouletas, 72, is chair & CEOof Chicago-based Skyline EquitiesRealty LLC (SER), a full service eq-uity and development firm versedin all aspects of the real estate in-dustry, from concept to delivery, tomarketing, leasing and manage-ment. She was also co-chair ofAmerican Invsco, one of the coun-try’s top condo converters, withproperty assets in excess of $4 bil-lion. In 1998, Ms. Gouletas becamethe first woman to be inducted into

the Chicago Association of RealtorsHall of Fame. She resigned as co-chair of AI to pursue Skyline Equi-ties, which concentrates on the ac-quisition and development of high-quality commercial and residentialproperties. She went to Miami in-tent on making South Florida re-member her company’s motto,“The Sky is the Limit,” and quicklybecame one of the most creativeforces in the area’s real estate com-munity with her 35-story, 369-unitSKYLINE tower at Mary Brickell Vil-lage, the epicenter of Miami. Thelushly landscaped residential de-velopment is located within amixed-use setting, which includesgourmet restaurants, retail and en-tertainment options, as well as astate-of-the art fitness complex.SKYLINE on Brickell is located inone of the last remaining water-front high-rise residential parcelson Miami’s Biscayne Bay. SER hasalso completely restored a 1930’sart deco masterpiece, creating Sky-line Century of Progress, with 293premier rental residences at 182West Lake Street in Chicago’s Loop.Recently designated a ChicagoLandmark, this architectural gem is20 stories high. Ms. Gouletas alsoowns the Lake Point Tower Renais-sance Plaza, a 70-story tower shehelped revitalize when she was itsprincipal manager between 1971and 1988. This multi-million-dollardevelopment includes retail and of-fice space for lease on the first, sec-ond and 70th floors. The newlyrenovated French restaurant, CitéElegant Dining, which is alsoowned by Ms. Gouletas, occupiesthe 70th floor. Like her brother,Nicholas, Ms. Gouletas was born in

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Greece, and has run in the same so-cial circles as Donald Trump andhis former wife Ivana, along with abevy of Democratic politicos likeTed Kennedy, Michael Dukakis,David Dinkins and Jimmy Carter,stemming from her years as thewife of New York Governor HughCarey, who was governor of theEmpire State from 1975 to 1982,and whom she married in 1981.She also has degrees in mathemat-ics and engineering from JohnHopkins and the Illinois Institute ofTechnology, and actually worked asa mathematical analyst on the Min-uteman Missile Program, accordingto information in an article pub-lished by the Gale Group in May2004. Ms. Gouletas is a trustee ofthe Greater Miami Chamber ofCommerce, and has been com-mended by political, communityand civic leaders throughout SouthFlorida for her pioneering spiritand commitment to the area. TheSouth Florida Business Journal rec-ognized her with its “UltimateCEO” award in 2006. She hasserved on the U.S. Fund forUNICEF’s Advisory Council for thelast ten years. The late PatriarchDiodoros of Jerusalem conferredupon her the high distinction ofGrand Commander of the HolySepulcher, and she was was alsobestowed with the title and dignityof “Her Excellency” and Comman-der of the Temple of Jerusalem’sSovereign Military Order. She hasone daughter, Maria.

43. SATIRIS G. FASSOULIS$200 MILLION

MILITARY TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Fassoulis is chairman & CEOof CIC International, which manu-factures military ammunition, ex-plosives-loading machinery, night-vision systems, helicopter parts,munitions and aerospace compo-nents, and assembles complete mil-itary motor vehicles for govern-ments and defense contractorsworldwide. The firm also upgradesweapons systems for the U.S. Navy,and has operated armored vehicleproduction facilities in Philadel-phia and Honolulu. CIC enjoys awide spectrum of services geared tothe U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force,and is a recognized leader in themodernization of tanks and APC’s(armored personnel carriers). Thefirm has also designed and imple-mented kits for the modernizationof weapons. The company wasfounded by British interests in 1930as a silk and fur trader, and had op-erations in Shanghai as CommerceInternational China. Over theyears, the focus changed to defensecontracting. It trades in surveil-lance equipment, munitions andother military supplies; has a staffof more than 700 employees; and isbased in Hoboken, New Jersey. Ac-

cording to Crain’s New York Busi-ness, CIC’s estimated annual rev-enues for 2005 were expected toexceed $870 million. According toHoover’s business research compa-ny, sales were $946 million in 2006and $781 million in 2007 (2008sales data was unavailable at presstime).

43. RITA WILSON$200 MILLION

ENTERTAINMENT

Ms. Wilson, 52, is an Americanfilm and stage actress and produc-er. She is wife of superstar actorand producer Tom Hanks. BornMargarita Ibrahimoff in Los Ange-les, her father was a Pomak born inGreece. Before immigrating to theU.S., he had lived in Bulgaria andTurkey; her mother was born andraised in a Greek village on the Al-banian border. Her family changedtheir surname to Wilson, whichwas the name of a local street inSouthern California. Ms. Wilson isoften credited with being the dri-ving force behind Nia Vardalos’smash-hit movie, “My Big Fat GreekWedding,” which became the high-est-grossing independent film of alltime. Ms. Wilson has had recurringroles in various television series,and has appeared in severalmovies. These include “MidnightCaller,” “Volunteers,” “Bonfire of

the Vanities,” “Sleepless in Seattle,”“That Thing You Do,” “Frasier,” and“Runaway Bride.” She also playedSusan Borman, wife of astronautFrank Borman, in the HBO minis-eries “From the Earth to the Moon,”and performed the role of RoxieHart in the Broadway revival of“Chicago” from June to August of2006. She has contributed to theMoffitt Cancer Center by donating“True Hearts” jewelry, made of ster-ling silver and 14-karot gold. Theproceeds went to the benefit of sev-eral charities. She and her husbandare members of the Greek Ortho-dox Church. She has been marriedto Mr. Hanks since April 1988, andhas two children. Factoring in her

husband’s fortune – Mr. Hankscommands $25 million per picturethese days, and has starred in sevenconsecutive $100 million block-busters – their combined net worthprobably exceeds $200 million.

45. JENNIFER ANISTON$160 MILLION

ENTERTAINMENT

Popularly and affectionatelyknown as “America’s Sweetheart,”Ms. Aniston, who just celebratedher 40th birthday this past Febru-ary 11, once lived in Crete andAthens as Jennifer Anastassakis.The daughter of famous daytimesoap opera star John Aniston(“Days of Our Lives”), she eclipsedher father’s television fame andsuccess with her own role as RachelGreen on the eternally popular situ-ation comedy, “Friends.” In theshow’s final years – it ran for tenseasons – Ms. Aniston and her fivecastmates struck what was then arecord deal – $1 million each perepisode – and she still collects asizeable paycheck from the now-iconic sitcom’s syndication. Ms.Aniston’s film career has beensomewhat hit-or-miss. Her recentfilms, “Derailed” and “Rumor Has It(2005),” were considered bombs,but have been more than offset bybox office bonanzas like “BruceAlmighty (2003),” “The Breakup

(2006)” and “Marley & Me(2008),” which helped establishedher as a movie star. Her latest film,“He’s Just Not That Into You,” re-leased last month, has alreadygrossed over $120 million, andFORBES lists her 17th on its“Celebrity 100,” reporting that shecommands a hefty $27 million feefor each movie she does. Moreover,her participation in several Holly-wood projects as either a produceror an actress has elevated her fi-nancial status and clout. She di-vorced from superstar actor BradPitt four years ago, but the press-averse Ms. Aniston is magazine-cover gold. She has won multipleawards during her career, to in-

clude the Screen Actors Guild(1996), Emmy (2002), GoldenGlobe (2003) and People’s Choice(four times) Awards, and has assist-ed and worked with many charitieslike Rain (an anti-sexual assault or-ganization), St. Jude’s and variouscancer-fighting organizations.

46. LOUIS KATOPODIS$150 MILLION

FOOD INDUSTRY

Mr. Katopodis is president &CEO of Fiesta Mart, a $1.5+ bil-lion-a-year subsidiary of Grocer’sSupply Co., which sells ethnic andconventional groceries in Texas(primarily to the Lone Star State’sMexican and Asian American con-sumers). Fiesta Mart is a grocerychain with locations in Austin, Dal-las and Houston. It began operat-ing in 1972 with a single supermar-ket in Houston, and has sincegrown to a chain of 50 supermar-kets and 17 beverage centers. Fromthe beginning, Fiesta has supportedlocal non-profit and social serviceagencies as part of the company’sunwavering commitment to giveback to the communities in which itoperates. At its supermarkets, Fies-ta leases kiosks to vendors who of-fer items like jewelry and cellularphones. Founded in 1972, Fiestawas acquired by wholesaler Gro-cer’s Supply in 2004 (Grocer’s Sup-ply employs 8,900 people; enjoyed$2.72 billion in sales in 2007; andis the country’s 154th largest com-pany, according to FORBES). Mr.Katopodis has described Fiesta’score operating principle as “servingthe under-served.” He is a boardmember of the Food Marketing In-stitute, and has served on the boardof Houston’s East End Red Crossand as chairman of the Skyline Dis-trict Boy Scouts. He is also a boardmember of the Food Marketing In-stitute and the Chronic Lymphocyt-ic Leukemia Global Research Foun-dation.

47. JOHN A. LEONTAKIANAKOS$120 MILLION

BIOTECHNOLOGY,HOMELAND SECURITY

Born a stone’s throw away fromthe Acropolis, Mr. Leontakianakos,47, is a primary shareholder ofthree biotechnology companies,BioAvenge, Capital Genomix, andImmunomic Therapeutics, and aco-founder and senior vice presi-dent of GateKeeper USA Inc., acompany which specializes in in-stalling security devices for con-tainers on ships, mandated by thefederal container security initiativein January 220, and has contractswith the Department of HomelandSecurity. BioAvenge, now a sub-


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47 years of community service at your disposal

By Evan C. LambrouSpecial to The National Herald

NEW YORK – Drastic times call fordrastic measures. That’s why JamieDimon, Chairman & CEO of JPMor-gan Chase & Co., and his bank haveslashed dividends, temporarilyhalted foreclosures, and are mov-ing ahead with modifying up to amillion loans over the next year inan effort to help the economy re-cover.

Ten years after leaving Citigroupbecause of a conflict with his bossat the time, Mr. Dimon is back tobeing Wall Street’s – and now alsoMain Street’s – Golden Boy.

He joined JPMorgan Chase in2004, when it bought Chicago-based rival Bank One, which he al-so led. He presided over the mergerand basically saved Bank One, be-coming CEO of the parent companyin early 2006.

He was listed on TIME Maga-zine’s list of the world’s 100 mostinfluential people in 2006, and heis now front-and-center in the cor-porate world during a time of his-toric economic upheaval andfragility in the American bankingsystem.

He was in Davos, Switzerlandfor the World Economic Forum atthe end of this past January. He tes-tified before Congress on February18. He has given several major in-terviews since then, expressingsupport for the Obama Administra-tion’s economic strategies. And hehas been commended by none oth-er than President Obama himself:

PRESIDENTIAL ACCOLADES“There are a lot of banks that are

actually pretty well-managed, JPMorgan being a good example. Idon’t think its CEO should be pun-ished for doing a pretty good jobmanaging an enormous portfolio,”

the President said on February 10.Mr. Obama wasn’t just being

kind or playing favorites. Of all themajor banks, JPMorgan Chase isvirtually the only one which still re-sembles a live, breathing bank. Onits website, the New York bankinggiant states it is “a leading global fi-nancial services firm with assets of$2.2 trillion and operations in morethan 60 countries.”

And while JPMorgan has taken$29.5 billion in losses, writedownsand credit provisions since the startof the financial crisis, that’s only afraction of the $85.4 billion takenby Citigroup and $55.9 billion byMerrill Lynch, once led by GreekAmerican John Thain and now partof Bank of America.

Citigroup and Bank of Americaare struggling to tread water, butthe House of Morgan is down only43 percent in the past year, whilethe other two have each plungedmore than 85 percent. For share-holders and taxpayers, the differ-ence is night and day.

So with respect to the Presi-dent’s praise, some observers havepointed out, Mr. Dimon is compara-tively a rock star, and doesn’t de-serve to be punished alongside hispeers.

When he testified before theHouse of Representatives FinancialServices Committee on February11, Mr. Dimon was joined by sevenfellow CEO’s of the country’slargest banks.

They listened to Committeemembers castigate them for theirbonuses, underwriting fees andperks. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) read questions from an-gry constituents asking what banksdid with money they had takenfrom the $700 billion Troubled As-sets Relief Program, and Rep.Michael Capuano (D-Massachu-setts) told them he “can not believeno one has prosecuted you.”

In his testimony, Mr. Dimon saidnot all banks should be paintedwith the same brush, noting that inspite of the current credit crunch,JPMorgan has continued lendingmoney.

“JPMorgan Chase is lending.Through our 5,000 branches in 23states, we continue to provide cred-

it to tens of millions of customers,including individual consumers;nearly 2 million small businessclients; large corporations; otherbanks; not-for-profits; and statesand municipalities,” he said.

“While we did not seek the $25billion in TARP funds we receivedon October 28th, it strengthenedour already strong capital base,which is the foundation for all ourlending activities. We are puttingthat money to use in a way that re-spects the spirit of TARP, whilemaintaining the safe and soundlending practices that have helpedto make – and to keep – JPMorgana healthy and vibrant company,” hesaid, noting that his bank employs224,000 people worldwide; gave$100 million to charity last year;and paid $10 billion in taxes to fed-eral, state and federal govern-ments.

“In the 4th quarter, despite re-duced consumer demand for credit,we made over $150 billion in newloans. In addition, we lend an aver-age of $50 billion every night toother banks. Also during the fourthquarter, we purchased almost $60billion of mortgage-backed and as-set-backed securities, which hadthe benefit of supporting theagency debt markets and promot-ing liquidity in the housing capitalmarkets,” he said.

“Overall, in the 4th quarter, ourconsumer loan balances increasedby 2.1 percent compared to the 3rdquarter, while overall personal con-sumption expenditure in the coun-try decreased by 2.3 percent overthe same period. That is to say, welent more even as consumers cutback their spending during thatquarter,” he added.

Only three of the eight bankchief executives who testified be-fore Congress on their use of gov-

ernment bailout funds actuallybought shares in their companiesfor their own portfolios over thelast six months as the stocks wereplummeting. Mr. Dimon was one ofthem, disclosing that he invested$12 million to increase his alreadylarge holdings in JPMorgan Chase.

Mr. Dimon was paid $1 million ayear in both 2006 and 2007, butturned down his bonus for 2008.JPMorgan accepted $25 billion inGovernment bailout money, thoughit emerged from the crisis strongerthan some rivals, having absorbedBear Stearns and Washington Mu-tual last year. The WaMu acquisi-tion alone increased average totaldeposits at JPMorgan by 63 percentto $339.8 billion.

So Mr. Dimon appears to be do-ing considerably better than someof his competitors. Bank of AmericaCEO Ken Lewis, for example, whofired Greek American John Thainlast month, earned $24.8 million incompensation in 2007. He washailed for acquiring Merrill Lynchlast year, but may have been betteroff doing more due diligence. Bankof America, whose shares have fall-en dramatically since mid-October,has so far received $45 billion inbailout assistance from the U.S.Treasury.

PLAYING BALLIn any case, Mr. Dimon, a self-

proclaimed Democrat, seems to beplaying ball with the White House.“I have great hopes for the newPresident and his team,” he said ina speech during a recent confer-ence in Manhattan hosted byCrain’s New York Business maga-zine.

On February 18, President Oba-ma announced a $275 billion pro-gram which includes cutting mort-gage payments for qualified bor-rowers and expanding the role ofFannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thetwo federally sponsored mortgagegiants, in curbing foreclosures.

The economy is not likely to re-turn to an even keel until the hous-ing sector stabilizes, and housingwon’t fully stabilize until the job-less rate stops rising. Coupled withfederal efforts to create and protectjobs, the President’s program is anattempt to deal with the downward

housing spiral.Federal officials and lenders are

trying to make sure the programprovides badly needed help for upto 9 million homeowners, as theObama Administration hopes.

For borrowers at risk of foreclo-sure, incentives will be offered tolenders to make the loans more af-fordable. Under the plan, lenders

will receive subsidies if they reducemortgage payments to 38 percentof a borrower’s monthly income.Then Washington will providematching allocations to bring thepayment to as low as 31 percent.

For many homeowners whoseincomes have dropped dramatical-ly because of unemployment, theprogram will likely be out of reach;their monthly payments will be toohigh. The plan says little aboutwriting down loan principals, andsome borrowers will redefault evenafter going through the program.

Even so, Mr. Dimon said hisbank might rewrite as many as amillion mortgages. Unlike the poli-cies advanced by the Bush Adminis-tration, the new program will allowhomeowners who are not yet delin-quent to qualify for loan modifica-tion.

In a statement released by JPMorgan Chase on February 18, Mr.Dimon said he thought the Admin-istration’s plan to help strugglinghomeowners will succeed.

“We believe that the plan an-nounced by President Obama todayis good and strong, comprehensiveand thoughtful. I think it will besuccessful in modifying mortgagesin a way that’s good for homeown-ers,” he said.

“We applaud the focus on mak-ing monthly payments affordablefor borrowers; the creation of uni-form national standards for mort-gage modification to provide con-sistent and fair treatment of cus-tomers across the industry; the ex-panded ability of borrowers to takeadvantage of today’s lower ratesthrough refinancing; the inclusionof financially distressed borrowerseven before they are delinquent;and the use of counseling for bor-rowers with the highest debt ra-tios,” he said.

“We look forward to workingwith the Administration, Congress,the agencies and other interestedparties in implementing these ini-tiatives to help families and theU.S. economy,” he added.

In an interview with CNBC’sMelissa Francis the same day, Mr.Dimon said he thought the plan is“really elegantly done and reallywell-designed… It’s not helping

speculators. It’s helping homeown-ers, and we think it’ll be a very suc-cessful program” because it willhelp homeowners cope with theirmortgages through lower interestrates over the next five years.

While Mr. Dimon said he was“concerned” the bank may lose em-ployees because of new restrictionson executive pay, he also said JP-Morgan will change its current loanmodification plan based on the newgovernment guidelines. He alsosaid he expects the number of JP-Morgan’s prevented foreclosures toincrease since Mr. Obama’s planwill allow more people to refinancetheir loans.

Last month, JPMorgan extendedits modification program to includemortgages held by investors, aswell as those on the bank’s books.The lender has prevented 330,000foreclosures, and Mr. Dimon toldthe House Financial Services Com-mittee that JPMorgan expects to“avert” another 650,000 by 2010 aspart of the program.

“We believe this is the right ap-proach for the consumer, and forthe stability of our financial systemas a whole,” he said.

U.S. foreclosures reached274,399 in January, the tenthstraight month in which more thana quarter-million filings wereprocessed. Last year, more than 2.3million homeowners faced foreclo-sure proceedings, an 81 percent in-crease from 2007, and analysts arepredicting that number may soar toas many as 10 million in the comingyears.

The President said he supportsreforming U.S. bankruptcy rules tolet judges reduce mortgages on pri-mary residences to fair-market val-ue, as long as borrowers pay theirdebts under a court-ordered plan.

OBLIGATION TO PAYMr. Dimon said bankruptcy

modification would be “the last re-sort, not the first resort,” and willpush more people to modify loans.He said it is a good way for home-owners to seek recourse if they areunable to change loan terms underthe Government’s plan, and notedthat, in spite of negative equity,many homeowners are still payingtheir mortgages.

“There’s an obligation to pay. Idon’t think that, just because some-one is underwater, they should say‘I don’t have to stay there.’ You’resupposed to pay your mortgage,and we should teach the Americanpeople that you’re supposed tomeet your obligations, not runfrom them. Just because you have amortgage, it doesn’t mean youshould run away if (the value of thehouse) goes down,” he told Ms.Francis.

“People have lived there for along time. Their children are inschools. And a lot of people whoare underwater – they’re paying.There’s only a portion who are un-derwater that aren’t paying,” headded.

While Mr. Dimon’s bank hasbeen able to remain profitablethroughout the current downturn,the economic dislocation contin-ues, a fact not lost on JPMorgan,which slashed its dividend from 38cents to 5 cents on February 23 topreserve capital and protect itselfshould the ongoing recession wors-en. The move should save the bankabout $5 billion per year, keeping itamong the strongest banks duringthe ongoing recession and creditmarket turmoil.

Mr. Dimon said he expects hisbank to be profitable throughout2009, including the first quarter,and said JPMorgan is on track to re-port first-quarter profit roughly inline with analyst expectations.

Foregoing down bonuses andslashing dividends are measuresMr. Dimon has had to take in thepast. “I feel like I’m riding a broncoand holding on for dear life most ofthe time,” he said when he pickedup his Legend in Leadership Awardat the Yale CEO Summit in NewYork this past December.

Recalling the landing of his firstCEO job at Bank One a little overeight years ago, Mr. Dimon told theSummit the economic climate washostile back then, too.

“I was terrified,” he said. BankOne was a mess. He had to slashthe dividend and at least 10,000jobs. Having been fired from Citi-group by his mentor, Sandy Weill,he was navigating a landmine witha couple of other ex-Citi executivesby his side.

“They told me, ‘We can’t dowhat we need to do – make thesecuts – and take a bonus,’ ” he said.

Mr. Dimon not only withheldthe bonuses for those two execsand himself that year, he also askedhis top 15 people, “What do youthink you should earn?” He thenpulled their bonuses and a swath ofperks, including club memberships,car services, even matching giftgrants. “I told them, ‘I didn’t do it topunish you. I did it because they’reall entitlements. When the compa-ny does well, I’ll pay you evenmore,’ ” he said.

In early February, he acknowl-edged corporate executive behav-ior, in general, had gotten out ofhand, but said it was unfair forpoliticians to criticize Wall Streetpay without differentiating com-pensation based on performance.

“Pay got a little exuberant, andthere were some legitimate com-plaints,” he said, “but it’s unfair totalk about us as one. Not everycompany was responsible.”

Mr. Dimon also said the FederalReserve should have the authorityto regulate all companies withinthe banking system, including in-vestment banks. Regulators lackedpowers to oversee such firms be-fore Bear Stearns and LehmanBrothers failed last year.

“If you’re going to regulate,you’ve got to regulate all of it,” hesaid. “If you don’t, you’re going toend up right back here again, withall of these problems.”

But talk of nationalizing banksshould stop, he said, because many

institutions remain healthy. Somelenders will fail, he explained,while others will need Governmentaid to make it through the financialcrisis, and the U.S. should helpthose firms which need it, andshould price that aid to recoup loss-es.

In Davos, Mr. Dimon arguedthat regulators are also to blame forletting consumers amass debt like“weapons of mass destruction toborrow too much,” which led to theglobal economic crisis.

“God knows some really stupidthings were done by Americanbanks and by American investmentbanks. To policymakers, I saywhere were they? They approvedall these banks,” he said.

Mr. Dimon was a rare breed inDavos. He was one of the fewAmerican banking chiefs to go tothe World Economic Forum thisyear.

In an interview with CNBC’sMaria Bartiromo of CNBC at theend of last month, who asked himwhether the big United Statesbanks are doing enough to ungluethe credit markets by making loans,Mr. Dimon said substantial credit($150 billion cited in his testimonyto Congress) was flowing from hisbank over the previous 90 days inthe form of credit card debt, mort-gages, auto loans and loans to cor-porations.

Asked about when he thoughtthe economy might turn around,Mr. Dimon said he is usually cau-tious about making predictions.

But he also noted that, while hisbank has fared better than most ofits peers during the current crisis,reporting a fourth-quarter profit of$702 million while Citigroup post-ed its fifth straight loss, and while itrescued salvaged Bear Stearns andWashington Mutual from insolven-cy last year, JPMorgan is unlikely tomake any more acquisitions whileit consolidates.

ABOUT JAMIE DIMONMr. Dimon is married to Judith

Kent. They have three children, Ju-lia, Laura and Kara Leigh. He wasborn in New York. His grandfather,a Greek immigrant from Smyrna,was a broker and passed his knowl-edge of the business onto his sonand partner Theodore, Mr. Dimon’sfather. His father and grandfatherworked together for 19 years, andyoung Jamie held summer jobs intheir New York office.

As a boy, Mr. Dimon attendedthe Browning School, a prestigiousall-boys prep school on the UpperEast Side. He later majored in psy-chology and economics at TuftsUniversity, and earned his MBAfrom Harvard University BusinessSchool. Upon graduating in 1982,Mr. Weill convinced him to turndown offers from Goldman Sachsand Morgan Stanley, and join himas an assistant at American Ex-press.

Though Mr. Weill could not offerthe same amount of money as theinvestment banks at the time, hepromised Mr. Dimon he wouldhave fun. Mr. Weill left AmericanExpress in 1985 due to a powerstruggle. Mr. Dimon followed him,and the two took over CommercialCredit, a consumer finance compa-ny, from Control Data, which be-came the vehicle they would use topropel themselves to the top of thefinancial world.

Through a series of unprece-dented mergers and acquisitions,Mr. Dimon and Mr. Weill were ableto form Citigroup, the largest finan-cial services conglomerate theworld had ever seen. Mr. Weill wasthe one who made the deals, butMr. Dimon was the “whiz kid” whomade the numbers work.

Mr. Dimon left Citigroup in No-vember 1998. It was rumored thathe and Mr. Weill had gotten into anargument in 1997 over a perceivedlack of promotion for Mr. Weill’sdaughter, Jessica M. Bibliowicz. Inhis 2005 University of ChicagoGraduate School of Business Fire-side Chat and 2006 Kellogg Schoolof Management interviews, Mr. Di-mon stated that Mr. Weill fired him.

But those days are clearly be-hind him now, and one of the rea-sons for Mr. Dimon’s success is thepeople he chooses to works with.He doesn’t just surround himselfwith buddies from the old days.

One key group of “Dimonites”consists of J.P. Morgan Chase exec-utives whom he promoted or nur-

tured. Among them are Steve Blackand Bill Winters, co-heads of the in-vestment bank, and Jes Staley,chief of asset management. OtherJ.P. Morgan veterans have alsoflourished under Mr. Dimon, in-cluding Ina Drew, the chief invest-ment officer, and Todd Maclin, amagnetic Texan who runs the divi-sion which caters to midsized com-panies.

Mr. Maclin shares Mr. Dimon’spredilection for candor. “Jamie andI like to get the bad news out towhere everybody can see it,” hesaid, “to get the dead cat on thetable.”

The above story draws from in-formation published by the Asso-ciated Press, Bloomberg News,McClatchey-Tribune News Ser-vice, Investment Journal, Inde-pendent, FORTUNE, FORBES,CNN Money and Wikipedia.


Jamie Dimon Guides JP Morgan with Steady Hand in Tough Times

President Obama shakes hands with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in the East Room of the WhiteHouse this past February 13. The President commended Dimon for his stellar performance at JPMorgan.

Israel’s Likud Party leader, Benjamin Netanyahu (right), gestures towards JP Morgan Chase CEO JamieDimon during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this past January 29.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, 2nd from left, testified before theHouse Financial Services Committee this past February 11.

AP/CHARLES DHARAPAK

AP/MICHEL EULER

AP/MANUEL BALCE CENETA

sidiary of GateKeeper USA (ac-quired in 2008), uses technologiesto study genes, gene expressionand genetic sequence in order toidentify biohazardous agents. Capi-tal Genomix uses two technologyplatforms for the comprehensiveanalysis of genes and proteins, inorder to develop drugs to enhanceimmune system response. Immu-nomic Therapeutics is developingnext-generation vaccines for aller-gies. Its first vaccine will be forJapanese Red Cedar-induced asth-ma. Mr. Leontakianakos first cameto the United States in 1970 ateight years of age. His parentscame to New York, where he grewup in Woodside, Queens. He is agraduate of the TransfigurationSchool in Corona, and his familythen moved to Long Island, wherehe graduated from Half HollowHills High School in Dix Hills. Hecompleted his undergraduate stud-ies in college-level mathematics bythe time he was 16; was accepted atMIT; and was listed in “Who’s Who”for young Americans. He chose toattend LIU C.W. Post to stay close tohis family, but had to pull out of col-lege due to the untimely death ofhis father. He worked several jobsto help support his mother and twosisters, joining the U.S. MarineCorps in 1982. He was on tour inLebanon during bombing of Marinebarracks in Beirut in 1983 under

President Reagan. A highly deco-rated veteran due to his combatservice with 24th Marine Amphibi-ous Unit in Beirut, Mr. Leon-takianakos was honorably dis-charged in 1985. From 1985 to1992, he worked in the investmentbanking industry, employed bysuch firms as Gateway FinancialGroup, Euro-Atlantic Securitiesand Cohen & Cohen. In 1992-93,he served as vice president of Merg-ers & Acquisitions for AmericanPublic Companies. From 1993 to1995, he served as executive vicepresident of Corporate Finance andpresident of Global InternationalEquity Corp., where he arrangedfunding for several public and pri-vate companies and managed a$398 million portfolio of assets onbehalf of Global Security CreditLTD. From 1995 through 2000, heserved as managing director of Cor-porate Finance and as CEO ofOdyssey Capital & Research GroupInc., where he created and imple-mented investment structureswhich have facilitated more than$5 billion in private investments. In1999-2000, he served as directorand executive VP of BioTherapeu-tics Inc., and has also served as gen-eral partner of Ares Venture Part-ners since its inception in 2000. Inthat time, he managed to “piece-meal” his MBA together, takingcourses at various institutions overan 11-year period. Mr. Leon-takianakos also has real estate in-terests stateside and abroad, and isthe founder the Children’s Re-search Institute for PersonalizedMedicine, a nonprofit charitywhich helps children locate and se-cure alternative treatments in ter-minal cases. He and his wife Angel-ica reside in Long Island and havethree children.

48. GEORGE PERLEGOS$100 MILLIONELECTRONICS

Mr. Perlegos, 46, was chairman& CEO of Atmel Corporation, aglobal leader in the manufacturingof semiconductors and flash memo-ry devices based in San Jose, Cali-fornia. He was born in Tripolis,Greece. His family came to theUnited States when he was 12years of age. He bootstrapped At-mel in 1984 with $23,000 of hisown money. The company designs,develops, manufactures and sells arange of integrated circuits prod-ucts, including microcontrollersand advanced logic, mixed-signal,nonvolatile memory and radio fre-quency components. Mr. Perlegoswas terminated in August 2006 af-ter an eight-month investigation.The board of directors accused himand his brother Gust (an executivevice president of the company) ofspending $235,000 in companyfunds on airplane tickets for them-selves and their immediate fami-lies, although the DelawareChancery Court expressed its “dis-comfort with the thoroughness andfairness of the investigation andwith the decisions.” Mr. Perlegoscalled a meeting to replace five ofthe existing board members, whichthe board attempted to cancel. InMarch 2007, the DelawareChancery Court ruled that theshareholder meeting must proceed,but this action was completed afterMr. Perlegos was removed as presi-

dent. The action resulted in a spe-cial shareholder vote, which failedto generate the necessary 50 per-cent for Mr. Perlegos. The San Fran-cisco Chronicle reported on Febru-ary 23 that Mr. Perlegos shares atAtmel fell 6.3 percent to $84.4 mil-lion, and chip maker MicrochipTechnology announced on Febru-ary 10 it was no longer interestedin buying Atmel (after making anoffer to buy Atmel for $5 a share inOctober). Atmel’s current marketvalue is $1.4 billion, according tothe New York Times, which listedits 52-week high and low at $4.70and $2.50 a share from March2008 to March 2009. Despite theconflicts at Atmel, Mr. Perlegos re-mains a force in Silicon Valley. Ana-lysts have watched him evolve froma brilliant engineer at Intel into arespected leader of a billion-dollarpublic company. Atmel’s IPO (ini-tial public offering) increased hisnet worth by millions.

49. WILLIAM J.CATACOSINOS, PH.D

$80 MILLIONMINING AND ULTILITIES

Dr. Catacosinos, 77, is a directorof International Coal Group, a lead-ing producer of coal in Northernand Central Appalachia and the Illi-nois Basin. ICG has 13 active min-ing complexes; employs more than2,220 people; and controls over abillion tons of high-quality coal re-serves. As of December 31, 2006ICG owned or controlled approxi-

mately 317 million tons of metal-lurgical quality coal reserves andapproximately 746 million tons oflow-sulfur steam coal reserves. ICGalso owns the Sago Mine in WestVirginia, where 12 miners werekilled during an explosion in Janu-ary 2006. From March 2008 toMarch 2009, it registered 52-weekhighs and lows of $13.90 and$1.35, according to FORBES,which lists its market value at $190million. Before joining ICG, Dr. Cat-acosinos has also served as manag-ing partner of Laurel Hill CapitalPartners, a private equity invest-ment firm. Until the end of 2005,Dr. Catacosinos had served aschairman, president & CEO of TNPEnterprises Inc., the parent ofTexas-New Mexico Power in FortWorth, Texas. He was also chair-man & CEO of Long Island LightingCo., which built the controversialShoreham Nuclear Power Plant onLong Island, from January 1984 toJuly 1998, pocketing a $42 millionseverance package after a contro-versial parting of the ways at thetime. Dr. Catacosinos also served asa director of Preservation ServicesInc., a company in St. Petersburg,Florida which researches, developsand markets preservatives andpreservative technologies for food,

beverage and industrial products.He earned his bachelor’s degree,MBA and a doctorate in Economicsfrom New York University.

50. PETE SAMPRAS$60 MILLION

PROFESSIONAL TENNIS

Mr. Sampras, 37, was theworld’s top tennis player. Duringhis stellar 15-year career (1988-2002), he won a record 14 GrandSlam men’s singles titles, and fin-ished as World No. 1 on the ATPrankings for six consecutive years,a record for the Open era and tiedfor third all-time. Mr. Sampras wonWimbledon seven times, a recordshared with William Renshaw. Hewon five singles titles at the U.S.Open, an Open-era record sharedwith Jimmy Connors. He also wonthe Australian Open twice. Onlythe French Open eluded him, al-though he reached the semi-finalsin 1996. Mr. Sampras’ aggressivestrategies worked best on fast sur-faces – like hardcourts (U.S. Open)and grass (Wimbledon) – but wereless effective on slow surfaces likeclay. As a result, he dominatedWimbledon, but never won theFrench Open, which is played on

clay. By the time he retired, the“King of Swing” had won a stun-ning total of 64 career tourna-ments, and enjoyed career earningsof $43.3 million. TENNIS magazinenamed him the greatest tennisplayer from 1965 through 2005,and he was inducted into the Inter-national Tennis Hall of Fame on Ju-ly 17, 2007. Mr. Sampras was bornin Washington, DC. He is the thirdson of Sammy and Georgia Sam-pras. His mother is a Greek immi-grant. His paternal grandfather is

of Greek ancestry, and his paternalgrandmother is Jewish. Greek cul-ture played a big role in his up-bringing, and he attended theGreek Orthodox Church on Sun-days. From an early age, Mr. Sam-pras showed signs of outstandingathletic ability. He discovered a ten-nis racquet in the basement of hishome, and spent hours hitting ballsagainst the wall. In 1978, the Sam-pras family moved to Palos Verdes,California where the warmer cli-mate allowed him to play more ten-nis. Tennis legend Rod Laver washis idol. He met and played withMr. Laver when he was 11 years ofage. After going pro at the age of16, Mr. Sampras went onto domi-nate his sport, defeating greats likeMats Wilander, Ivan Lendl, JohnMcEnroe and Andre Agassi alongthe way. The Sampras-Agassi rival-ry became the defining thread ofcompetitive tennis in the 1990’s,with Mr. Sampras winning 20 ofthe 34 matches they played. Mr.Sampras married American actressand former Miss Teen USA Brid-gette Wilson on September 30,2000. Their son Christian Charleswas born in 2002, and the couplewelcomed their second son RyanNikolaos in 2005. Mr. Sampras hashelped raise millions for charity.



We all know who’s on the $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills.But how many of us know or recall that U.S. currency also came in muchhigher denominations?

The $500, $1000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills showed the faces ofWilliam McKinley, Grover Cleveland, James Madison and Salmon P.Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln who intro-duced the modern system of bank notes.

To the left is the $100,000 bill, which shows the portrait of WoodrowWilson. Never released into circulation, and used only in fiscal channelsby the Federal Reserve (and in displays at museums and casinos), “only”42,000 ($4.2 billion) of them were printed in 1934 as gold certificates(for easier transfer than $100,000 in gold bullion).

Still legal tender, high-denomination notes were last printed in 1945.They were recalled in 1969, and taken out of circulation. The issuance ofbills greater than $100 was discontinued due to lack of demand, and al-so to combat counterfeiting and cash flow for organized crime by mak-ing large-scale cash transactions obsolete.

Collectors consider old currency in decent condition to be a good in-vestment, kind of like a savings bond that matures quickly. A nice $1000bill, for example, can fetch $6900 or more at an auction.

What Happened to Large Bills?

The50 Wealthiest - The National Herald · 2013-11-19 · 4 Wealthiest Greek Americans 2009 THE...

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