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The Busy Life of Billionaire Lester Crown

The 82-year-old patriarch of the omnipresent, $4.5 billion Crown family talks with Jane Ammeson.

 “If you could only make one call to tap into Chicago’s civic and business leadership, Lester Crown is the one”
—U.S. Senator and Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois

    Within a 10-day period this January, Lester Crown, the patriarch of Chicago’s Crown family, was scheduled to fly to and from Atlanta, to Washington, D.C. and then to Israel, where he had been invited to speak at a conference. These trips alone racked up almost 40,000 miles.
    “Sure, I get tired,” says the 82-year-old Crown, but he doesn’t sound like someone who is running out of steam—or at least not enough to stop and take a rest. Crown oversees a business empire that now or at one time encompassed stakes in such a diverse portfolio as General Dynamics, the Empire State Building, the New York Yankees, Marblehead Lime Company, Maytag (now owned by Whirlpool Corp.) and the Chicago Bulls. Lester Crown and family, which has made a fortune in real estate, hotels, sugar and railroads, ranked 177 on Forbes 2007 World’s Richest People, with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion. Though an astute businessman who grew the coffers left by his father, Crown’s current goals appear to be the many civic causes he champions, both locally and globally.
    In an interview, Crown was eager to praise others for the good deeds he’s credited as accomplishing. Take the expansion of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jerry Roper is quoted as saying, “We were all making the case, but Lester was the one to get it done.”
    What’s Crown’s take on that?
   “The Aviation Subcommittee, which I was fortunate enough to chair, was composed of a group of business people, civic leaders and educators who saw that O’Hare, which is the U.S. aviation hub and one of the main international hubs, was reaching its maximum capacity,” says Crown. “We commissioned a professional economic report on the impact of what an expansion of O’Hare would bring to the area in terms of money and jobs. We took that report to the business community and the newspapers, presenting the problems and the solutions. The mayor’s response was to create a visionary plan. I helped bring people to the table, but there were many people who made it happen. George Ryan was instrumental in making the O’Hare expansion a reality.”
    Well, then, what about John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital? Crown led the business community that advocated the creation of a new Cook County Hospital. The 464-bed hospital is anchored by 228 medical/surgical beds, with dedicated units for obstetrics (40 beds), pediatrics (40 beds), intensive care (80 beds), neonatal intensive care (58 beds) and burns (18 beds). Anticipating an increasing trend toward shorter inpatient hospital stays and procedures, approximately 40 percent of the hospital's space is used for outpatient care, specialty diagnosis and treatment.
  “Ruth Rothstein was the head of the Cook County medical system at the time,” says Crown. “At first, I didn’t think we needed a new  hospital, but Ruth explained to our committee her reasons why there should be a new hospital. As with O’Hare, we had a professional report done by experts that showed that there would be $100 million in savings after spending $550 million for a new hospital, compared to operating the present buildings. Ruth turned me around 180 percent, so I took it on as a project.”
    “If you could only make one call to tap into Chicago’s civic and business leadership, Lester Crown is the one,” says U.S. Senator and Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois.
    Making things happen could be the family’s creed. Lester’s father, Henry, was born to a Lithuanian immigrant sweatshop worker, Arie Krinsky, and his wife Ida. His father changed the family name to Crown when Henry was a boy, and Henry never went to school beyond 8th grade. Fired from a $4 a week job as an errand boy, Crown went on to build a fortune estimated to be worth approximately $2 billion when he died 18 years ago.
    “My father was probably the finest human being I’ve ever known,” says Crown. “His family had nothing, but he had ingenuity, a moral compass and was willing to work very hard. His relationships with people were very important to him. He was willing to give credit to other people for his ideas, and it’s amazing how much that allows one to accomplish. The only thing that exceeded his ingenuity was his humility.”
    Henry Crown and his two brothers, Sol and Irving, started Material Services in 1919, a mining company located primarily in Illinois and northwestern Indiana that sold sand and gravel—materials that helped build the Civic Opera House and the Merchandise Mart.
    “That was our heart and soul,” says Crown. “That’s what we did.”
    Indeed, it was. Crown told The New York Times, “We ate and slept business.” Lester and his two brothers, Robert, who was older, and their younger brother John, loaded cement trucks and worked next to the dynamite crews. This commitment to the family business was one reason that Crown followed his uncle’s directive to become a chemical engineer.
    “I had always wanted to be an engineer,” Crown recalls. “Material Service Corporation owned Marblehead Lime Co., and so when Uncle Irving told me to take chemical engineering, that was it.”
    Crown earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University in 1946 and went on to get an MBA from Harvard in 1949. He was president of Marblehead Lime Co. for a decade, from 1956 to 1966—years Crown considers the halcyon days of America.
    “Nineteen-fifty to 2000 was the golden age in the United States,” Crown says. “We have been very hurt by our own success in this country. Our affluence almost breeds complacency, and there has become a sense of entitlement.”
    Referencing Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation, Crown talks about how Americans of that era were willing to give up their lives for their country. “And they came back, and there was no sense of entitlement,” he says, adding that he worries that many people today don’t want to work as hard as those of that generation did. “The innovative spirit of America is being reduced to shipping manufacturing overseas.”
    A longtime donor and life trustee of Northwestern, Crown says education needs to be emphasized. “Individual parents need to realize what is important and what isn’t,” he says. “It all comes from the home.”
    Children are overly organized today, Crown says, with busy schedules impacting studies and family time. “And there is a bad side to our technological advances. Kids can get too wrapped up in their computers and Ipods.”
    Crown and his wife, Renee, who have been married for 57 years (“it’s a good start,” he says) have seven children. “There were times when we wondered whether we should drown them one at a time or two at time,” he says about those hectic family days. “But we are really fortunate to have so many children and now grandchildren.” This “affluenza” that seems to be infecting the country will be tested in 2008, according to Crown.
....“This year is going to be a very tough year for the United States. But we’ve had too many good years, so we’ll have to suck it up. The country has the strength to come back economically, but we need a good leader.”
    He also says he believes that America has to become less energy dependent. “One way to stimulate the economy is to have a two, four or five dollar tax on gasoline,” Crown says. “You can give the money back to anyone who earns less than $50,000 or $60,000 a year. But being dependent upon foreign oil just sends money back to people who want to harm us.”
    Which brings us to the question of the Middle East. A longtime supporter of Israel, Henry Crown Hall is home to the Jewish Symphony Orchestra in Jerusalem.
     “Every Israeli prime minister, every Israeli president knows the Crown family,” said Steven Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. Crown says he’s spent a tremendous amount of time in the Gulf countries, including Egypt, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
    “I have deep concerns about Iran,” Crown says. “I think the media didn’t focus on the right information coming from National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).  Enrichment is the primary concern because with enrichment, Iran can then weaponize. Iran has not stopped their enrichment programs or their weapons programs. I don’t think Iran will bomb Israel, but I do think they will continue to ship missiles to Hezbollah, who may use them against Israel.” Here in Chicago, Crown serves on many committees,  including the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, where he serves as chairman. Founded in 1922, the organization is a leading independent, nonpartisan organization committed to influencing the discourse on global issues through contributions to opinion and policy formation, leadership dialogue and public learning.
    “The council gets all of us to hear things about what is going on in the rest of the world by people who are making the policies,” says Crown. “When President Bush wanted to come to Chicago to speak on foreign affairs, he called the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.”
    “Lester Crown is the reigning patriarch of philanthropy in Chicago, setting a wonderful example for his family and for all of us,” says Chicago philanthropist Ann Lurie. “He exudes an understated style, grace and wisdom that is enviable in these days of brash and flash. The world needs more Lester Crowns.”
    But beyond his companies and charitable endeavors, Crown describes his family, encompassing 25 grandchildren, as being most important to him.
    “I like to ski, fish, play golf and read,” Crown says, noting that he also enjoys reading American and world history. “But on top of that is family, and—fortunately—I have a whole bunch of grandchildren to spend my time with.”

Published: February 07, 2008
Issue: February 08 Money Issue

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