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The price of commodities and stocks may go up and down,real
estate holdings may fluctuate in value, today’s hot newwebsite may
become obsolete in months, and the globaleconomy may throw in its
own challenges, but the spirit ofinnovation and entrepreneurialism
always endures.
This special issue offers a look at the people fromour community
who have found opportunity whereothers found obstacles, who have
seen solutionswhere others only spotted questions.
Whether in the fields of technology or investments, in therealm
of oil sales or industrial production, we bring to youhere 50
inspiring portraits of Hellenes with vision and lead-ership.
The 2012 list has undergone some big upheavals, as wehave
factored in - when including people in the list - not justthe
bottom line, but also the extent of Greek community involvement as
a part of wealth. This means there are manyfamiliar faces, but a
whopping one fifth of people on thelist of our popular issue are
new.
The
50 WealthiestGreeks in America
The National Heralda b
MARCH 17, 2012www.thenationalherald.com
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA2 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012
The National HeraldA weekly publication of the NATIONAL HERALD,
INC.
(ΕΘΝΙΚΟΣ ΚΗΡΥΞ),reporting the news and address-
ing the issues of paramountinterest to the Greek American
community of the United States of America.
Publisher-Editor Antonis H. Diamataris
Assistant to Publisher, Advertising Veta H. Diamataris
PapadopoulosSpecial Section Editor
Angelike ContisProduction Manager
Chrysoula Karametros
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By Constantine S. SirigosTNH Staff Writer
At 83, John Pappajohn is abundle of energy and insight,making
more money than heever did. But with his wife Mary,he is also
giving away more ofit than ever. They have givenaway $100 million
over the pastten years.
Acumen and integrity. That’sthe formula that has workedand he
will not tamper with suc-cess. “They wouldn’t comeback,” if that
weren’t the case,he said of the people the famedventure capitalist
with whomhas made deals. “They all makemoney. They are all
rich.”
Generosity is also an impor-tant element in his personal
andprofessional life. “We are veryfair, we share. Our employeesmake
money, our secretariestoo. That’s the name of thegame. We
share.”
Pappajohn has put togethermore than 50 major public busi-ness
deals. “Probably the mostin the country,” said the manwho never
interviewed for a job.“I have always been an entre-preneur,” he
said, but he is farfrom being done.
Still in venture capital, hesaid: “I’m doing the best dealsever
and I have the best portfo-lio I ever had.” Along with suc-cess, he
also cultivates his roots,being active in numerous com-munity
endeavors.
Pappajohn was born on theisland of Evia. His grandfatherwas a
priest and virtually every-one in his mother and fathers’families
immigrated to MasonCity, IA. As a major railroadjunction with two
cement plantsand other industries, opportu-nities were abound.
His father came over in steer-age at the turn of the last
cen-tury at a time when there werealready 4,000 Greeks in MasonCity
and opened a grocery store.He went back to Greece to fightthe Turks
– “he was a palikari-a brave fellow” Pappajohn said– but after the
Asia Minor Dis-aster, he returned to Mason City.
In between he needed to finda wife, so, like many
successfulGreek-Americans, he went backin triumph and they brought
outthe eligible young women of the
village of Aghios Lukas, like theydid for the Byzantine
emperors,and he picked his bride Mariaout of the lineup.
“Thirty days after that theywere married and thirty days af-ter
that my mom is pregnantwith me.” She quickly distin-guished herself
as the bestGreek cook in Mason City. “Shemade everything and they
gaveaway food to everybody. My dadwould typically bring needypeople
home for lunch.”
CHARITY IS LEARNED HOME
His father made a lot ofmoney, but like many Greekmen he was a
chain smoker andat age 54, he had a fatal heartattack. Pappajohn’s
mother hadto learn English, but they keptthe store and he and his
broth-
ers took turns going to college.It took him six years,
takingsome years off, but he had hisdegree and $2000 in the bankand
no debt.
They would be proud thattheir son is a Greek-Americandream
overachiever. He has fourhonorary degrees – maybe themost of any
Greek-Americanother than Peter G. Peterson.
Like many successful Greek-Americans, Pappajohn will tellyou
that his education includedhis time working in his father’sstore.
“I was a meat cutter. Myyounger brothers and I did morethan 50,000
chickens by hand.We chased the chickens on thefarm, put them in the
coup andtook them back to the grocerystore to be butchered.”
Hellenism is in their genes,in their names and in their suc-
cess stories. Aristotle is in theinsurance business and
Socratesis a practicing attorney.
After being graduated fromthe University of Iowa with abusiness
degree, his first busi-ness project was to start an in-surance
company, but his entre-preneurial experience beganmuch earlier.
“As a kid I was a junker. Iwould leave home with twogunny sacks
and I would dorags, copper, lead, brass, andsell it at the
junkyard. Theowner said I was his best cus-tomer. I did
everything.”
He obviously had an eye foropportunity and value, but hesaid his
father taught him thevital lesson of frugality. “We alllearned to
save money. That’show we survived and kept thegrocery store until
we went to
college and then sold the store.”For that element of
entrepre-
neurship that is not inherited,Pappajohn has organized and
fi-nanced the John Pappajohn En-trepreneurial Centers at five
dif-ferent universities and collegesin the state of Iowa for
morethan $10 million, and he justundertook a commitment to do-nate
$10 million more. Theyhave started over 2000 busi-nesses in the
state of Iowa andgiven away $3.5 million inscholarships.
Always brimming with ideasand ready to seize opportuni-ties, he
also learned to pay at-tention to other geniuses. “Iwent into
venture capital in1969.” He told TNH he knew asubstantial merchant
in DesMoines, IA, whom he ap-proached about the investmentfund he
was establishing. Themerchant told him, “I have afriend in Omaha,
his name isWarren Buffett. I’ve got a littlemoney with him. If he
says it’sokay, I’ll give you a little money,but he thinks we are
going intoa depression.”
He called up and excitedlypitched Buffett himself, whosaid, “son
you’re making a bigmistake. I have liquidated all myventure funds.”
He said Buffettwas right on, and he shifted tomergers and
acquisitions untilthe market opened up againlater in the 70s.
When Pappajohn dove intoventure capital, it was a brandnew
industry – he said at thetime he was one of only 30 or40 venture
capitalists in Amer-ica – and he said that he gotvery lucky
early.
Pappajohn did a deal for acompany in San Diego, helpingthem
raise money. He ended upstarting seven companies there,taking six
of them public –whilehe still lived in Des Moines.
He said he relies on his in-stincts, but acknowledged theydo a
lot of research. Pappajohnalso has two brilliant young as-sociates
and agrees 100 percentwith the philosophy, expressedby others in
this issue like JohnCatsimatidis, that a key to suc-cess is hiring
people who aresmarter than you.
John and Mary Pappajohn:Entrepreneurs and Philanthropists in the
Heartland
John and Mary Pappajohn share a passion for contemporary art.
They also love to donatepieces for everyone else to enjoy too.
Continued on page 14
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 3
�As each has received a gift,
employ it in serving one another,
as good managers of the grace of God
in its various forms.�
1 Peter 4:10
Congratulations
to the men and women in this speCial issue for
Cultivating their talents to the benefit of our
Community, the Country and the whole
world. i wish them and future generations
of helleniC leaders suCCess in their endeavors.
emmanuel a. Kampouris
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA4 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012
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By Angelike ContisTNH Staff Writer
Short-seller James Chanos’Greek roots are in Delphi, thehome of
the ancient oracle. Thatis very fitting, as he often ap-pears, in
the financial media,dropping hints of what is tocome, including
naming compa-nies and countries that aredoomed to failure. If the
founderand head of Kynikos Associatesinvesting business is best
knownfor predicting Enron’s collapse,the world is waiting to see if
hisChina’s bubble will burst, too.
But while the world of short-selling may appear to be
aboutmiraculously seeing into the fu-ture, Chanos’ fortune is built
ongood old fashioned research andnumber-crunching. The last
fewyears he has also tried to shapethe regulatory environment
andmedia landscape in the UnitedStates and abroad to his
advan-tage.
That the stakes are high isclear. Though different
numberscirculate, Chanos puts the num-ber of funds under
managementby his company at “about $6 bil-lion.”
Kynikos Associates, which helaunched in 1985 with a partnerwith
$16 million, has come along way.
He told TNH about the ori-gins not only of his company, butalso
of his controversial profes-sion as a whole.
TRIAL AND ERRORChanos was born in Milwau-
kee, WI to Greek father Steve(Efstathios) and Irish motherMary,
who converted, he pointsout “like a good Greek wife toGreek
Orthodoxy.” The familywas in the dry-cleaning business.Chanos went
East to study po-litical science and economics atYale (1980).
Of the career that followed,he says, “I stumbled into what Ido
for a living now by accident.”What he does now,
short-selling,involves borrowing shares athigh prices, selling
those, thenreturning the shares after theirvalue has dropped and
pocket-ing the difference.
Looking back, the hedge fundguru notes that with no
formaltraining available on the art ofshort-selling itself, he
edged inthat direction after working infinance. First stop was
Chicago,
at Gilford Securities. After thathe worked for several firms
onWall Street, including DeutscheBank. “I realized that I didn’t
en-joy investment banking, but I en-joyed research more.”
The clincher for him was, in1982 at Gilford Securities,
un-covering that something was notquite right with the numbers
ofpiano maker Baldwin-United,which went bankrupt in 1983.“I sort of
stumbled onto theshort side when one of the veryfirst companies I
looked atturned out to be an enormousfinancial fraud,
Baldwin-United.I think that’s what set me off. Itwas really almost
by accident.”
He attributes his progressmore to “a lot of trial and errorand
learning the hard way” thanto any mentor. “Most short sell-ers are
sort of lone wolves bydesign,” he adds.
Later, he would sell short onother financial disasters
includ-ing Commodore International,Coleco, Integrated
Resources,Boston Chicken, Sunbeam, Con-seco, and Tyco
International, En-ron in 2000/2001 – and recently,Sotheby’s.
Looking back, Chanos notesthat Kynikos Associates, one ofthe
oldest in the hedge fundworld, is “sort of ancient by
anystandards,” having been estab-lished over 25 years ago. Whileit
may no longer be, as it was in1990, among the ten largesthedge
funds in the world, he isproud of the company’s achieve-ments.
LASTING BUSINESSChanos remarks, “I’m proud-
est of the fact that we built alasting business.” He points
tothe company’s two offices (inNew York and London), its 30-plus
employees and six partners.He adds: “I’ve worked on someof the big
spectacular frauds ofthe last 25 years, the Enrons ofthe world,
[it's] something thatwe all feel good about.”
He explains that Kynikos As-sociates consists of three poolsof
assets, including a U.S. fund,the Ursus fund and KynikosGlobal. The
company also has atraditional long/short hedgefund called Kynikos
OpportunityFund. All of the funds are runout of New York, with a
researchoffice in London.
It’s unfortunate, in his opin-ion, that young people
starting
out today don’t have the sameability to enter the risky
businessof short-selling. When he and histhen-partner Jim Levitas
startedout, they only had $1 million oftheir own – and $15
millionfrom a single client. “It just isnot possible today, both
due toadditional regulation and theneeds of institutional
investorsto put a shingle out like youcould back then and start
with asmall track record.” He explains,“nowadays in order to hire
thecompliance people and the riskpeople and everything
thatmeaningful investors, whetherits institutional or
individual,need to see, you’re talking aboutnecessary assets of
$100-$200million at least. Otherwise youare just not going to
haveenough to make it work.”
Chanos regrets: “The hurdlehas completely been raised.
Andsometimes I think that that’s un-fortunate because it keeps a
lotof people who otherwise mighthave been talented from goingout on
their own.” He adds thateven in 1990, “we were onlyrunning $600
million, whichwas not a lot of money by to-day’s standards.”
The hedge fund business ex-ploded, Chanos notes, in thepast
10-15 years, changing froma mom and pop financial busi-ness into a
global business.
Chanos counts himself luckythat his first client at Kynikos
As-sociates was not only patient,but often an educator of
sorts,“pointing things out to us, andnot vice versa.”
The business has a high at-trition rate, Kynikos’ founder
ex-plains, due to the “nature of thefee structure.” He explains:
“Youearn a performance fee only onprofits and if you lose money,you
have to earn money back,before you begin earning perfor-mance fees
again. One or twobad years can derail a manage-ment company and key
peoplewill leave because they feel theywon’t get bonuses.”
Chanosnotes that the industry has al-ways been marked by a high
fail-ure rate, which may currentlybe as high as five or ten
percenta year.
Kynikos may be the world’stop short-selling hedge fund.Chanos
estimates that his com-pany is probably one of the top50 hedge
funds in the world
overall today. Chanos, who launched and
chairs the Coalition of PrivateInvestment Companies, which isan
advocate of his industrymade up of high-powered mem-bers, has
lobbied in the U.S. Thecoalition’s attention is shifting toEurope
says Chanos, who hastestified for the group in frontof Congress and
commented onregulations proposed by the U.S.Securities and Exchange
Com-mission and the Financial Ser-vices Authority in the
UnitedKingdom. He explains that in theU.S. the regulatory
frameworkfor hedge funds has becomeclearer with the Dodd-Frank
fi-nancial regulation act. WithinEurope, however, where thereare
greater restrictions againstshort-selling, he notes, “it’s a
lit-tle bit more uncertain” andpoints to the coalition’s websitefor
additional info: www.finan-cialdetectives.org.
THE SOCIAL VALUE OF SHORT SELLERS
Short-sellers get their shareof slack. They are often accusedof
heartlessly bringing downcompanies for profit.
Chanos doesn’t see thingsthat way. The hedge fund man-ager, who
enjoys teaching a classin the history of financial fraudat the
Business School of hisalma mater Yale each spring,gives a little
historical perspec-tive. “People have not liked shortsellers since
the financial mar-kets that started in the 17th Cen-tury. Short
sellers have alwaysbeen reviled because of profitingoff the misery
of others neverseems to settle well with peo-ple.”
He points out, however,“There hasn’t been one major fi-nancial
fraud in the last 25 yearsI’ve been doing business thatwasn’t
uncovered either by aninternal whistleblower, a jour-nalist and/or
a shortseller.” Hecalls short sellers “the real timefinancial
detectives in the finan-cial marketplace,” whose role of-ten is
unappreciated. He notes,“internal auditors, external au-ditors,
internal attorneys, exter-nal attorneys never find thesethings.” He
agrees with Ameri-can financier Bernard Baruch’s(1870–1965) opinion
that amarket without bears (short-sell-ers) is like a government
withouta free press.
At the end of the day, Chanosbelieves, “You need a naturalcheck
on irrational exuberance,and quite frankly on the abilityof
companies to play games withtheir numbers and defraud
theirinvestors. ”
GLOBAL SCOPEKynikos scrutinizes closely a
couple of hundred companies,notes Chanos, who says that
thecompany’s global portfolio atany time includes “about
100positions.” Chanos often ap-pears on business news pro-grams,
sharing his opinions onbad investments. He stressesthat Kynikos’
opinions on com-panies are based on publically-available
information, but addsthat it’s part of the biz to knowwhen to speak
and when to shutup. “Short-sellers are protectedby the Constitution
of theUnited States too, but the ques-tion is: is it in our
clients’ inter-ests to talk about our positions?And sometimes it is
and some-times it isn’t.” He points to En-ron and China’s property
mar-kets, where “we’ll tell anybodywho will listen” about the
prob-lems. He also notes: “But on asmaller situation where wedon’t
want a lot of company, alot of shortsellers, we might notever talk
about it.”
With regards to China, he re-mains steadfast. “We believethat
the Chinese banking systemis really problematic due to badloans
that not only are going tobuild up due to this cycle, butthat were
swept under the rugfrom previous cycles.” He hasoften observed, in
recentmonths, that China’s problemswere ignored thanks to the
Eu-ropean sovereign situation in2011.
With regards to the situationin Greece, and the E.U.
moregenerally, he points to “a verybad political dynamic,”
whereboth the taxpayers in the so-called donor countries like
Ger-many and the recipient coun-tries like Greece are all upset.His
take on what we’ve seenplay out recently are efforts byauthorities
to prevent a bankingsystem problem. He points to apublic
“tug-of-war between themarket and the EU.” The EU, henotes keeps
suggesting “all sortof accounting games,” and “the
James Chanos, In Short-Selling for the Long Run
James Chanos, founder and head of Kynikos Associates, pointsto
the fraud-fighting aspect of short selling. He's been a leaderin
the profession since 1985.
Continued on page 22
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 5
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA6 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
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1.HASEOTESFAMILY$3.3 BILLION DAIRY,CONVENIENCE STORES,PETROLEUM
PRODUCTS
Vasilios and AphroditeHaseotes emigrated fromGreece’s Macedonia
and Epirusregions to the US, buying a one-cow dairy farm in
Cumberland,RI for $84 in 1938. CumberlandFarms (incorporated in
1957)eventually grew to become thelargest dairy farm operation
inMassachusetts. In 1956, thecompany opened a jug-milkstore in
Bellingham, MA. Fewconvenience food stores offeringdawn-to-
midnight service everyday of the week existed in theNorth in the
1950’s.
But by 1967, there weresome 8,000. With some 400stores,
Cumberland Farms wasamong the industry leaders. Bythe early 1990’s,
CumberlandFarms ranked third among thecountry’s convenience
storechains, and was also a leader inboth the retail and
wholesaledistribution of petroleum prod-ucts.
A closely held family-ownedcompany since its
inception,Cumberland Farms has sincegrown to become a
multi-bil-lion-dollar corporation. Lily
(Haseotes) Bentas, daughter ofVasilios and AphroditeHaseotes, is
chairman of theboard of directors. Her nephew,Ari Haseotes, is the
president.
Company headquarters arein Framingham, MA. Cumber-land Farms
owns and operatesconvenience stores and gas sta-tions throughout
New England,New York, the Mid-AtlanticStates and Florida under
theCumberland Farms, Exxon, andGulf names. Its Gulf Oil armsells
gasoline to franchised ser-vice stations. The company firstadded a
gas station to one of itsstores in 1971 and expandedgreatly in the
wake of the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo. By 1975Cumberland Farms
opened its1000th store. The followingyear, it opened a
560,000-square-foot bakery and ware-house in Westborough, MA,
andpurchased more than 500 Gulfand Chevron service stationsand
related assets in 11 North-eastern states. The transactionincluded
contracts to supplygasoline to about 1,700 Gulfdealers and 2,000
stations, mak-ing Cumberland Farms thelargest independent seller
ofgasoline in America. In 2010,Gulf Oil L.P., a subsidiary
ofCumberland Farms, announcedit had acquired all rights, titleand
interest to the “Gulf” brandin the U.S. In 2012, CumberlandGulf
Group announced that it isentering the electricity businessin
Connecticut.
At one point CumberlandFarms had 1,200 stores, abouthalf of
which were selling gas.Now a company of over 1,000retail stores and
stations, with$8.02 billion in revenues (a 22percent increase over
the previ-ous year) and 6,500 employees,Forbes ranked
CumberlandFarms the 37th largest privatelyheld company in the U.S.
in2011 (up from 44th the previ-ous year).
Bentas told TNH that thecompany continues to grow andimprove.
“The company is con-tinuing to upgrade its locationsand offer more
prepared foods.We are constantly updating oursites.”
Cumberland Farms has givenmillions in cash and products
tobenefit young people, from itsBelieve and Achieve
Scholarshipprogram to hunger relief efforts.Ari Haseotes and his
wife Ashleyalso founded the One Mission
(www.onemission.org) child-hood cancer foundation.
www.cumberlandfarms.com
2.JOHN A.CATSIMATIDIS$2.2 BILLION OIL, REALESTATE,
SUPERMARKETS
Ranked 212th among theForbes 400, John Catsimatidis,63, is
chairman & CEO of theRed Apple Group. Ranked 98thamong the
country’s largest pri-vately held companies byForbes, with 7,600
employeesand estimated annual revenuesof $3.80 billion, Red Apple
hasholdings in oil refining, retailpetroleum products, conve-nience
stores, supermarkets andreal estate. With a major focuson energy,
Catsimatidis’ fortuneaccelerated with rising oilprices.
His parents came to Americawith him from the island ofNisyros
while he was a child. Hegrew up in New York City onManhattan’s west
side. He at-tended New York University, butdropped out before
completinghis degree requirements becauseof business demands.
Heopened his first grocery store in1969, and owned ten stores bythe
age of 24, making $25 mil-lion a year in revenue. Heplowed $5
million into Manhat-tan real estate in 1977; thatproperty was worth
$100 mil-lion just five years later.
Today, Red Apple reportedlyowns $500 million worth ofproperty
and the Gristedes su-permarket chain. He stumbledupon the Chapter
11 proceed-ings of United Refining in War-ren, PA and purchased the
oilrefiner’s stock for $7.5 million.Today, the firm owns 375
gasoutlets and convenience stores,primarily in western
Pennsylva-nia and Western New York. Hismost recent projects include
sev-eral residential developmentprojects in Brooklyn, and
invest-ing in health-related companies.
Catsimatidis is a licensed pi-lot, though eye surgery
hasgrounded him over the past fewyears. He has helped raise
mil-lions for Alzheimer’s, Parkin-son’s, and Juvenile Diabetes
re-search. He served asco-chairman and founder of theBrooklyn Tech
EndowmentFoundation. The $10 millionfund is the largest gift to a
sec-ondary school in the United
States. Since 1988 he hasfunded scholarships at the NYUSchool of
Business. He is alsothe publisher of the HellenicTimes. He is
married and the fa-ther of two children. His wifeMargo runs his
company’s in-house advertising agency. TheirHellenic Times
ScholarshipFund, which has awarded hun-dreds of thousands in
scholar-ships to Greek American stu-dents, celebrated its
20thAnniversary last May. Catsima-tidis, who in 2009
publicallyconsidered running for mayorof New York, is among the
lead-ing Greek-Americans actively in-volved in Republican
fundrais-ing for the 2012 presidentialrace. He told Crain’s New
Yorkin November 2011: “I don't nec-essarily want to be mayor…ButI
love New York City and I don'twant it to go downhill. If wecan't
get someone who is reallyqualified to do a good job forour city,
then I may do some-thing about it.”
www.urc.com
2.GEORGE P.MITCHELL$2.2 BILLION ENERGY, REALESTATE
Ranked 188th among Forbes’“400 Richest Americans” and420th among
Forbes’ “World'sBillionaires”, with an estimatednet worth of $2.2
billion, Mr.Mitchell is chairman of GPMInc., and is now 92 years of
age.
The son of a Greek immi-grant goatherd, he grew up inGalveston,
Texas – in the samebuilding where his father’s drycleaning shop was
located. A
1940 graduate of Texas A&MUniversity with a degree in
pe-troleum engineering, he servedin the U.S. Army Corps of
Engi-neers during World War II be-fore founding Roxoil
Drilling,which eventually becameMitchell Energy &
DevelopmentCorp, with his brother Johnnyin 1946.
He made his fortune by wild-catting (i.e., searching for,
andfinding, reserves) in North Texasand Southern Louisiana oil
andgas fields, and then selling mostof his company’s interests to
De-von Energy for $3.5 billion in2001. He invested the proceedsof
the sale in real estate: e.g.,Bald Head Island, North Car-olina. He
also owns more than20 hotels and private buildings.His son, Todd is
a major share-holder in Alta Resources, a com-pany developing shale
assets.
Mitchell resides in TheWoodlands, an environmentallyfriendly
region he founded in1974. His wife, Cynthia, passedaway in 2009.
They have tenchildren and 28 grandchildren.
The Mitchells have been oneof A&M’s largest private
bene-factors. Their gifts in support of
the University’s Physics depart-ment include $35 million fortwo
new facilities, whichopened in 2009. Mitchell hadreportedly
contributed $159 toeducational institutions by2011. Major interests
have in-cluded historic preservation, in-cluding helping to
rejuvenateGalveston’s historic Strand Dis-trict and helped
revitalize thecity’s mid-winter Mardi Gras cel-
ebration.Mitchell still goes to his office
almost every day, and still trav-els regularly for business
pur-poses. He is a major benefactorof the Houston-Galveston
area’shospitals. He is also a nature en-thusiast, and a believer in
envi-ronmental and energy conser-vation. He is opposed to
oildrilling in the Alaska wildliferefuge, and has funded a
$10million National Academiesstudy on sustainable develop-ment and
population growth.
In November 2011, he was –along with Terry Englender andGary
Lash, named one of For-eign Policy magazine’s Top 100Global
Thinkers “For upendingthe politics of energy” with hisinvestment,
three decades ear-lier, in tapping undergroundnatural gas
reserves.
4.MICHAELJAHARIS$1.9 BILLIONPHARMACEUTICALS
Ranked 227th among theForbes Richest 400 Americans,with an
estimated net worth of$1.9 billion Michael Jaharis, 83,founded Kos
Pharmaceuticals.
Jaharis, the son of Greek im-migrants, is a native of Chicago;he
earned his bachelor’s degreefrom Carroll University in Wis-consin.
He served in the U.S.Army Medical Corps during theKorean War and
later attendednight school at DePaul Univer-sity to earn his law
degree whileworking as a sales representa-tive for Miles
Laboratories. In1972, Jaharis and partnerPhillip Frost acquired Key
Phar-maceuticals and transformedthe tiny producer of cough andcold
remedies into a power-house company with newly de-veloped
top-selling asthma andcardio- vascular drugs. Underhis leadership,
Key’s sales in-creased 100- fold before thecompany’s $836 million
mergerwith Schering- Plough in 1986.Two years later,
Jaharislaunched Kos Pharmaceuticals,which pioneered the HDL
cho-lesterol market with its goodcholesterol-raising drug Nias-pan,
before being sold to AbbottLaboratories in 2006 for $4.2billion.
Today, Jaharis is founderand director of Arisaph Pharma-ceuticals
Inc., a privately helddrug discovery and bio-techcompany, and a
founder of Vat-era Healthcare Partners LLC, a
The 50 Wealthiest Greeks in America List
Note: All names markedwith an asterisk (*) indicatenewcomers to
the TNH 50Wealthiest list.
Lily (Haseotes) Bentas
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 7
Drs. Spiro & Amalia Spireasand
Sigmapharm Laboratories
Serving the Health Field with vision, professionalism
and dedication
Sigmapharm Laboratories, LLC3375 progress drive, bensalem - pa
19020tel.: (215) 352-6655 - fax: (215) 352-6644
www.sigmapharm.com
Innovative Pharmaceutical Formulations, Maximizing Drug
Therapy.
venture capital firm focusing onthe healthcare industry.
He is married to Mary Ja-haris who attended Northwest-ern
University and graduatedfrom the Art Institute ofChicago. Proud
supporters ofHellenism, he and his wife aremajor benefactors of the
NewYork Metropolitan Museum ofArt, Art Institute of Chicago andalso
support many cultural, re-ligious, higher education, andhealthcare
institutions thoughthe Jaharis Family Foundation,Inc. In October
2010, the MaryJaharis Center for Byzantine Artand Culture was
inaugurated atHellenic College – Holy CrossGreek Orthodox
TheologicalSeminary which will serve as apremier international
researchcenter.
Jaharis also serves as TrusteeEmeritus of Tufts University
inBoston, MA, Chairman of theBoard of Overseers for theSchool of
Medicine, Tufts Uni-versity, Member of the ColumbiaUniversity
Medical Center Boardof Visitors, and Member of theBoard of
Overseers of the WeillCornell Medical College andGraduate School of
Medical Sci-ences.
He is the Vice Chairman ofthe Greek Orthodox Archdioceseof
America and is one of theOriginal Founders of Leadership100 and
FAITH: An Endowmentfor Hellenism and Orthodoxy.
He states, “It is particularlyimportant to Mary and me togive
back to institutions whichhave truly inspired us and mayhelp open
doors for young peo-ple and the community. We be-lieve that our
Hellenic cultureand Orthodox faith provided thefoundation for our
values andidentity.”
The Jaharises reside in New
York. They have two childrenand five grandchildren.
5.GEORGE L.ARGYROS$1.8 BILLION REAL ESTATE
Ranked 719th amongstForbes’ world billionaires, withan estimated
net worth of $1.8billion earlier this month,George Argyros, 74,
made hisfortune in grocery stores andthen real estate.
He earned his bachelor’s de-gree at Chapman University.
Asecond-generation American ofGreek descent, he was born inDetroit,
MI and raised inPasadena, CA. He went into realestate in 1962,
selling land atbusy intersections to oil compa-nies to set up gas
stations. To-day, his privately held Arnel &Affiliates owns and
manages5,500 apartments and 2 millionsquare feet of commercial
space.Argyros founded the private eq-uity firm Westar Capital
in
1987. He is a board memberand the leading investor, with
areported 20%, in software de-velopment firm DST Systems(NYSE:DST)
whose market cap-italization is about $2.15 billion.
Former President George W.Bush appointed him U.S. am-bassador to
Spain in 2001, afterleading GOP fundraising effortsin California in
2000. He hosteda $25,000-per-couple dinner forU.S. Senator and
then-presiden-tial hopeful John McCain (R-Ari-zona) at his home in
2008. Ar-gyros also served on the FederalHome Loan Mortgage
Corpora-tion under President GeorgeH.W. Bush.
Argyros resides in a mansion(reportedly recently expanded)on
Harbor Island in NewportBay, CA. He is a recognized busi-
ness leader and philanthropist.He was the 1993 recipient ofthe
Horatio Alger Award of Dis-tinguished Americans, and a2001
recipient of the Ellis IslandMedal of Honor. Chapman’sSchool of
Business and Econom-ics was renamed in his honor in1999. He has
served on theboard of trustees for severalcommunity organizations,
in-cluding the California Instituteof Technology; the
BeckmanFoundation; the Horatio AlgerAssociation; and Chapman
Uni-versity. He owned baseball’sSeattle Mariners between 1980and
1989. In January, he be-came a member of the Board ofRegents of the
Orange CountyCouncil Boy Scouts of America.In April 2011, he and
his wifemade a $5 million gift to an am-bulatory surgery center at
theUniversity of California. He isan Archon of the
Patriarchate’sOrder of St. Andrew the Apostle.Argyros is married
with threechildren, and enjoys sailing, ski-ing and hunting.
www.arnel.com
6.C. DEANMETROPOULOS$1.2 BILLIONMANAGEMENT,ACQUISITIONS
Dean Metropoulos, 65, isvery well known in the privateequity,
investment banking andfinancial community, havingspent the past two
decades ac-quiring, restructuring and grow-ing numerous businesses
in theU.S., Mexico and Europe. Manyof these were subsequentlytaken
public or sold to strategiccorporations. He was chairman& CEO
of Pinnacle Foods, theparent company of iconicbrands such as Duncan
Hines,Vlasic and Mrs. Paul’s. Pinnaclewas purchased by the
Black-stone Group for more than$2.26 billion in 2007. He is#359 on
Forbes’ 400 RichestAmericans list.
Metropoulos is Chairman &CEO of C. Dean Metropoulos
&Co., a boutique buyout andmanagement firm. The firm fo-cuses
on the acquisition and op-eration of companies with con-sumer brand
products, and hasbeen involved in more than 70acquisitions
involving over $12billion in invested capital since1993. He says:
“I love findingopportunities, negotiating thedeals, and
repositioning thecompanies into vibrant, growingbusinesses.... If
we’re proud ofanything, it’s that we have neverlost money with any
of our ac-quisitions in which we have av-
eraged 44% returns over atwenty year period.” In early2000,
Metropoulos acquired In-ternational Home Foods, a sub-sidiary of
Wyeth, which in-cluded Chef Boyardee, PAMcooking spray, Bumble Bee
tuna,Jiffy Pop popcorn and Gulden’smustard. Forty percent of
thebusiness first went public, andsubsequently 100% was sold
toConAgra in 2000 for $2.9 bil-lion.
Born in Greece, his familymoved to America when he wasnine years
of age. In Watertown,MA, his father Jimmy worked atthe Star Market
and later owneda restaurant in Newton calledCabot.
Metropoulos went to collegeon a scholarship, and after grad-uate
school at Babson Collegeand a year and a half towardshis doctorate
at Columbia, hewent to work for the GTE Cor-poration, which is now
Verizon.After graduate schoolMetropoulos joined GTE Inter-national
and became itsyoungest senior vice presidentresponsible for their
interna-tional business in 62 countries.
Other well known businessesin which C. Dean Metropoulos&
Company were investors andoperators included Mumm andPerrier Jouet
Champagnes ofFrance, Stella Foods, the Morn-ingstar Group,
GhirardelliChocolate Company, Del MonteMexico and National
Water-works. He owns Castle on theHudson boutique hotel.
In 2010, he made waves withthe purchase of Pabst BrewingCo. for
$250 million. Metropou-los attributes some of the mostsuccessful
ideas of turningaround and reinventing themany well-known brands to
theout-of-the- box thinking and ex-
ecution of his two sons, Evanand Daren. Metropoulos and hiswife
Marianne live in Green-wich, CT. Among his honors in2011 were the
Association forCorporate Growth Chicago’sDealMaker and Hellenic
Ameri-can Bankers Association Execu-tive of the Year awards.
www.pabstblueribbon.com
7.ALEX G. SPANOS& FAMILY$1.1 BILLION REAL
ESTATE,PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
Alex G. Spanos, 88, owns theNational Football League’s SanDiego
Chargers. His family isranked 1075th among theworld’s billionaires
by Forbes.His fortune increased since2004, and then dropped
somewith the recent plunge in thereal estate market. The
risingvalue of the Chargers – nowworth $920 million (purchasedfor
$70 million in 1984) - hasoffset the real estate losses. In2008,
Forbes listed A.G. SpanosCompanies as the 403rd largestprivately
held firm in the coun-try, with estimated revenues of$1.13
billion.
The son of Greek immi-grants, Spanos received hisbachelor’s
degree at PacificLutheran University. He beganhis career as a
baker, but whenhis business nearly went bank-rupt, he opted for a
change indirection. In 1951 he used an$800 loan to purchase a
smalltrucking company, which heturned into a successful
enter-prise. He then used his profitsto invest in real estate, and
by1960, he had an incorporatedbusiness. Today, his firm is oneof
America’s largest housing de-velopers, and is the largest
fam-ily-owned construction andproperty management companyin the
United States. It has builtmore than 100,000 units in 19states.
Spanos was inducted into theCalifornia Building Industry Hallof
Fame in 2005. He bought 60percent of the Chargers fromthen-majority
owner EugeneKlein in 1984. Over the next tenyears, he bought out
the sharesof several small co-owners,bringing his control of the
teamto 97 percent. His son Dean nowmanages the team. Spanos, oneof
the largest single private con-tributors to the Republican
Na-tional Party during Presidentialelection years, helped to
raiseover $2 million for Senator JohnMcCain’s 2008 Presidential
bid.President Bush appointedSpanos to the Kennedy Centerboard in
2004. Spanos has alsocontributed millions to schools,hospitals and
charity. He re-ceived the Medal of the Com-mander of the Order of
Honorfrom Greek President KarolosPapoulias in 2008.
Spanos now lets his kids runthe business these days, andsaid he
likes to play cards withhis friends. “What the heck. I’m85 years
old, and my kids aredoing a good job. It’s their turnnow,” he told
TNH in 2009. In2002, Spanos published his au-tobiography entitled
Sharing theWealth: My Story. He and hiswife Faye (who celebrated
63years of marriage in 2011) havefour children, 15 grandchildrenand
three great grandsons.
http://agspanos.com
8.THE CALAMOSFAMILY$1 BILLION MUTUAL FUNDS
John P. Calamos, Sr., 70,earned both his bachelor’s de-gree in
economics and his MBAfrom the Illinois Institute ofTechnology. A
son of Greek im-migrants, he is a product ofChicago public schools,
andgrew up above his family’s gro-cery store on Chicago’s westside.
He developed his passionfor the stock market as ateenager after
investing his par-ents’ $5,000 nest egg.
After earning his MBA, he be-came an early authority on
con-vertible securities, and launchedan investment outfit that
even-tually became Calamos AssetManagement in 1977. Hismoney
management firm servesinstitutional clients and man-ages mutual
funds. The com-pany provides money manage-ment services to
majorcorporations, institutions, pen-sion funds, insurance
companiesand individuals. The companywent public in 2004.
Continued from page 6
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA8 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012
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Calamos is chairman, CEOand Co-CIO of Calamos Invest-ments,
which he runs along withhis nephew Nick and his sonJohn. A
much-lauded money-man over the last few years,Calamos was worth
$2.7 billionfive years ago, according toForbes. Though the 2008
finan-cial crisis struck his industry ablow, he is recovering
nicelywith $33.7 billion under man-agement at the end of
2011.Calamos also has a private realestate arm, Calamos Real
EstateLLC, which includes HotelArista, CityGate Centre and
other entities that surround theinvestment company’s
head-quarters in Naperville, IL. Hehas written two books, writesfor
investment industry publica-tions and is interviewed regu-larly by
CNBC and BloombergTV.
Calamos was the first mem-ber in his family to graduatefrom
college. He served in theU.S. Air Force, flying the B-52Bomber, as
a combat pilot inVietnam and as a Forward AirController. He later
spent tenyears in the USAF Reserves fly-ing the A-37 jet fighter
andearning the rank of Major. Hekeeps his aviation skills honedby
flying his Marchetti SF260Warbird. He credits his Air Forcetime for
sharpening his risk as-sessment skills.
He is a member of the Invest-ment Analysts Society ofChicago and
is on the board ofdirectors of Chicago’s new Na-
tional Hellenic Museum, ofwhich he is a major benefactor.He says
of the museum: “Wehave built a national institutionto honor our
parents and grand-parents, to honor our rich Hel-lenic
history.”
www.calamos.com
8.KOSTA & TOMKARTSOTIS$1 BILLION WATCHESLEATHER
ACCESSORIES
Kosta Kartsotis, 59, is CEO &Chairman of Fossil Inc., andTom
Kartsotis, 52, former chair-man and CEO of the company.Fossil is
based in Richardson,Texas. It sells products in 120countries around
the world. In2010 stock prices more thandoubled for the company,
witha 40% increase in global sales.Kosta Kartsotis holds a 9.4
%share in the company. Forbestallied his earnings at $21 mil-lion
in just a week last year, not-ing that he held some $655 mil-lion
of the stock – and hisbrother, “a mere $389 millionworth of Fossil
stock.”
Founded by Tom Kartsotis in1984, Fossil is a designer
andmanufacturer of clothing andaccessories, primarily watchesand
jewelry, but also sunglassesand wallets. Its brands includeFossil,
Relic, Abacus, MicheleWatch and Zodiac. Fossilwatches are common in
middle-income retail stores, as well asat most department stores.
Fos-sil also branched into the saleof leather goods and other
ac-cessories in the 1990’s. Fossilalso designs, manufactures
anddistributes with Burberry, DKNY,Emporio Armani,
ColumbiaSportswear, Diesel, MichaelKors, Marc Jacobs and
Adidas.Fossil also produces collectibles,some of which are based
onpopular films or pop culturecharacters. It made news in2011 by
acquiring competitorSkagen Designs.
The company now offerssmart watches that would linkto phones via
Bluetooth.
Tom Kartsotis also owns theTexas company Bedrock Brands.
www.fossil.com
8.PETER G.PETERSON$1 BILLION ALTERNATIVEINVESTMENTS
In 2010 he was ranked182nd among the Forbes 400and 488th at the
World's Billion-
aires. Peter G. Peterson, 85, hasmoved down in this list as
hisdonations have gone up. He’slisted in Forbes earlier thismonth
as 1,153rd of the world’sbillionaires. He made his for-tune as the
co-founder and for-mer chairman of the BlackstoneGroup, one of the
world’s largestprivate investment firms with19 offices around the
world.
Peterson co-founded Black-stone with Stephen Schwarz-man in 1985
with $400,000; thefirm’s private equity funds ownor have interests
in 54 compa-nies. The company went publicin June 2007 at $31 a
share. Af-ter a drop in share values witha crisis in the private
equity in-dustry, they have stabilized atabout $15 as we went to
press.Peterson retired from the com-pany in late 2008,
receiving$1.85 billion in cash upon exit-ing, before taxes and
meetingseveral trust and charitableobligations. At year’s end,
Black-stone was managing $166 bil-lion in total assets. The
com-pany’s recent acquisitionsinclude the Anheuser-Busch In-Bev’s
U.S. theme parks ($2.7 bil-lion in 2009) and Hilton Hotels($26
billion in 2007).
The son of Greek immi-grants, Mr. Peterson grew up inNebraska.
He studied at North-western University, where hegraduated summa cum
laude,and earned his MBA from theUniversity of Chicago. He wasCEO
of Bell and Howell from1963 to 1971. He served as Sec-retary of
Commerce under Pres-ident Nixon, and became chair-man of Lehman
Brothers in
1973. He also chaired the Fed-eral Reserve Bank of New Yorkfrom
2000 to 2004. He is theauthor of several books (includ-ing 2010
memoir The Educationof an American Dreamer), andspeaks frequently
about issuesof fiscal responsibility. Petersonnow dedicates his
time to hisfoundation and other charitableactivities. Established
in 2008,the Peter G. Peterson Founda-tion is a nonpartisan
organiza-tion dedicated to increasingpublic awareness of the
natureand urgency of key fiscal chal-lenges threatening America’s
fu-ture, and to accelerating actionon them.
He’s among the U.S. billion-aires who decided to take theGiving
Pledge in 2010 to givemuch of their wealth to charity.The Giving
Pledge was initiatedby Warren Buffett and Bill GatesJr.
Peterson now resides in NewYork. He is married to JoanGanz
Cooney, founder and for-mer chairman of Children’s Tele-vision
Workshop (“SesameStreet”), and is the father offive.
www.pgpf.org
11.GEORGEANDREAS$975 MILLION ART, REALESTATE, INVESTMENTS
A painter and investor in realestate among other
businesses,George Andreas (Andreopoulos)was born in Athens in 1938.
Be-fore studying at the Greek Mili-tary Academy, he was an
ap-prentice to Greek portrait andlandscape artist Constantine
Artemis. His four-year appren-ticeship began in 1952, at age14,
grinding pigments and mix-ing paints, learning about tech-nique and
studying composi-tion. While studying withArtemis, Andreas also
discov-ered and was inspired by thepaintings of
ConstantineParthenes, a progressive artistwho spurned tradition. In
1967,a tyrannical regime led by Col.George Papadopoulos seizedpower
in Greece, and Andreas,by now a distinguished militaryofficer,
moved to New York.
Since then, he has dividedhis time between his studios
inVirginia, Florida, and New YorkCity. Over 40 years, he has
madeover 140 oil works and 1,000works on paper, yet Andreas
hasestablished several policies forhimself regarding his art and
hisdealings with the art world: Hehas intentionally not sold
anoriginal piece since 1993. HisMonographia, a collection of
18lithographs, is available for pur-chase. Andreas is working
onseveral significant new projects,to include one called Smash
theSystem, consisting of at leasttwelve paintings and video.
Thisbody of work will be a reflectionof a social criticism of the
Anar-chist movement over time.
Art is not the only compo-nent of his fortune. Among sev-eral
other business ventures, hehas substantial real estate as-sets. He
has also owned and op-erated many successful car deal-erships,
employing hundreds,one of which was ranked thesecond most
profitable dealer-ship in the country. Andreas’wife Ursula assists
him in all ofhis endeavors. He has one son,Christopher, a
daughter-in-law,Andrita, and two grandchildren.
www.andreasstudio.com
12.GEORGE D.BEHRAKIS$930 MILLIONPHARMACEUTICALS
George D. Behrakis, 77, isfounder and chairman ofMythos, LLC, a
private invest-ment company based in Lexing-ton, MA. He is also
chairman ofGainesborough Investments,launched in 1998. A 1957
grad-uate of Northeastern University,Behrakis also studied at
BostonUniversity, and is a recognizedleader in the pharmaceutical
in-dustry. He became best known,perhaps, for his talent in
solubi-
lizing previously insolublechemicals and making them sta-ble for
medical use.
After completing his militaryservice, Behrakis began his ca-reer
at McNeil Laboratories (adivision of Johnson & Johnson).In
1968, he founded DoonerLaboratories which developedand manufactured
a leadingasthma medication, Slophyllinand Slobid. He sold the
com-pany to Rhone-Poulenc Rorer(now Aventis) and
purchasedophthalmic firm Muro Pharma-ceuticals in 1978. Behrakis
soldhis eye care products to Bauschand Lomb and searched for
newproducts, including pharmaceu-ticals for asthma and
allergies.
Behrakis sold the firm to Asta-Medica AG, a division of Ger-man
conglomerate Degussa, re-tiring as president & CEO in1998.
Behrakis is the son of Greekimmigrants. He and his wifeMargo
have established chairsand scholarships at various uni-versities
and medical centers. In2003 Northeastern Universityand Medical
Center opened theBehrakis Health Science Build-ing and also created
the Centerfor Drug Discovery.
A recipient of many awardsfor his contributions to
business,science, the arts and the GreekOrthodox Church, he sits on
theboard of The Boston SymphonyOrchestra and is emeritus chair-man
of Northeastern University.He has served on many boardsof both
public and private com-panies. He is on the advisoryboard of the
Harvard School of
The 50 Wealthiest Greeks in America ListContinued from page
7
STAVROS VOUYIOUKLAKISMANAGING MEMBER
180 HEMPSTEAD AVENUEWEST HEMPSTEAD, NY 11552
PHONE: (516) 489-7129FAX: (516) 489-2219
EMAIL:
[email protected]
SPECIALIZING IN EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES LIABILITY INSURANCE
& ALL FORMS OF INSURANCE
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 9
Public Health.Perhaps no institution has re-
ceived as much from Behrakisas the Boston Museum of FineArts.
His relationship with themuseum dates back to his highschool days,
when his uncle,John Zaroulis, took him to seethe galleries. Later,
Behrakiswould host parties at the Mu-seum. He became a member
in1989, a patron in 1996, and anoverseer in 1998. Then, one dayin
2001, Behrakis showed up forlunch with MFA Director Mal-colm Rogers
and handed him asealed envelope. Inside was acheck for $2 million
to endowChristine Kondoleon’s positionas curator of Greek &
RomanArt. He has given $25 million tothe museum since 2006 and
themuseum now has the newGeorge D. and Margo BehrakisWing, which
houses Greek, Ro-man and Egyptian Galleries.
In 2010, Mr. Behrakis gave a$1.8 million grant to a
HarvardUniversity School of PublicHealth study on smoking inGreece.
In 2011, the 50-year-member of AHEPA was honoredwith the
organization’s Arch-bishop Iakovos HumanitarianAward in Orange,
CT.
Behrakis, a former presidentof the Holy Trinity Greek Ortho-dox
Church in Lowell, M.A., isa member of the ArchdiocesanCouncil’s
Executive Committee,and an Archon of the Ecumeni-cal Patriarchate.
He is ChairmanEmeritus of Leadership 100.Behrakis also publishes
the Hel-lenic Voice. He and his wifeMargo have been married for
50years and have four childrenand nine grandchildren.
www.thehellenicvoice.com
13.GEORGESAKELLARIS$800 MILLION ENERGY,ENVIRONMENT
Born in Vassara in Laconia,Greece, George Sakellaris, 65,heads
one of the largest energysolutions companies in NorthAmerica. His
companyAmeresco, Inc. (NYSE: AMRC),which is based in Framingham,MA,
specializes in providing en-ergy efficiency,
infrastructureupgrades, and renewable en-ergy solutions. George
Sakel-laris, President and CEO as wellas Chairman of the Board of
Di-rectors of Ameresco, foundedthe company in 2000. Today ithas 62
offices in 34 states andfive Canadian provinces andemploys more
than 900 profes-sionals. “Green. Clean. Sustain-able” is the motto
of the com-pany that increases energy
efficiency for federal, state andlocal governments,
healthcareand educational institutions,housing authorities, and
com-mercial and industrial cus-tomers.
One of its notable projects in-clude the recently
completedDepartment of Energy SavannahRiver Site Biomass
CogenerationProject in Aiken, SC, which at$795 million is the
largest re-newable energy savings perfor-mance contract in the
UnitedStates. Ameresco also recentlyannounced an agreement withthe
Philadelphia Water Depart-ment to design, build and main-tain an
innovative wastewaterbiogas-to-energy facility.
Ameresco prides itself in go-ing beyond just conservation
toaddress its customers’ entire en-ergy system, including supplyand
demand, energy efficiencyand renewable energy.
Sakellaris has this to sayabout his sustainability busi-ness:
“We have a sharp focus onour customers’ needs for com-prehensive
energy efficiency ser-vices and budget-neutral solu-tions,
particularly in today’senvironment of aging infrastruc-ture and
budgetary constraints.As an entrepreneurial, technol-ogy-agnostic
company,Ameresco is in the best positionto offer our customers the
opti-mum solutions to suit their re-quirements.” He continues,
“Be-ing in the service business 'youare as good as your people.'
Wealways strive to hire and retainthe best in our field.”
The company’s revenues con-tinued to climb in 2011. In
No-vember, they announced thattheir total revenues for 2011,$728.2
million, were up 17.8%over the previous year’s, with anet income
improvement of
21% year-over-year. After graduating from high
school in Greece, Sakellaris ar-rived in Bangor, ME, as a
collegeexchange student in 1965 to goto college. He spoke little
Eng-lish when he first enrolled at theUniversity of Maine-Orono,
butworked his way through collegeand earned a B.S.E.E.
degree,driven by a love of mathematicsand the sciences. His parents
ar-rived in the U.S. in 1969 andthe family settled in Boston.
Hethen worked at local utility NewEngland Electrical Systems(NEES),
earning an M.B.A. andM.S.E.E. from Northeastern Uni-versity along
the way. Then,Sakellaris explains, “in 1979,while working for New
EnglandElectric, NEES Managementwanted to establish a companyto
promote energy efficiency toavoid the need to build newgeneration
plants. They askedme to lead that initiative and Iwelcomed the
challenge.”
The subsidiary he launchedwas called NEES Energy. Thenin 1990,
Mr. Sakellaris pur-chased NEES Energy and it be-came the energy
conservationcompany he re-namedNORESCO. In 1997, he soldthat
industry-leading indepen-dent energy services companyto Equitable
Resources (EQT),a Fortune 500 company. Sakel-laris continued to
leadNORESCO and was appointedas a Senior Vice President of
Eq-uitable Resources. In January2000, he left EQT and threemonths
later founded Ameresco.
Sakellaris is a DistinguishedMember Inductee of the FrancesCrowe
Society at the Universityof Maine, which gave him theEdward T.
Bryand DistinguishedEngineer Award in 2007. Hisawards include
winning anErnst & Young Entrepreneur ofThe Year 2011 New
Englandaward.
Among his support for nu-merous educational institutionsin
Massachusetts and Maine isestablishing an endowment atUMass Lowell
in memory of hismentor, the late Senator PaulTsongas. He is a
member of theFaith Endowment and Leader-ship 100, an Archon of the
Or-der of St. Andrew and a majorbenefactor of his local
church,Saint Catherine’s Greek Ortho-dox Church.
Sakellaris served as a found-ing member of the National
As-sociation of Energy ServiceCompanies (NAESCO). He is aformer
President of NAESCOand still an active member. In2005, he was
invited to join the
Clinton Climate Initiative,launched by former PresidentBill
Clinton. He is also a regis-tered Professional Engineer
inMassachusetts. A committedoutdoorsman, he has run in fiveBoston
Marathons; Sakellarisalso competes in sailing, withhis Mini-Max
boat Shockwavefrequently placing in sailing re-gattas. He lives in
Milton, MA,with his wife, Cathy, and chil-dren, Christina and
Peter.
www.ameresco.com
14.EFSTATHIOS(STEVE)VALIOTIS$750 MILLION REAL ESTATE
Efstathios Valiotis, 65, ispresident and founder of the
As-toria-based Alma Realty Corpo-ration, one of the largest
realestate firms in the New Yorkmetropolitan area. He was bornin
Vordonia, Greece near Sparta,and immigrated to the UnitedStates in
1972. He worked inthe food industry and, withintwo years, purchased
a news-stand and a food mart followed
by a pizzeria. His next venturewas establishing a
custom-madefurniture business, Knossos Inc.,in Astoria in 1976.
Within twoyears, the business expanded toinclude two retail display
storeson Manhattan’s Park Avenueand Sixth Avenue and a
furni-ture-manufacturing factory inQueens. Mr. Valiotis owned
andactively managed Knossos until1994.
In 1978 he began his highlysuccessful career investing inreal
estate. Since then, Valiotis’expertise in acquisition and
de-velopment has included the pur-chase, sale, construction
andmanagement of both residentialand commercial properties. In
1983, Valiotis founded his ownfirm, known as Alma Realty
Cor-poration. Alma serves as the ves-sel through which Mr.
Valiotisdevelops, builds, manages andacquires real estate. He has
builta diverse portfolio over the lastthree decades including
multi-family residential buildings,commercial buildings, ground-up
construction of residentialand commercial buildings anda retail
shopping center. AlmaRealty also owns and managesover 10,000
apartments of mar-ket and affordable housingproperties in New York
and NewJersey as well as over 5 millionsquare feet of commercial
prop-erty. He is committed to invest-ing and improving
communitiesby pro- viding safe and well-maintained
residential and commercialdevelopments. Valiotis estab-lished
his construction company,Vordonia Construction Corpora-tion, in
1988, which serves asthe general contractor for themajority of his
projects. Vordo-nia Contracting and SuppliesCorp. is another
subsidiary ofALMA.
In 1989, Valiotis, along withseveral other investors,
formedMarathon National Bank. Heserved as chairman of the
bank’sboard of directors and as amember for ten years. Marathonwas
acquired by Piraeus Na-tional Bank of Greece in 1999.In 2007, he
formed Alma Bank,in which he is a majority share-holder. He serves
as Chairmanof the Advisory Board. Thebank, created with the
highestcapital investment in a NY Statecommercial bank, is rapidly
ex-panding, with ten branches andseveral more branches to come.The
bank started with $50 mil-lion in capital and in four yearshas
grown to $750 million ingross assets.
Valiotis earned his degree inTheology from the University
ofAthens. He is a major supporterof the St. Demetrios Cathedraland
School in Astoria. Valiotisis a big benefactor too of theHoly Cross
Greek OrthodoxChurch, School and CommunityCenter in Whitestone;
thechurch’s Efstathios and Sta-matiki Valiotis Greek AmericanSchool
was named after himselfand his wife. Mr. Valiotis neverforgot his
roots and hometownand he financed and built aT.E.I. (technical
college) in hishometown of Sparta, which alsobears his name and
currentlyenrolls 2,000 students. A firmbeliever in education, he
sup-ports various educational insti-
tutions. He is married to Sta-matiki Kousoulas and they
havethree children, Sophia, Katerina,and George.
w w w. a l m a r e a l t y. c o m ,www.almabank.com
15.JOHNPAYIAVLAS$650 MILLION FOODINDUSTRY
John Payiavlas is chairmanof AVI Foodsystems, the coun-try’s
largest independent, fam-ily-owned and-operated con-tract food
service company,providing vending, institutionaldining and coffee
service oper-ations.
Payiavlas, the son of immi-grants, traces his companies
be-ginning to purchasing a fewvending machines for the fam-ily’s
Village Café in his home-town of Warren, OH. Foundedin 1960, AVI
currently employsthousands, serves millions ofconsumers daily, and
servessome of the most prestigious in-stitutions in America,
includingindustry, corporate headquarterscomplexes, universities,
schoolsystems and healthcare facilitiesthroughout the Midwestern
andEastern United States. Theirclients include Carnegie
MellonUniversity, Eastman Kodak,Good Year, Honda of
AmericaManufacturing, Kmart, KraftFoods, Ohio State
University,Phillips, Toyota Motor Manufac-turing, University of
PittsburghMedical Center, UPS, the U.S.Postal Service, Toyota
MotorManufacturing, Verizon, and Xe-rox. Intensely private,
Payiavlasruns the company along withhis son Anthony and his
daugh-ter Patrice (Patsy). Based in
Continued on page 10
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA10 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012
Warren, AVI has more than 50branch offices in the Midwest-ern
and Eastern United States,and makes $2 billion in
salesannually.
Payiavlas and his wifeMarissa were honored in 2006with the
Cleveland Clinic’s Dis-tinguished Fellow Award. Payi-avlas traces
his origins to the is-land of Chios. He is a Life-TimeChairman of
the ArchbishopIakovos Leadership 100 Endow-ment Fund and an Archon
of theEcumenical Patriarchate.
www.avifoodsystems.com
16.JAMES S.CHANOS$600 MILLION INVESTMENT
James S. Chanos, 54, is thefounder and president ofKynikos
Associates, the world’sbiggest short-selling hedge fund.A
second-generation Greek-American, Chanos, grew up inMilwaukee, WI.
His fatherowned a chain of dry cleanersin Milwaukee and his
motherworked as an office manager ata steel company. He
foundedKynikos Associates (in Greek,kynikos means cynic) in
1985after a Wall Street career as afinancial analyst with
PaineWebber, Gilford Securities andDeutsche Bank. Jim Levitas,
hisformer boss, partnered withChanos to launch Kynikos Asso-ciates
with $16 million. A yearlater, Levitas, unable to endurethe stress
of short selling, leftthe company. The company’s as-sets under
management are cur-
rently $6 billion. Kynikos has of-fices in New York and
London.
Chanos has a long history ofmaking shrewd predictions hav-ing
identified several financialmeltdowns such as BostonChicken,
Conesco and Tyco In-ternational. In 2000 he startedinvestigating
Enron Corpora-tion. In 2001, predicting thecompany’s financial
problems,he became Enron’s short seller.By the time the Enron
scandalwas public, Kynikos Associatesprofited greatly. Financial
mag-azine Barron’s mentioned hisearly prediction of Enron’s fallas
“the market call of thedecade, if not the past fiftyyears.” Later
on, he successfullypredicted Sotheby’s stock drop–it plummeted
between Novem-ber 2007 from $57 to $10. InMarch 2006, Chanos
created theCoalition of Private InvestmentCompanies, an
organizationaiming at promoting hedgefunds in Washington.
Recently,the lobbying group has shiftedits attention to Europe.
He appears regularly in theAmerican media giving
financialadvices and predictions. He haslong been considered a
“mediaoperator” with a strong relation-ship with journalists that
respectand promote his ideas. He con-tinues to regularly declare
thatChina’s economy will crash.Chanos is a graduate of
YaleUniversity, where he studiedeconomics. He has four
chil-dren.
16.GEORGE M.LOGOTHETIS*$700
MILLIONSHIPPING/AVIATION/REALESTATE
George M. Logothetis, 37, isthe founding Chairman andCEO of
Libra Group, consistingof 30 subsidiaries with compa-nies operating
out of 20 officesworldwide.
He founded the privately-owned group with his brotherConstantine
M. Logothetis in2003. Today George Logothetisis based in New York,
while hisbrother, the Executive ViceChairman of the Group, is
basedin London.
The diversified group wasbuilt upon the decades of workof their
father, shipownerMichalis G. Logothetis, who ison the Libra Group’s
board andis a senior advisor. A series ofstrategic steps by the
youngergeneration allowed them to ex-tend into new areas at a
timewhen many shipping companiesare strained.
George M. Logothetislaunched his career at the familybusiness in
London in 1993,when he joined Lomar Shipping,the group’s UK-based
shippingowning and management
group. In 1995, at the age of20, he became its CEO. Underhis
leadership, Lomar expandedthe numbers of ships theyowned many times
over. ThenLomar sold 67 of them between2004 and 2006, investing
theprofits in many non-shippingsectors. Finally, in 2009,
Lomaracquired Allocean Group for$325 million, a buy considereda
bargain. Lomar has recentlystarted ordering new fuel-effi-cient
Ultramax ships made.
The group followed a similarpatter with its aircraft
leasingbusiness, Dublin, Ireland-basedLease Corporation
International(LCI). The company waslaunched in 2004, only to
sellits entire 21 aircraft fleet in2007 for $1 billion. The
com-pany would invest in a new fleetof some 35 aircraft leased
tocompanies including SingaporeAirlines, British Airways and
AirFrance. In early 2012, LCIsigned a $400 million orderwith
AgustaWestland heli-copters.
Libra Group’s real estateportfolio spans much of theplanet, with
properties and of-fices in the North and SouthAmerica, Asia and
Europe. LibraGroup owns and runs a total ofsome 18 hotels. The
group’sGrace Hotels brand, which be-gan on Greek isles, is now
foundworld-wide –including the newVanderbilt Grace Hotel, in a
his-toric mansion in Newport,Rhode Island and one in Beijingalike,
plus a hotel spa plannedfor Kennebunkport, ME.
In Greece, Libra Group’s Eu-roEnergy has invested in solarenergy
parks and wind farms,while in the U.S. they have in-vested in the
biofuels market.Their Greenwood Energy isbased in Green Bay,
WI.
The list of group subsidiariesincludes travel writer/TV hostLeon
Logothetis’ Principal Me-dia, which has provided TV pro-gramming
since 2005. Other ofthe subsidiaries run from EagleEye Protection,
providing Euro-pean forest fire detection soft-ware, to Chios
Heritage mastictree farm investments. LibraCapital is the in-house
invest-ment management companyand Libra Group Services, thein-house
legal and administra-tive and corporate support com-pany service to
companieswithin the group based in theU.K.
Logothetis and his wifeNitzia (formerly Nitzia Embiri-cos) are
based in New York Cityand have a son. In 2011, thegroup created an
InternationalInternship Program in collabo-ration with The American
Col-lege of Greece in Athens and theUS-based Greek America
Foun-dation, giving 20 young peoplethe opportunity to work at
thegroup’s key locations around theworld.
www.libra.com
16.JOHNPAPPAJOHN$600 MILLION VENTURECAPITALISM
John Pappajohn, 83, is pres-ident of Equity Dynamics
andPappajohn Capital Resources, ofwhich he is also sole
proprietor.Equity Dynamics is a financialconsulting entity;
PappajohnCapital Resources is a venturecapital firm.
Pappajohn first came fromEvia, Greece to the UnitedStates when
he was just ninemonths old. His father diedwhen he was 16 years of
age,and he had to work to pay hisway through college. He gradu-
ated from the University ofIowa’s College of Business
Ad-ministration in 1952. Through-out his career as a venture
cap-italist, he has been an earlyinvestor in over 100
investmentfirms dedicated to advancingthe biomedical and
biotechnol-ogy industries.
He and his wife Mary, whohave one daughter, have part-nered in
philanthropic endeav-ors, which have provided mil-lions for
scholarships, businessopportunities and communityenhancements. His
charitabledonations include the John &Mary Pappajohn Clinical
CancerCenter, and Pappajohn Entrepre-neurial Centers at five Iowa
uni-versities and colleges. To date,over 99,625 college
studentshave taken part in the latter,which have sparked 3,680
newbusinesses. In 2009, the Pappa-john Scholarship
Foundationdistributed $247,750 in grantsto support ethnic,
disadvan-taged and/or minority students;over the previous 10 years,
thefigure is at over $3.14 million.In September 2009, the DesMoines
Pappajohn SculpturePark opened, featuring $40 mil-lion of the avid
collector cou-ple’s artwork. In December 2010the Pappajohns pledged
$26.4million towards a new Univer-sity of Iowa biomedical
researchbuilding. The couple gifted over$70 million in 2009.
Pappajohn is the recipient ofmany prestigious awards, to
in-clude the Horatio Alger Award(1995), the Ellis Island Medalof
Honor (2000) and theWoodrow Wilson InternationalCenter Award for
Corporate Cit-izenship (2007). He is the firstIowan and the second
GreekAmerican (Pete Peterson wasthe first) to receive theWoodrow
Wilson Award. Pap-pajohn is the recipient of severalhonorary
doctorates.
www.pappajohn.com
19.TED J.LEONSIS$590 MILLION COMPUTERS,MARKETING,PROFESSIONAL
SPORTS
Ted J. Leonsis, 55, is vicechairman emeritus of AmericaOnline.
Leonsis is also thefounder, chairman and majorityowner of
Monumental Sportsand Entertainment, formed inJune 2010, as he
merged hisLincoln Holdings LLC (includingthe National Hockey
League’sWashington Capitals, worth anestimated $225 million – up
by$28 million over last year - andWNBA’s Washington Mystics)and
Washington Sports & Enter-
tainment Limited Partnership.To create the new company,Leonsis
purchased the remain-ing 56% of Washington Sports&
Entertainment that he didn’town, giving him full ownershipover the
National Basketball As-sociation’s Washington Wizards,the Verizon
Center and the Bal-timore-Washington Ticketmas-ter franchise.
MonumentalSports and Entertainment alsooperates Kettler Capitals
Iceplexand George Mason UniversityPatriot Center.
After surviving an airplanecrash landing in 1983, hedrafted a
list of 101 things todo in life, and has completed 82of the tasks;
his $1 billion networth aim may be realized in afew years. (See the
list atwww.tedstake.com.)
Few people have roots asdeep in the computer industry,or as much
knowledge and ex-perience of its history and po-tential. A pioneer
of the Internetand new media, Leonsis partic-ipated in launches of
the AppleMacIntosh, the IBM PC and theWang office automation. He
hasled four businesses that havegrown at record rates: He builtWang
WP (the first word proces-sor) from a $200 million to a$1 billion
company with thelargest female managementteam in the country. He
wasfounder & CEO of Redgate Com-munications Corporation,
con-sidered the first new media mar-keting company. He built
AOLinto the first $1 billion interac-tive services company and
theworld’s biggest media company,helping to increase its
member-ship from fewer than 800,000to more than 8 million in a
four-year span (1994-97). He has
also boosted the Capitals’ atten-dance and revenues.
Leonsis was born to a familyof modest means in Brooklyn,and
spent his early years there.His family moved back to hismother’s
hometown of Lowell,MA. He graduated from LowellHigh School in 1973
and at-tended Georgetown University.After graduating in 1977,
hemoved back to his parents’home in Lowell and beganworking for
Wang Laboratories.In 1980, Leonsis started his owncompany, which
grew quickly,and sold it to InternationalThompson for $60 million
in1981. He then started Redgate,which he sold to AOL in
1993,commencing his relationshipwith once-pervasive AOL,
com-pleting his tenure as the audi-ence group’s president and
vicechairman before stepping downin 2006.
In 2009, Leonsis joined theboard of language-learning soft-ware
company Rosetta Stone.Once the mayor of Orchid, FL,Leonsis sits on
the boards ofGeorgetown University, theNBA, the NHL and several
char-ities. Among his favorite chari-ties are the See Forever
Foun-dation and YouthAIDS. He alsosponsors his own
philanthropicfoundation, the Leonsis Founda-tion, which is
dedicated to cre-ating “opportunities for childrenthat enable them
to reach theirhighest potential”.
Leonsis has produced docu-mentary films includingNanking (2007).
He refers to hisfilmmaking endeavors as “fil-manthropy,” which uses
themedium of documentary filmsas a matrix for social change.Among
the 19 investmentslisted on his site is SnagFilms, avideo
distribution platform thatwas recently backed to the tuneof $10
million by Comcast andventure capital firm New Enter-prise
Associates (NEA). NEA’smanaging director, Peter Barris,a fellow
Greek American also onthis list, was also a foundingventure capital
investor in an-other Leonsis investment,Groupon. Together with
SteveCase and Donn Davis, Leonsislaunched a $450 million “speed-up
capital” company called Rev-olution Growth Fund II in De-cember.
Its investments includepumping millions into Fedbid,which allows
individuals to sellitems to the government. He’salso the author of
numerousbooks. He lives in the historicMarwood Estates in
Potomac,MD with his wife Lynn and twochildren.
w w w . t e d s t a k e . c o m ,www.snagfilms.com
20.P. ROYVAGELOS, M.D. $550
MILLIONPHARMACEUTICALS,HEALTHCARE
Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, 82, servedas CEO of Merck & Co.,
thepharmaceutical giant, from1985 to 1994. He joined theworldwide
health products firmin 1975 as senior vice presidentof research,
and became presi-dent of its research division in1976; starting in
1982, heserved as senior vice presidentof strategic planning. He
con-tinued to hold both positionsuntil 1984, when he was
electedexecutive vice president.
Before assuming broader re-sponsibilities of business
lead-ership, Vagelos had won scien-tific recognition as an
authorityon lipids and enzymes, and as aresearch manager. This
followeda decision early in his career toput his principal energies
intoresearch, rather than the prac-tice of medicine. Vagelos,
whoseparents were born in Asia Minorand immigrated to the US in
the1920s, earned his bachelor’s de-gree with honors in 1950 fromthe
University of Pennsylvania.He was awarded a MD from Co-lumbia
University in 1954. Afteran internship and residency
atMassachusetts General Hospitalin Boston (1954-56), he joinedthe
National Institutes of Healthin Bethesda, MD. At NIH (1956-66), he
served in the NationalHeart Institute, holding posi-tions in
cellular physiology andbiochemistry – first as SeniorSurgeon, and
then as head ofsection of Comparative Bio-chemistry. In 1966,
Vagelosjoined the Washington Univer-
sity in St. Louis School of Medi-cine as chairman of its
Biologi-cal Chemistry Department.
The author of several booksand more than 100 scientific pa-pers,
he was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts &Sciences and the
National Acad-emy of Sciences in 1972, and tothe American
Philosophical So-ciety in 1993. After retiring fromMerck, Vagelos
was chairman ofthe University of Pennsylvania’sBoard of Trustees
from 1994 to1999, having served as a trusteesince 1988. He was also
presi-dent & CEO of the AmericanSchool of Classical Studies
inAthens from 1999 to 2001, andserved on the National
ResearchCouncil Committee on Science& Technology for
CounteringTerrorism in 2002. Much of hiswealth came from stock
optionsat Merck, which was very prof-itable under his leadership.
Dur-ing his tenure there, Merck de-veloped thecholesterol-lowering
statins,mevacor and zocor.
Vagelos is sometimes calledthe father of pharmacophilan-thropy
for freely providing thedrug mectizan to cure millionsof Africans
of river blindness.His charity work at the Univer-sity of
Pennsylvania includessponsoring five scholar-ship/study programs as
well asthe $15 million Roy and DianaVagelos Laboratories. He
alsosupports an incentive programfor students at his old highschool
in Rahway, New Jersey.The Diana Student Center, re-named after Mrs.
Vagelos, at heralma mater, Barnard College,opened in 2010. Vagelos
is cur-rently chairman of biotech com-pany Regeneron
Pharmaceuti-cals, whose stocks have morethan doubled over the
previousyear, from $35 to over $75. Heis also chairman of
ColumbiaUniversity Medical Center’sBoard of Visitors, and is
chairingthe center’s capital campaign,which has already met its
targetof $1 billion by 2011. In 2010the couple gave $50 million
forthe Columbia Medical SchoolCenter for a new medical andgraduate
education building.Vagelos is married to the formerDiana Touliatos.
They live inNew Jersey, and have four chil-dren and seven
grandchildren.
www.regeneron.com
21.ANGELO K.TSAKOPOULOS$540 MILLION REAL ESTATE
Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, 75,was born to a farming family inthe
village of Rizes, in Arcadia,Greece. His father, a
butcher,struggled to feed five children.
He first came to the UnitedStates in August 1951, sailingpast
the Statue of Liberty on his15th birthday. As a college stu-dent at
Sacramento State Uni-versity, he waited tables at nightin the Tony
Del Prado restaurantand sold real estate on week-ends. He would
eventually leaveSac State a few credits shy ofgraduation to work
full time. At21 years of age, he had alreadystockpiled experiences
likely un-fathomable to many of his fel-low undergraduates: war,
depri-vation, emigration and stints asboth a shoeshine boy in
Chicagoand a farmhand in Lodi. And hehad begun laying the
ground-work for his future, arguably be-coming the most
significantforce to shape Sacramento sinceJohn Sutter. He boxed in
col-lege. His former boxing team-mates say the elements of
hislarger-than-life persona werepresent even in the days whenhe was
studying business, phi-losophy, and history under theAmericanized
surname ofChicos, a name he later droppedto reclaim his family
name.
Tsakopoulos has sinceclimbed to prominence throughuncommon
business acumenand sheer tenacity. He turns onthe charm with
politicians, playshardball with environmentalregulators, and
promotes bigideas for the region. In recentyears, he’s offered to
donatefarmland he controls in PlacerCounty for a private
university,and to help fund its constructionby developing adjacent
acreage.He has proposed that the regionopen thousands of acres
ofranchland he controls along theSacramento-El Dorado Countyline
for development, usingsome of those proceeds to funda new arena for
the NBA’sSacramento Kings. He alsogrows wine grapes in BordenRanch
and walnuts at an or-chard outside Wheatland.
In late 2010, the family pur-chased Conaway Ranch, a17,244
property of farming andranching land as well as wet-lands and water
resources westof Sacramento. The SacramentoBee reported the family
alreadyheld 18,000 acres of farmlandand vineyards and 40,000
acresof cattle grazing land in North-ern California.
Tsakopoulos’ older brotherGeorge, who passed away in2009,
followed him to Sacra-mento, and also went into realestate.
George’s family controlsthousands of acres in the region.
Angelo is founder of AKT Devel-opment Corporation, nowheaded by
his son, Kyriakos,which controls about 40,000acres of land in the
region andneighboring San JoaquinCounty.
He has also carved out aniche for himself as a majorplayer in
and fundraiser for theDemocratic Party, and as a stan-dard bearer
for Greek politicaland cultural interests in Amer-ica. The
developer and his chil-dren have raised and con-tributed millions
on national,state and local campaigns andissues over the past
decade. De-mocratic Presidential candidatesaside, a few of the
major recipi-ents include former CaliforniaGovernor Gray Davis,
U.S. Sen-ator Dianne Feinstein and HouseSpeaker Nancy
Pelosi.Tsakopoulos is also dedicated toadvancing the careers of
GreekAmerican politicians, includingformer California state
treasurerand once-gubernatorial candi-date Phil Angelides. His
daugh-ter, Eleni TsakopoulosKounalakis, is currently U.S.Ambassador
to Hungary.Tsakopoulos and his family haveestablished Hellenic
Studieschairs at several major Ameri-can universities across the
coun-try, Georgetown, Stanford andColumbia among them.
22.PETER G.ANGELOS$500 MILLION LAW, MAJORLEAGUE BASEBALL
Peter G. Angelos, 82, is anAmerican trial lawyer and thecurrent
chairman & CEO of Ma-jor League Baseball’s BaltimoreOrioles. He
became owner ofthe Orioles in August 1993,leading a group of
investors, in-cluding prominent Marylanderslike novelist Tom
Clancy, in pur-chasing the team for $173 mil-lion, a record price
at the time.
According to Forbes, the Ori-oles were worth $411 million in2010
(up from $376 million theprevious year). The Orioles en-joyed some
success early underAngelos’ ownership, making thepostseason as a
wild card teamin 1996 and winning the Amer-ican League East
Division titlein 1997. But manager DaveyJohnson resigned after the
1997season, and 14 straight losingseasons ensued. In 2005,
theMid-Atlantic Sports Network,co-owned by the Orioles and
theWashington Nationals, took off.It has 6 million subscribers.
Angelos was born in Pitts-burgh on July 4, 1929. He cameto
Baltimore at 11 years of age.He is a graduate of Eastern Col-lege
and the University of Balti-more School of Law, where hewas class
valedictorian, andwent onto a lucrative career intrial law,
specializing in casesinvolving harmful products, pro-fessional
malpractice, and per-sonal injury.
His firm, the Law Offices ofPeter G. Angelos, has attorneysand
locations in Maryland,Delaware, and Pennsylvania.Angelos began
working as acriminal defense lawyer follow-ing graduation. For most
of hislegal career, he was a successfulattorney representing
Baltimorelabor unions and their membersthrough his own private
prac-tice, which he founded in 1961.Beginning in the 1980s, he
re-fashioned his firm’s focus fromcriminal law to civil class
actionsuits. His law firm and wealthexpanded exponentially in
The 50 Wealthiest Greeks in America ListContinued from page
9
Continued on page 15
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 11
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PlEASE CAll fOr AN iNTrOduCTOryCONSulTATiON
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICA12 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012
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with HighTower Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor with
the SEC 835614-2012.02
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50 WEALTHIEST GREEKS IN AMERICATHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 17,
2012 13
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He just filed a $50 millionIPO for Cancer Genetics, one ofthe
leading cancer diagnosticscompanies in the world. His in-terest in
biomedical firms andbiotechnology began with hisfirst big deal and
was one of thefirst investors in multibilliondollar Caremark, the
first homehealth care company in Amer-
ica.Many of Pappajohn’s deals
require him to make decision onthe value of patents, but he
saidhis network enables him to ac-cess very good research.
“Forfree,” he said, “but we recipro-cate.” He lets helpful people
intohis deals. He said he alwaysused his own money and that ifhe
needed more he wouldn’tborrow, rather he’d bring in
other investors. That gives him freedom to
make decisions on the spot. “Itake out my ‘checkie’ book” likea
Greek would say,“ and I writea check. That how I can getdeals and
do them fast.”
“We are always involved inprojects,” he says, speaking ofhis
wife, but art is their jointpassion. They have been listedamong the
top 200 art collectors
in the world 14 years in a row.“I started out with little
money,but we liked art.” Mary Papa-john has an interior
decoratingdegree from the University ofMinnesota.
“Neither one of us had art inour homes, nothing on thewalls, but
for some reason thefirst month we were married wewent into an art
gallery andbought a $50 painting and westill own it – a painting of
theResurrection.”
Mary’s family is from Thebes.He told TNH, “Our fathers hadthe
same story: He went backto his chorio [village] and mar-ried the
prettiest girl in town.”
But the pattern worked, hesaid. His mother had a good lifeand
when she was widowed,she didn’t want to get marriedagain and she
lived to 98. Hisin-laws also lived into their 90s,also raising a
wonderful family.
He and Mary continued tobuy art, and then they got in-volved
with museums. He is onthe Trustee Council of the Na-tional Gallery
of Art and atrustee of Hirshhorn Museumand Sculpture Garden in
Wash-ington DC. He is on the nationalcommittee of the Whitney
Mu-seum in New York and is a re-tired director of the Des MoinesArt
Center. Mary is a trustee ofthe Walker Museum in Min-neapolis and
the head of theircontemporary art gallery at theDes Moines Art
Center.
“Once you get involved in thearts you get a pretty good han-dle
on it,” the man renownedfor his analytical