foundation is to help people who
couldn't help themselves."
That philosophy recently translat-
ed into the $45 million gift to help
children with brain disorders by
merging Atlanta's Marcus Institute
with the Kennedy Krieger Institute in
Baltimore.
Marcus says he embraced the prob-
lems of children with autism, cerebral
palsy and spinal cord injuries after
watching a Home Depot employee
struggle to find help for her brain-
damaged child.

Miracle Baby

Marcus credits his philanthropic bent
to his mother, Sarah Sinofsky Marcus,
a poor Russian immigrant with an
ebullient, generous spirit despite
rheumatoid arthritis that left her
hands and feet "like gnarled trees."
Sarah Marcus also had a dogged faith
in the power of education, something
she and her husband, Joseph, saw as a
ticket to success in America.
His father, also a Russian immi-
grant, worked seven days a week, 15
hours a day, as a carpenter and cabi-
net maker in Newark, N.J. "But he
never accomplished a hell of a lot,
Marcus says.
Sarah Marcus never envisioned her
son as the leader of 152,000 employ-
ees dispensing do-it-yourself advice in
the company's trademark orange
aprons. The youngest of her four chil-
dren had his heart set on becoming a
doctor.
Her rheumatoid arthritis had
become so severe that as a young
mother of three she was bedridden.
Doctors told her she'd never walk
again. Her only hope, they said, was
to have a child because the hormones
involved in pregnancy might give her
some relief.
Says Marcus, "I was born eight
years after my sister. And my moth-
er did walk again after she had me.
It was amazing, rather amazing.
And I was born on Mother's Day.
To my mother, I was a gift from
heaven.
Marcus put himself through col-
lege by working summers in the
Catskills, busing tables and serving
as the master of ceremonies for the
resorts' nightclub acts. After learn-

"

"

• ••,,,g4:0:vg:K.Famm,*"..WZ::/;p1Vp..

, m*.azOSNe.z:m..4eMalaW.e.,?,
ea'UNia.:4 1

ing hypnotism as a teen, he decided
to become a psychiatrist.
"I think it gave me an insight, a
very serious insight, into what people
are like ... Unfortunately, I could not
get into medical school. There was a
quota system for Jews."
He had the grades for Harvard or
Yale but not the money. Devastated,
Marcus headed to Miami to wait
tables. "My life was crushed at that
point," he says. But Sarah Marcus
was not the self-pitying sort. She
insisted her son return to school.
"Have to do it. Have to do it,"
Marcus says, fondly mimicking his
mother.
He enrolled in Rutgers College of
Pharmacy, graduating in 1954. He
chose Rutgers because he could live at
home. And he chose pharmacy as "a
back door to medicine."
But it was "a poor substitute for
what I wanted. Being around it really
upset me. I lost a lot of respect for
that group of people (doctors). There
were some who were great and there
were some who were pretty bad. I
could have been a better doctor,"
Marcus says. "But — look what hap-
pened!"
What happened is so much a part
of retailing legend and corporate lore
that Marcus doesn't bother to explain.

Legend Building

After he and another executive,
Arthur Blank, were fired from their
jobs at Handy Dan Improvement
Centers, a West Coast hardware
chain, they founded their own ware-
house home-improvement business.
The company was launched in 1978,
and the first three Home Depot stores
opened in metro Atlanta the next
year.
The company lost $930,000 in its
first year but turned a profit the fol-
lowing year and then went public in
1981. A thousand shares of stock
purchased then for $12,000 are now
worth $11.4 million.
Home Depot continues to thrive,
selling everything from paint and
tools to kitchen cabinets and bath-
room sinks. Home Depot today holds
nearly 17 percent of the $130 billion
U.S. market for home improvement
supplies. The corporation has mush-

MAYPTMA MAW'

How Marcus Stacks Up With
Other Jewish Philanthropists

hen it comes to giving tzedakah, billionaire Bernie Marcus is
one of the leaders.
The founder of Home Depot and chairman of its board
recently gave $15 million to the Atlanta Jewish Federation and
$45 million to help children with brain disorders. He's worth more than a
•
billion dollars.
How does Marcus stack up against other Jewish givers?
Ronald Perelman, whose $6 billion fortune came from Revlon cosmetics
and other business, is probably the richest American Jew, according to the
December issue of Moment magazine. Perelman has given more than $30
million to Jewish causes, much of it to Machne Israel, the social services
branch of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He also donated $4.5 million
to Princeton University in 1995 to create the Ronald 0. Perelman Institute
for Jewish Studies, Moment reported.
Like Perelman, Ronald Lauder is included in the 1998 Forbes 400 list of
the richest people in America. Lauder, whose family owns the Estee Lauder
cosmetics company, has a worth of $3.5 billion. He's created the Ronald S.
Lauder Foundationto fund synagogues, schools and summer camps in east-
ern and central Europe. The foundation is building a $5 million Jewish day
school in Budapest and another in Vienna, according to Moment.
Other prominent Jewish philanthropists include Leslie Wexner, whose
$1.5 billion net worth was built on clothing stories including The Limited
and Victoria's Secret. His Wexner Foundation distributes $6 million in
grants annually. The American Benefactor magazine estimates he's given a
total of $300 million.
The Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation is the largest private
Jewish philanthropy in the world, Moment reported. And with good cause:
In the fiscal year ending February 1998, the foundation gave $57 million to
a variety of groups that help the poor.
Both Marcus and Weinberg built their fortunes through hard work.
Marcus waited tables in Catskills resorts. Weinberg, who died in 1990, was
an immigrant who sold automobile tires as a teen before striking it rich in
real estate, auto parts and transit systems.

roomed to 720 stores with fiscal 1997
net sales of $24.2 billion. And it's
expected to grow 20 percent a year,
ending with 1,300 stores by 2001
and another 60,000 employees by
2000.
Marcus owns 3 percent of Home
Depot's stock. His 14 million shares
had a market value of $848 million in
1997, Forbes magazine reported. He
was also paid $600,000 that year as
the company's chief executive officer
and earned a $2 million bonus,
according to the magazine.
When Marcus began making
money, he began giving it away,
fueled, he says, by his mother's
lessons about the importance of
tzedakah. The company budgeted
$12.5 million in fiscal 1998 for cor-

porate giving and community pro-
grams. About 40 percent of its 1997
philanthropic budget was slated for
housing, aiding such programs as
Habitat for Humanity and Christmas
In April, and 25 . percent was geared
to youth programs.
"I learned how to give from
Bernie, once Home Depot got to the
point where we could give some
money back to the community," says
Ronald M. Brill, the company's exec-
utive vice president and chief admin-
istrative officer. Like Blank and
Marcus, he was a Handy Dan
employee who lost his job. He's been
with Home Depot since its founding.
Brill, 55, describes himself as "the
company cheapskate." But Marcus
doesn't pressure him or anyone else,

...0Amidaot

4/30

199

Detroit Jewish News 73