Lester Crown
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Lester Crown (born 1926) is the son of Chicago financier Henry Crown (d. 1990), who created Material Service with two brothers in 1919, which merged with General Dynamics in 1959. He has been a perennial member of the Forbes 400 list since 1982. Lester controls family holdings, including large stakes in Maytag, Hilton Hotels, Alltell, Aspen Skiing Company, New York's Rockefeller Center, and pro basketball's Chicago Bulls. He also holds a stake in the New York Yankees, being a Partner since 1973. Presumably, the large stake held in Bank One at the time of the 2003 Forbes 400 listing has converted to JPMorgan Chase stock and was derived from an interest in First Chicago, which was enumerated in the 1998 Forbes 400 list as First Chicago NBD shares. Recent achievements include brokering a controversial agreement to expand O'Hare International Airport, and spearheading the funding of the new Cook County Hospital (Stroger Hospital). He is a major benefactor of Jewish charities, universities and the Aspen Institute. He is the chairman of the Commercial Club of Chicago and Chicago Foreign Relations Council. His current hometown is Wilmette, IL.
Crown received his BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern University (1946), followed by an MBA from Harvard University (1949). He was President of Marblehead Lime Co. from 1956 to 1966. During the 1950s, the Crown family had a controlling interest in New York's Empire State Building. He has served as the president and chair of General Dynamics, and currently sits on the Board of Directors of Maytag. He has been President of Henry Crown & Co. since 1969. He is a former director of Continental Illinois Bank, Trans World Airlines, and Esmark Corporation.
Affiliations include: Trusteeship of Northwestern University's Aspen Institute and the Michael Reese Foundation. Crown is on the Board of DIrecors of Lyric Opera Corporation and Children's Memorial Medical Center. He is a member of Lake Shore Country Club, Northmoor Country Club, Standard Club, Economics Club, and Northwestern University's John Evans Club. He is a member of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science and of the Tel Aviv University's Board of Governors.
Among his 7 children are board members of several major cultural institutions. His daughter, Susan Crown, is chairwoman of the Shoah Foundation. Together the family's net worth exceeds 4 billion dollars. [1]
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| General Dynamics Corporation |
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Corporate Directors: Nicholas Chabraja | James Crown | Lester Crown | William Fricks | Charles Goodman | Jay Johnson | George Joulwan | Paul Kaminski | John Keane | Lester Lyles | Carl Mundy | Robert Walmsley |
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Subsidiaries: Bath Iron Works | Electric Boat | Land Systems | Gulfstream | NASSCO | MOWAG |
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Annual Revenue: $19.4 billion USD ( |
