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William Morse Davidson
$4 billion
I
alumni
(and two dropouts)
Before they were the nation's richest, they sang The Victors in the Big House.
These are the eight wealthiest living students who ever passed through the
Engin Arch on their way to greatness. The ranking next to their name denotes
their spot on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans.
From graduating in the Big House to
running a glass business to owning wildly
successful professional sports teams, Bill
Davidson has had quite a run. And at 85,
he's not finished.
In 1947, Davidson graduated from the
University with a bachelor's degree in
Business Administration. An avid bas-
ketball fan, he became the owner of
the Detroit Pistons in 1974. In 1997, he
scaled the Forbes list of the most gener-
ous Americans, landing at the number 10
spot. And in 2004, Davidson made sports
history by becoming the first owner to win
championships in three different profes-
sional leagues.
Even at his advanced age, Davidson
still attends his teams' games. In 2004,
when the Pistons won the championship,
Davidson delivered a victory speech that
the Detroit Free Press labeled "saucy,"
in which, he jubilantly decried Pistons
skeptics' doubts as "bullshit." The cur-
rent owner of the Pistons, the Tampa Bay
Lightning and the Detroit Shock, however,
has managing experience that extends
well beyond the playing field.
Davidson began his career by working
at a law practice. After three years, he
quit his job to take over and resuscitate
several failing companies. Later, Davidson
assumed control of the Guardian Industries
Corporation, which manufactures glass,
when his relative who owned it died and
it went bankrupt. Today, the Auburn Hills-
based company runs facilities in 21 coun-
tries
on five °
conti-
nents.
David-
son has been
generous with his
success. In 1992, he donated $30 million
to the University to establish the William
Davidson Institute currently located on
the first floor of Wyly Hall. Recent dona-
tions since then have been more lavish,
but at the time, it was the largest gift the
University had ever received.
- KIRSTY MCNAMARA
E Joan H. Tisch
$3.4 billion
She may have lived in Ann Arbor for
four years, but Joan Tisch is a New York-
er at heart. The Tisches are a family with
immense star power. A Google image
search yields several pictures of Tisch with
Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker
at a benefit hosted by the Metropolitan
Museum of Art to honor Tisch, 80. Her
husband was the owner of Loews Hotels
and the New York Giants, and her son Steve
is an elite Hollywood producer behind films
like "Forest Gump" and "Risky Business."
But while the family may have moved
onto bigger cities and bigger projects, they
haven't forgotten Ann Arbor.
An English major, Tisch met husband
Preston Robert Tisch at the University.
They stayed married for more than half a
century until he died from a brain tumor in
2005.
After graduation, Tisch partnered with
his brother, Lawrence, and embarked on a
career that is almost clich6. Sons of immi-
grant parents, the brothers started with a
small hotel and rapidly expanded the busi-
ness into the Loews Corporation, which
placed 145th on the Fortune 500 list of the
country's largest corporations in 2006.
The family has made many charitable
contributions, including $7.5 million to the
University in 1997 totfinance Tisch Hall and
a new tennis facility.
For nearly a decade, Tisch was president
of Gay Men's Health Crisis, an organization
that works to combat AIDS. She started
working as an anonymous volunteer brew-
ing coffee and doing office work, often for
long hours.Theother employees didn't real-
ize
who
she
was
until,
when g t
someone
complained about a defunct
copy machine, and she wrote a check for a
new one, according to her son Jonathan's
book "The Power of We."
Tisch wrote the check so quickly and
casually that the office manager was
hesitant to accept it, wondering if it would
bounce.
Tisch replied simply, "Trust me, it won't
bounce."
- TARYN HARTMAN
Stephen M Ross
$2.5 billion
JorgeM.Perez
-$1.8 billion
Stephen M. Ross has one memory oftthe
University that sticks out more clearly than
the others.
John F. Kennedy was standing on the
steps of the Michigan Union, in October
1960, speaking to a crowd that spilled onto
the street.
"I want to express my thanks to you, as a
graduate of the Michigan of the East, Har-
vard University," Kennedy said.
It was the same speech in which he first
proposed the formation of the Peace Corps
and asked for the support of the educated
youth of America.
As he watched Kennedy, Ross was just
one month into his first year on campus.
He waited up late with hundreds of his
classmates to catch a glimpse of the young
senator as he hit the campaign trail for the
first time.
That moment in Ross' life was pivotal,
but not for the reasons you would think.
That phrase, which has been repro-
duced on T-shirts and used as a rallying cry
for the anti-haughty for years, caused the
students to boo.
Ross and others booed because they
didn't want their politicians to be patron-
izing, he said. They knew precisely what
separated them from graduates from the
nation's oldest college, Ross said, and they
all knew exactly how hard they would have
to work to close that gap.
And Ross tackled that gap with a ven-
geance. He moved to New York City, and
founded what would become the larg-
est real-estate development company in
America. And in 2004, he smashed dona-
tion records by giving $100 million to the
University's business school, which now
bears his name.
When asked what one piece of advice
he would give incoming Ross Business
School students, he said that it couldn't
be narrowed down to a single buzzword.
He offered no self-help tapes or get-rich
schemes.
It's obvi-
ous that his a
days don't end
at 5 p.m. - that he has spent many
a long night studying the real-estate mar-
ket. Even the Ann Arbor housing market
hasn't escaped his eye. For the two years
that Ross was on campus, he lived in small
apartments on Catherine Street and Pack-
ard Road. What Ann Arbor needed then
was much what it needs now, Ros,66, s
said: A set of modern apartments within
residential zoning close to campus. The
high rise developments springing up
around campus don't fit the character of
the school, he said.
It all goes back to that October night
in 1960, when Kennedy wasn't being real,
when Ross, not yet wealthy, opened his
mouth and booed.
- FOREST CASEY
When he was a student at the Univer-
sity, in the early 1970s, Jorge Perez wasn't
your typical undergraduate. The son of
Cuban-exiled parents, he came to the U.S.
and head to Michigan shortly afterward.
Today he's the owner of an extensive art
gallery featuring stars like Frida Kahlo and
Fernando Botero. Lauded by askmen.com
for his "gorgeous looks and infinite charm,"
it's hard to imagine Perez doing keg stands
at a party.
He put his major in urban planning to
good use, going on to lend his vision to
major city development projects and dra-
matically changing the skyline of Miami,
where he currently lives. Newspapers
and magazines who cover his company
have given him nicknames like the Don-
ald Trump of the Tropics and the King of
Condominiums. At 57, Perez has corrobo-
rated with the best and brightest in the
real-estate world and beyond, even head-
ing up an elaborate resort and casino in Las
Vegas with actor George Clooney, though
it never materialized.
After he graduated from the University,
Perez focused mainly on restoration work
before he started developing low-income
housing. He continued to work on bigger
and biggerprojectsand nowdevelopssome
of the most glitzy buildings in Miami.
PerezisthepresidentofTheRelatedGroup
of Florida, partner company with the Relat-
ed Groupof New Yorkheaded by Stephen M
Ross,
Per-
ez's
longtime
business
partner, also an
alum.
The Forbes 400 list isn't the only
acknowledgement Perez has received in
the last few years. He was also ranked as
one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in
the country by Time Magazine. In addition,
Hispanic Business magazine ranked The
Related Group of Florida as the largest His-
panic-owned company in America.
- ANNE VANDERMEY
Larry Page
$14 billion
What do Legos and a ubiquitous Internet Page also
behemoth have in common? Not just their served as
colorful logos. president of engi-
Theyeach have the blessing of Engineer- neering honor society Eta Kappa Nu and
ing alum Larry Page, who graduated from recalled selling doughnuts as a fundraiser
the University in 1995. for the society as one of his favorite memo-
While he was a student at the Univer- ries of University life.
sity, Page built a working Inkjet printer out After graduation, he moved on to Stan-
of the popular toys, and playing with Legos ford University, where he met Brin. Google
remains one of his favorite pastimes. A was born soon after.
2006 article in Time magazine described A decade after graduating with honors
Page, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and in 1995, Page returned to the University to
Google CEO Eric Schmidt playing with a deliver the commencement speech for the
table full of the brightly-colored building College of Engineering. He's also serves on
blocks. Page has said Lego Mindstorms kits the College of Engineering's National Advi-
- which include a small robot - are among sory Committee.
his favorite pieces of technology. The immanent arrival of Google offices
Page, 34, grew up in East Lansing. He and in Ann Arbor, isa boon to the city and state
his older brother, Carl, broke with the fami- economy, and some have said it's a result of
ly's Spartan tradition - his mother Gloria Page's fond memories of Ann Arbor.
taught computer programming at Michigan Despite being the richest University
State University and his father was among alum, Page insisted that Google's not about
the first professors to teach computer sci- the money. After all, Google came up with
ence there - to come to Ann Arbor. He the inspirational business model "do no
studied computer engineering and was a evil." Apparently sometimes, it works.
member of the University's Solar Car Team. - TARYN HARTMAN
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM FORBES.cOM AND HIS-
PANICONLINE.COM
Samuel Zell
$4.5 billion
A. Alfred Taubman
$1.4 billion
SCharles T. Munger
$1 .6 billionI
USA Today once called Sam Zell "the
country's largest landlord, with 125 mil-
lion square feet of office space and
225,000 apartments." A graduate of
both the University's undergrad program
and law school, Zell got a jump start
on his real estate career in 1960s Ann
Arbor with his Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity
brother and future business partner, the
late Robert Lurie.
Lurie was an engineering student who
earned both his bachelor's and master's
degrees from the University, and is the
namesake of the Lurie Tower on North
Campus. The partnership worked like
this: Vivacious and exuberant Zell
made the deals, and math-minded
Lurie crunched the numbers behind the
scenes.
The two aspiring moguls started their
own real-estate business while stillstudy-
ing students at the University. Zell left the
Univeristy in 1966 with a bachelor's and a
law degree. He sold the apartment busi-
ness to Lurie before returning to Chica-
go, believing he was destined for bigger,
brighter;
Zell
becameabig-time player in
his own right, as his Chicago-based Equi-
ty International corporation expanded
beyond real estate and soon proved to
have an eye for lucrative investments.
Today, Zell finds time outside of running
huge chunks of real estate to ski, play
racquetball and ride his motorcycle.
In 1999, Zell and Lurie's widow Ann
gave a $10-million gift to the University
in the form of the Samuel Zell and Rob-
ert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial
Studies in the Ross School of Business.
He has also endowed the Samuel Zell/
Robert Lurie Real Estate Center at the
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
School and the Northwestern University
Center for Risk Management. Zell was
an LSA DeRoy Visiting Professor in Hon-
ors the College and has also made con-
tributions to the business school's Polish
Studies Program.
- TARYN HARTMAN
Charles Munger, often referred to as the
sidekick or right-hand man to investor War-
ren Buffett, is the vice chairman of Berkshire
Hathaway.
In 1942, Munger, 66, left the University
after a year and a half to serve in World War
II. He would later take a few classes at The
Unviersity of Mexico and Cal Tech, but he
neverobtained an undergraduate degree. But
that didn't stophimfromattendingin Harvard
Law School when he returnedfrom overseas.
He enrolled through a program designed for
veterans who had completed three-quarters
of their undergraduate coursework.
Often credited with being one of the best
investors to ever step foot on Wall Street, it's
surprising to learn that Munger never com-
pleted a course in economics.
"And with this striking lack of credentials,
you may wonder why I have the chutzpah to
be up here giving this talk," he said in a speech
he delivered to the economics department at
the University of California at Santa Barabara
in 2004. "The answer is that I have a black
belt in chutzpah. I was born with it."
But Munger, said he shouldn't be a rol-
emodel for would-be successful students.
During his year and a half at the University,
Munger enrolled inan economics course.
"In those days, I was kind of a wise ass and
tried toget A'swithout doingany of the work.
I went to the first exam and it was honestly
the hardest exam I've ever seen," he said.
"I tried my best at it, but went and dropped
the class right afterward, because, well, you
know."
He checked back to see how he did a few
days later, and found out he had achieved the
second highest score in the class. Munger
claimed that the top score went to "a young
man that was even more mal-adjusted than
I was."
Outside of the weather, Munger said he
looks on his time at the University as a posi-
tive expe-
rience, and
hasdonated
to the school.
Famous for
his unconvention- al
wisdom, Munger's rules of life are sometimes
referred to as "Mungerisms."For instance, he
said he gives everyone who asks the same
piece of advice.
"The best way to get what you want is to
deserve what you want:"
As a man who has chosen one of the most
prolific money makers in history as his busi-
ness partner, Munger said students would
be well-advised to be careful about who they
associate with.
"The high quality people you interact with,
clutch them to your bosom," he said. "And
the low quality people just get them the hell
out of your life:"
- CALLIE WORSHAM
A. Alfred Taubman launched his business
career while at the University with a big suit-
case full of women's shoes.
Taubman, who studied architecture at the
University with the help of the Gl bill, needed
to find a way to make a little extra money to
finance his education. An enterprising sales-
man, he approached a local cobbler with a
business venture. He would take a suitcase
full of the craftsman's shoes to local sorority
houses, where he would show them off and
take orders. For his effort, Taubman would
keep a small commission on each pair.
He would go to sorority houses while
the sisters were eating dinner and arrange
the shoes in a display on the staircase.
After the members finished dinner, Taub-
man would make his sales pitch.
His scheme was successful.
With the help of his shoe business and
another business he started, for which he
sold flowers and corsages to students before
big dances, Taubman was able to supple-
ment the money he received from the GI bill
and attend the University from 1945 to1948.
But he didn't graduate.
Taubman, 82, first enrolled at the Univer-
sity in 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor. But after two months in Ann
Arbor, he left to join the Army Air Corps.
In a soon to be published memoir, Taub-
man reflects on his brief time at the Universi-
ty. "Before I could learn the words of the fight
song, geopolitics got in the way and I was off
to war," he writes.
Although Taubman never finished his
undergraduate career, he now holds an hon-
orary degree. After three years, he left school
and moved to Detroit
In 1950, he founded a development firm
called the Taubman Company. His first proj-
ect was a bridal salon he built in Detroit. But it
wasn't long before his developments became
more ambitious. One of his first major under-
takings was building a large retail mall on the
outskirts of Ann Arbor called Arborland.
Taubman quickly became one of the
most prolific shopping mall developers in
the nation.
In 1983, he bought Sotheby's, one of the
most famous auction houses in the world.
Taubman colluded with rival auction
house
Chris-
tie's
to fix the
commissions
charged to clients
- an illegal business practice.
In 2001, Taubman was con-
victed of anti-trust violations by ajury in New
York. He was fined $7 million dollars and
imprisoned for one year at the age of 78.
After his conviction, there was a cam-
paign at the University to strip his name
from buildings and schools he had donat-
ed to, including the Taubman Medical
Library, the A. Alfred Taubman Medical
Center and the A. Alfred Taubman Col-
lege of Architecture and Urban Planning.
The campaign was ultimately unsuccess-
ful, and his name remained on many Uni-
versity buildings.
After his release, Taubman continued
donating to the school. Last February, he
gave $4 million to the University Museum
of Art to help finance an expansion.
- WALTER NOWINSKI