Arthur Blank | |
---|---|
Born | Arthur Morris Blank September 27, 1942 Queens, New York City, U.S. |
Education | Babson College (BSBA) |
Occupations | |
Spouses |
Stephanie Wray (m. 1995;div. 2014)Angela Macuga (m. 2016;div. 2019) |
Children | 6 |
Website | www |
Arthur Morris Blank (born September 27, 1942) is an American businessman. He is best known for being a co-founder of the home improvement retailer The Home Depot. [2]
Blank owns two professional sports teams based in Atlanta, Georgia –the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer (MLS), the latter of which won the 2018 MLS Cup [3] –and is chairman of their parent company, AMB Group LLC.
Arthur Blank was born to a Jewish family in Flushing, New York. [4] He was born to Max Blank, a pharmacist, and Molly Blank. He has an older brother named Michael. Blank graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City. [5]
After graduating from Babson Institute in 1963, [6] Blank was hired by Arthur Young and Company, where he was a senior accountant. He later joined the Daylin corporation, where he rose to become president of Elliott's Drug Stores/Stripe Discount Stores, a division of Daylin. When Daylin decided to sell off that division, Blank moved to another division, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. Bernard Marcus was CEO of Handy Dan and Blank was vice president of finance when both were fired in 1978 as part of an internal power struggle.
In 1978, Blank co-founded Home Depot with Marcus. New York investment banker Ken Langone assembled the initial group of investors and merchandising expert Patrick Farrah helped founders realize their vision of one-stop shopping for the do-it-yourselfer. The store revolutionized the home improvement business with its warehouse concept and Blank and Marcus became billionaires as a result. Blank spent 19 years as the company's president before succeeding Marcus as CEO. Blank retired from the company in 2001 as co-chairman. He received his MBA from Harvard.
On May 22, 2024, Blank won the Sports Business Journal's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with the Falcons, United FC, and the surrounding community. [7] [8]
In February 2002, Blank purchased the Atlanta Falcons franchise in the National Football League from owner Taylor Smith, the son of team founder Rankin M. Smith Sr. In September 2004, he bought the Arena Football League franchise, the Georgia Force; he moved the team to the city of Atlanta after it had spent several years in suburban Gwinnett County.
Blank has expressed serious interest in purchasing other franchises. In early 2006, he temporarily withdrew from contention as a potential buyer of the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. Some months later, Blank re-entered serious talks with Time Warner and a report indicated that a sale was imminent. However, in February 2007, the Braves completed the sale of the team to Liberty Media. Blank has also founded an expansion Major League Soccer franchise named Atlanta United FC that began play in 2017. [9] The club shares Mercedes-Benz Stadium with the Falcons. Blank also helped the United States Soccer Federation set up their new headquarters in Atlanta, and the new training center was named in his honor.
Blank is chairman of The Arthur Blank Family Foundation, [10] and serves on the Board of Trustees of Emory University.
In March 2020, Blank's foundation announced it would donate nearly $5.4 million to aid the coronavirus pandemic response in Georgia and Montana. [11] [12]
In October 2020, it was announced that the new Children's Healthcare of Atlanta hospital would be named after Arthur Blank after his foundation donated $200 million to the project. The Arthur M. Blank Hospital is expected to open in September 2024. [13] [14]
He is a signatory of The Giving Pledge committing himself to give away at least 50% of his wealth to charitable causes.
Blank has been married and divorced three times. He has three children with his first wife, Diana Blank (born 1942): Kenny Blank, Dena Blank Kimball, and Danielle Blank Thomsen; [15] [16] they divorced in 1993. [17] In 1995, he married Stephanie V. Blank (born 1968), a Blowing Rock, North Carolina native and Appalachian State University graduate. [18] They met when she worked as a designer at a Home Depot store in Atlanta. [18] They had three children - Joshua Blank, Max Blank, and Kylie Blank - before being divorced. [19] In June 2016, Blank married Angela Macuga (born 1968), [1] [20] who had three children from a previous marriage. [20] [21] They announced their pending divorce on January 1, 2019. [22]
Blank owns Mountain Sky Guest Ranch and West Creek Ranch outside Yellowstone National Park in Paradise Valley, Montana. He also owns several PGA TOUR Superstores.
On February 9, 2016, Blank disclosed that he had treatable prostate cancer. [23] On March 17, 2016, Blank announced that he is cancer-free following treatment. [24]
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons were founded on June 30, 1965, and joined the NFL in 1966 as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL).
The Georgia Force was the name of three separate versions of Arena Football League (AFL) teams based in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area of Georgia, United States.
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. Its successor, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was built adjacent to the south and opened on August 26, 2017. The Georgia Dome was demolished on November 20, 2017.
Bernard Marcus is an American billionaire businessman. He co-founded The Home Depot. He was the company's first CEO and first chairman until retiring in 2002.
Handy Dan Home Improvement was an American home improvement store based out of New Jersey. It went out of business in May, 1989.
Rankin M. Smith Sr. was an American businessman and philanthropist. A longtime resident of Atlanta, Georgia, Smith was very active in the Atlanta community. Smith served as president of the Life Insurance Company of Georgia from 1970 to 1976. Smith was also the founding owner of the National Football League (NFL)'s Atlanta Falcons.
The Home Depot, Inc. is an American multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer in the United States. In 2021, the company had 490,600 employees and more than $151 billion in revenue. The company is headquartered in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, with an Atlanta mailing address.
Major League Soccer has expanded several times since the league began play in 1996. Major League Soccer was established as the top level of professional soccer in the United States in 1993 with 10 teams and began play in 1996. It has expanded several times since 1998 into new markets across the United States and, since 2006, Canada.
Daniel Patrick Quinn is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). Born in New Jersey, he attended Salisbury University and competed in the hammer throw and as a defensive lineman for their football team in the early 1990s. Quinn later coached defensive lines in college prior to joining the NFL in 2001. He was the defensive coordinator of the Legion of Boom-era Seattle Seahawks that appeared in two consecutive Super Bowls, winning XLVIII.
Sports in Atlanta has a rich history, including the oldest on-campus NCAA Division I football stadium, Bobby Dodd Stadium, built in 1913 by the students of Georgia Tech. Atlanta also played host to the second intercollegiate football game in the South, played between the A&M College of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Piedmont Park in 1892; this game is now called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. The city hosts college football's annual Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10 km race. Atlanta was the host city for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics, and Downtown Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park was built for and commemorates the games.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Opened in 2017 as a replacement for the Georgia Dome, it is the home of the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The stadium is owned by the state of Georgia through the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, and operated by AMB Group, the parent organization of the Falcons and Atlanta United FC. In 2016, the total cost of its construction was estimated at US$1.6 billion.
Atlanta United FC is an American professional soccer club based in Atlanta. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference.
Diana Latow Blank is an American philanthropist who founded the Kendeda Fund. She is the former wife of The Home Depot co-founder, Arthur Blank.
Nashville Soccer Club is an American men’s professional soccer club based in Nashville, Tennessee. The team began play in Major League Soccer in 2020 as a continuation of the USL club of the same name and plays its home matches at Geodis Park. It is principally owned by John Ingram, owner of Ingram Industries, along with investors and partial owners the Turner family of Dollar General Stores.
FC Cincinnati is an American professional soccer club based in Cincinnati. The club plays in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The team was first announced on August 12, 2015 as a United Soccer League (USL) franchise which played from 2016 to 2018. On May 29, 2018, the club's ownership was awarded an MLS franchise, and the team began MLS play on March 2, 2019. The club's ownership group is led by Carl Lindner III with Jeff Berding serving as co-CEO. Currently, the role of general manager is held by Chris Albright.
Arthur William Smith is an American football coach who is the offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He previously served as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons from 2021 to 2023 and as an assistant coach for the Tennessee Titans during the 2010s.
Daylin, Inc. was a major retail conglomerate based in Los Angeles and later Beverly Hills, California. Its best-known unit was Handy Dan Improvement Centers, which prefigured The Home Depot; the company also briefly owned London Drugs as well as Great Eastern, which gave rise to Linens 'n Things.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (Children's) Arthur M. Blank Hospital is a 446-bed children's hospital, slated to open September 29, 2024. Located at the northeastern corner of North Druid Hills and I-85 in Brookhaven, Georgia, the 19-story Arthur M. Blank Hospital will be a Level I Trauma Center and provide many clinical services. There also will be space for clinical research, clinical trials and overall patient care.
The 2022 season was the Atlanta Falcons' 57th in the National Football League (NFL), their sixth playing their home games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and their second under head coach Arthur Smith.