Sixteen miles north of Chicago, there is a small town called Winnetka.
Only 12,428 people consider Winnetka home. However, it is one of the wealthiest towns in the country. The median household income is $250,001, and the median property value is $1.09M.
One of the richest people who live in Winnetka is Patrick G. Ryan. His net worth exceeds $8.5B, making him the 75th richest man in the country and the second richest in Illinois.
Who is Patrick G. Ryan?
Patrick G. Ryan is an American billionaire insurance business executive and the founder of Aon Corporation.
Patrick Ryan was born in 1938 in Milwaukee. His father is an Irish American who ran a Ford dealership. Ryan grew up helping his father run the car dealership. In 1959, He graduated from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management with a degree in Finance and literature.
During his last year in college, he sold scrapbooks and made $8,000. This experience inspired him to build his own business. After college, he worked as an insurance agent at Penn Mutual's Chicago office and started selling insurance to auto dealership customers.
At 26, he started Pat Ryan & Associates, a multibillion-dollar company.
In 1964, Patrick Ryan founded Pat Ryan & Associates. He kept growing his company and renamed it Aon in 1987, which means "oneness." He took the firm public in 1971 and focused on his most effective growth strategy: bringing multiple companies together through organic growth and strategic acquisition into one entity.
He served as the company CEO until he retired in 2008. At his retirement, Aon had 500 offices in 120 countries and $8 billion in annual revenue.
He sold his company but couldn't sit on the sideline; he started a new one.
In 2010, Patrick Ryan founded Ryan Specialty Group, a private company that provides specialty services to insurance brokers, carriers, and agents.
"I moved relatively quickly in my career, but I always tried to be patient and wait for the right time. It's difficult to be successful at something you don't love. You need to use a set of principles and standards to guide your personal and professional lives." Patrick Ryan
Patrick Ryan bought Chicago Bears to help them.
Patrick has been acknowledged for his considerable philanthropic contributions to Chicago, including purchasing 20 percent of the Chicago Bears when they were in financial trouble.
Ryan has been an incredible donor to Northwestern for many years. He donated money for scholarships, the construction of Northwestern's Nanotechnology Center, and the renovation of Northwestern's football and basketball stadiums.
He donates to the Republican party but avoids contributing to Trump directly.
Ryan Patrick donated to the Republican party without directly donating to former president Trump. Instead, he donated $10.5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and other republican causes.
He and his wife Shirley have three adult children and live in Winnetka, Illinois.
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