Jay Van Andel

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Jay Van Andel, (1924-2004) American businessman best-known as the co-founder of the Amway Corporation, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 3, 1924. He was also known as a philanthropist for religious missions and conservative political causes, including the Republican Party. Shortly before his death from Parkinson's Disease-related complications on 4 December 2004, Forbes Magazine estimated his net worth at $2.3 billion, making him the world's 231st richest individual.

Van Andel co-founded Amway with Rich DeVos in 1959. This was not their first joint venture; DeVos had been a high-school classmate of Van Andel's, and the two had worked together in several business ventures in the twenty years prior to the founding of Amway. These included a flying school, a drive-in restaurant (the first in Grand Rapids), and the Ja-Ri Corporation, which sold vitamins and food supplements. With Ja-Ri they experimented with multi-level marketing, a way of building sales distribution networks based on individuals' personal contacts, and subsequently applied the same principle to Amway. Amway began as a family business, operating out of the basements of their neighborhood homes, and initially sold only one product, a biodegradable household cleaner.

The company has since grown to 13,000 employees and several million distributors in more than 80 countries. Its parent company, Alticor, has worldwide sales of $6.2 billion with China being its largest market. After being accused of being an illegal pyramid scheme, the Federal Trade Commission in 1979 ruled after a two-year investigation that it was not, although it ordered some changes in Amway practices.

Van Andel was succeeded as Chairman of Amway by his son, Steve, in 1995. His lifelong business partner, Rich DeVos, had already handed over the Presidency of Amway to his son Dick in 1992. The founders' sons shared the newly created office of Chief Executive of Amway.

From 1985, Van Andel was a member of the Heritage Foundation, and was at the time of his death a trustee of the traditionally conservative Hillsdale College. A strong supporter of the Republican Party, Van Andel contributed $2 million to the reelection campaign of President George W. Bush, and $475,000 to the Michigan State Republican Party (mostly for state legislative candidates) in 2004 alone. He was noted for his friendship with former President Gerald Ford, who lamented his passing and called him "a great family man and a worldwide leader in the business arena." Van Andel had served as a director of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.

In addition to Amway, Van Andel pursued many other business ventures throughout his life. He served as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He was particularly interested in leaving his mark on the city of Grand Rapids, and his name appears on landmarks throughout the city. After purchasing the 65-year-old Pantlind Hotel in 1978, he and DeVos had it rebuilt with a 29-story tower and reopened as the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. He donated substantial funds to build the Van Andel Museum Center to house the Grand Rapids Public Museum in 1994. He donated $11.5 million towards the $75 million cost of Van Andel Arena downtown. Since he and his wife suffered from serious medical problems later in life, he established the Van Andel Institute (devoted to medical research and education), building its headquarters in Grand Rapids at a cost of $60 million, and pledging most of his personal estate to it.

His wife, Betty Van Andel, predeceased him on 18 January 2004, at the age of 82. A sufferer of Alzheimer's Disease, she died at their Peter Island home in the Caribbean.

A member of the Christian Reformed Church, Van Andel had a life-long interest in Christian causes, and funded many religious ventures, including a research station in Arizona that sought to establish scientific support for the theory of Creationism. He summed up his business philosophy in his autobiography An Enterprising Life, in these words: "For me, the greatest pleasure comes not from the endless acquisition of material things, but from creating wealth and giving it away."

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