Not every American billionaire attended an Ivy League school, or even went to
college. There is a select group of "Blue Collar Billionaires" who may prefer
driving pick-ups to cruising in luxury sedans. From humble beginnings they
started their fortunes with sweat equity in, mostly, blue-collar
industries.
Harold Hamm
Net Worth: $7.5 BIndustry: Oil and gasResidence:
Growing up with 12 siblings on a sharecropping farm had Harold Hamm working
as a young child. After graduating from high school, Harold found a job with an
oilfield service contractor before he borrowed $1,000 to start up a one-truck
oilfield service business in Ringwood, Oklahoma that was the beginning of
Continental Resources, the publicly-traded company of which he still holds 70
percent of shares. Hamm's stayed true to his roots, driving his own pick-up and
raising five children with his strong work ethic.
In an interview with BusinessWeek Hamm is quoted as saying, "I get as much
excitement going to work today as I did when I was 20 years old."
Net Worth $5.7 BIndustry: SupermarketsResidence:
Charles C. Butt, the H-E-B grocery chain's current chairman and CEO, was born
during the Depression and began working in his grandmother's grocery stores at
age eight. By the time he was 12, Butt said he was working every Friday
afternoon and Saturday. "That's just what was expected of me," said Butt in an
interview with Supermarkets.com.
The former bag boy went on to graduate from Harvard and Wharton, but he never
stops learning. An industry journal reports that H-E-B is a thought leader,
mostly because Butt is focused on studying customers. "Customers are under
enormous pressure when it comes to two key items in their budgets - food and
fuel - so we're attempting to attune ourselves as closely as we can to his or
her needs."
Net Worth $5 BIndustry: Construction,
miningResidence: Missoula, MT
The child of divorced parents, Dennis Washington moved around a lot during
elementary school. After high school, he got a job in heavy construction in
Alaska that led to a position with his uncle's construction company. By age 26
he was vice president of the largest construction company in Montana. Three
years and a $30,000 loan from a Caterpillar dealer later, Washington started his
own company. Within ten years Washington Construction would be listed among the
largest in the U.S.
Another calculated risk buying a Butte copper mine provided resources for
other expansion into dam building, railroads, and marine shipping. "It's all
possible because of teamwork and people with a passion for their work," said
Washington in an interview for WashCorp.com.
Net Worth $1.25 BIndustry: Cable
televisionResidence: Liberty, NY
Alan Gerry dropped out of high school in Sullivan County, New York to join
the Marines during World War II. After his tour of duty, Gerry did stints as a
truck driver, chicken ranch hand and construction worker, but began training in
electronics to work on then-new televisions.
From putting up antennas and delivering sets, Gerry started his own TV repair
business with an ad that said, "Got a TV problem? Call Alan Gerry – 1955." In an
interview Says Gerry, "The telephone number was 1955. And the phone started
ringing, and it never stopped ringing since."
Gerry borrowed $20,000 to get into the cable business in 1956. Four decades
later, Cablevision Industries was a hot property. The country's eighth-largest
cable provider had 1.3 million subscribers and sold to Time Warner Cable.
Net Worth $1.3 BIndustry - CoffeeResidence –
It's not likely that Howard Schultz could have afforded a $4 Starbucks latte
when he was growing up. Schultz's family lived in a Brooklyn housing project
where his father supported a wife and three kids on odd jobs like driving a
diaper service truck.
Thanks to a football scholarship, Schultz became the first of his family to
attend college, much to his mother's delight. She didn't approve though, when
Schultz left his job at Hammerplast, a Swedish housewares company, for a small
business which sold only coffee beans. In an interview with Mirror News Schultz
said, "She started crying. She said, 'A coffee company? Are you crazy? Who's
going to buy coffee?' But I just felt I had to follow my dreams."
He became Starbucks Corporation's CEO in 1987. Today the chain operates more
than 17,000 stores in almost 49 countries, and generated over $10.7 billion in
2010 revenues.
Net Worth $3BSource: Airlines, Casino
ConstructionResidence: Beverly Hills, CA
Kirk Kerkorian has a true rags-to-riches story. His Armenian immigrant
parents were devastated in the recession of 1921 and young Kerkorian had to hit
the streets to sell newspapers to help make ends meet. He dropped out of school
in the eighth grade and put his schoolyard scrappiness to work as a professional
boxer moonlighting as a furnace installer for 45 cents an hour.
During WWII flew suicide missions for the Royal Air Force, afterwards made a
business flying surplus military airplanes which would become Trans
International Airlines. Flying customers to Las Vegas (and getting bit by the
gambling bug) led Kerkorian into construction and a gamble that building
mega-resorts like the MGM Grand would bring him the big bucks. He was right,
proving his theory that "good, common sense" trumps years of education and
experience.
"When you're a self-made man you start very early in life. In my case it was
at 9 years old when I started bringing income into the family. You get a drive
that's a little different, maybe a little stronger, than somebody who
inherited," told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Source: Wealth estimates from Forbes.com.
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