Who's the wealthiest person in your state?

[marylander1940]

So who's the wealthiest person in my state?

 

 

It’s a question we were asked often enough that it deserved an answer. So for the first time ever, FORBES offers a unique roadmap to wealth in America with a list of the richest person in each state.

 

Look through this atlas at its carefully cataloged billionaires and near-billionaires, and you’ll spot some familiar names. In New York, the richest is lightning-rod industrialist David Koch. On the opposite coast, it’s Oracle founder Larry Ellison in California.

 

Others will surprise. About one-fifth of the United States emerged as a question mark when we started. With this in mind, a team of reporters (Dan Alexander, Kerry Close, Maggie McGrath, Chase Peterson-Withorn and Rebecca Spalding) sharpened their pencils and examined the great fortunes of 10 states: Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont.

 

The reporting led to oil wells in New Mexico, coal mines in Alabama, properties on the Vegas strip. Through careful estimation, 12 names emerged (with pairs of siblings tied for the top spot in Delaware and Maine). Four had appeared on FORBES’ rich lists before, like Vermont’s John Abele ($600 million), co-founder of Boston Scientific. Most are newcomers, such as money manager Robert Gillam ($320 million) in Alaska and hotelier Gary Tharaldson ($930 million) in North Dakota.

 

More on Forbes: Interactive Map: The Richest Person In Every State

 

Many of these fortunes stand as ten-digit monuments to the American dream. Only 10 of the 50 are do-nothing heirs while the rest have either built their riches from scratch or inherited a company and grown it greatly. In the end, our project offers another marker of the entrepreneurial drive that pushed the country to all 50 states in the first place.

 

Now, some facts about these figures, as well as the fine print: Roughly three-quarters of the list could've earned a spot on last year's FORBES 400, and 10 fortunes rank among the Top 20 in America. Washington is home to the wealthiest (Bill Gates, $78.8 billion), while a little farther north, Alaska hosts the list's poorest rich person (the aforementioned Gillam). Just six states (Alabama, North Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Vermont and Alaska) lack any billion-dollar fortunes. Calculating these vast sums required tracking down public assets, for which we used April 23 stock prices, and estimating private ones using comparable public companies.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/richest-people-every-state-085000673.html

[+ DERRIK]

Does this thread tie into recent three about high end escorts?