Mitchell Rales

Mitchell P. Rales (born 1956) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He founded Danaher Corporation in 1984 with his brother Steven Rales and is the chairman of its executive committee. He is also the chairman of Enovis and ESAB, president of the National Gallery of Art, and founder of Glenstone, an art museum in Potomac, Maryland he established with his wife Emily Wei in 2006.[1][2] His net worth was estimated at US$5.5 billion in March 2023.[3]

Mitchell Rales
Rales in 2018
Born1956 (age 66–67)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationMiami University (1978)
Occupations
TitleCo-founder, Danaher and Glenstone
Board member of
Spouses
  • Lyn Goldthorp (div. 1999)
  • ​
    (m. 2008)​
Children2
FamilySteven Rales (brother)

Early life

Rales was born in 1956 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[4][5] Raised in a Jewish family, Rales is one of four sons of Ruth (née Abramson) and Norman Rales.[6][7] Norman Rales was raised in an orphanage, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City, and later became a successful businessman, who sold his building supply company in Washington, D.C. to his employees in what was the first employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transaction in the US. Norman Rales was also a philanthropist, having founded the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation and the Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service.

Rales grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 1974.[8] He was a captain of their football and baseball teams.[5] He earned a degree in business administration at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1978, and was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.[9]

Career

In 1979, Rales left his father's real estate firm to found Equity Group Holdings with his brother, Steven Rales. Using junk bonds, they bought a diversified line of businesses. In 1978, they changed the name to Diversified Mortgage Investors and then to Danaher in 1984.[10]

In the 1980s, the AM side of radio station WGMS was sold off to Rales, who converted it WTEM, a sports-talk station, in 1992. In 1988, he made a takeover bid for Interco, Inc., which was, at the time, the nation's largest manufacturer of furniture and men's shoes.[11][12] He later ended the bid after five months with a profit of $60 million.[13] In 1995, Rales and his brother founded Colfax Corporation, an industrial pumps manufacturer based in Richmond, Virginia, and now known as Enovis.[14] Rales is a major shareholder of Fortive and served on their board of directors from July 2016 until June 2021.[10][15]

In 2023, he was part of an investment group led by businessman Josh Harris and including former NBA player Magic Johnson that submitted a $6 billion bid to purchase the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL).[16]

Glenstone
Water Court at Glenstone

In 2006, Rales and his wife, Emily Wei Rales, opened an art museum in Potomac, Maryland, known as Glenstone.[17][18] The museum displays the Rales's collection of post-World War II art, including paintings, sculptures, and both indoor and outdoor installations.[19] Glenstone underwent a $219 million expansion that opened in 2018 which increased both the gallery space and the wooded land surrounding the galleries. The museum is free and open to the public via booking.[20][21][22]

Personal life

Rales has been married twice. His first, Lyn Goldthorp Rales, he had two children with before divorcing in 1999.[23] He married his second and current wife, Emily Wei, in 2008.[2][24][5] Rales has three brothers: Joshua, Steven, and Stewart.[25][26][27] He lives in Potomac, Maryland.[3]

Rales has expressed a strong desire to spend his money philanthropically, saying to The Washington Post in 2018, "When we go, there's not going to be money bestowed on children and grandchildren in any meaningful way. This is about reallocating the money we had the good fortune of making to other causes."[5] Rales is the president of the National Gallery of Art and a former board member of the Hirshhorn Museum.[28] He serves on the boards of Enovis and ESAB. He signed the Giving Pledge in 2019.[29]

References
  1. Sernovitz, Daniel J. (2018-09-06). "Contractor sues Glenstone museum for $24 million 'disorganized' expansion planning". Washington Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-01-05.
  2. Vogel, Carol (April 18, 2013). "Mitchell and Emily Rales Are Expanding Glenstone Museum". The New York Times.
  3. "Forbes profile: Mitchell Rales". Forbes. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  4. Alessia Zorloni (19 August 2016). Art Wealth Management: Managing Private Art Collections. Springer. p. 135. ISBN 978-3-319-24241-5. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
  5. Edgers, Geoff (2018-09-24). "Meet the very wealthy, very private couple behind Washington's most original museum". Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-10-24.
  6. Washington Jewish Week: "Five local Jews make Forbes richest list" Archived 2012-09-05 at the Wayback Machine October 7, 2009
  7. Art Wealth Management : Managing Private Art Collections. Zorloni, Alessia. [Cham], Switzerland. 2016-08-19. ISBN 978-3319242415. OCLC 957318205.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. Murphy, Carolyn and Lynn Stander (September 2005). "We Knew Them When". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-08-20.
  9. Kiger, Patrick J. (November 1994). "The good guys: Steven and Mitchell Rales have quietly brown-bagged their way to fortunes worth half a billion dollars. But they'd rather you didn't know that. Or them". Regardie's Magazine.
  10. "Bloomberg Billionaires Index #309 Mitchell Rales". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved March 8, 2022.
  11. David A. Vise; Steve Coll (August 23, 1988). "The Rales Brothers Play for Big Stakes; Little-Known Area Family Builds an Industrial Empire". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
  12. "COMPANY NEWS; Request on Interco". The New York Times. August 4, 1988.
  13. "COMPANY NEWS; Rales Brothers Sell Their Interco Stake". The New York Times. December 16, 1988.
  14. Thomas Heath (July 7, 2008). "The Quiet Dynamism of the Brothers Rales". The Washington Post.
  15. "Fortive Announces Appointment of Daniel Comas to Its Board of Directors and the Retirement of Steven Rales and Mitchell Rales From the Board". investors.fortive.com. March 11, 2021. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  16. Maske, Mark; Jhabvala, Nicki; Clarke, Liz. "Josh Harris, Steve Apostolopoulos groups submit formal bids on Commanders". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  17. Russeth, Andrew (2018-09-21). "Maximum Minimalism: Emily and Mitchell Rales's Glenstone Museum Grows". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  18. "Mitchell and Emily Rales". Inside Philanthropy. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  19. Sussman, Anna Louie (2018-09-25). "Inside the $200 Million Expansion of America's New Must-See Museum". Artsy. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  20. Pogrebin, Robert (2018-09-21). "Glenstone, a Private Art Xanadu, Invests $200 Million in a Public Vision". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-10-02. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  21. Smee, Sebastian; Higgins, Adrian. "Glenstone: See inside (and outside) D.C.'s newest museum experience". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-10-02. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  22. Capps, Kriston (2018-09-27). "The New Glenstone is a Contemporary Art Retreat in the Wilds of Montgomery County". Washington City Paper. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  23. Washington City Paper: "A Very Private Collection - Why won't Mitchell Rales do the docent thing? A tale of a Maryland museum not open to the public" by Angela Valdez June 6, 2008
  24. Kennicott, Philip (May 17, 2013). "Museums". The Washington Post.
  25. Sun Sentinel: "Norman Rales, orphan to wealthy businessman and philanthropist, is dead at 88" By Lisa J. Huriash March 15, 2012
  26. Jewish Family Service: "Ruth Rales, 81, Philanthropist by Tal Abbady April 1, 2004
  27. "Obituary On Sunday, March 28, 2004, Ruth Rales, of Hillsboro Beach, FL and Potomac, MD". The Washington Post. March 30, 2004.
  28. Selvin, Claire (2019-09-27). "National Gallery of Art Names Darren Walker Trustee, Mitchell Rales Appointed President". ARTnews. Retrieved 2019-09-28.
  29. "Emily and Mitchell Rales". givingpledge.org. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
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