David H. Murdock | |
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 Murdock in 2003 | |
| Born | David Howard Murdock April 11, 1923 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
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| Children | 3 |
David Howard Murdock (born April 11, 1923) is an American billionaire businessman, plant-based diet advocate and philanthropist.
Murdock was born on April 11, 1923, in Kansas City, Missouri. [3] His father was a traveling salesman; his mother worked as a laundress and housekeeper to make ends meet. He is the middle child of three; he had two sisters. He was close to his mother, who died at 42 of cancer. [4] He grew up in Montgomery Township, Ohio, and dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. [5] [6] He was drafted by the United States Army in 1943 during World War II.
Upon relocating to Detroit after the war, Murdock was homeless and destitute. Due to a chance encounter with a good samaritan, he obtained a $1,200 loan to buy a closing diner, flipping it for a $700 profit ten months later. [7] He moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and began working there, first in housing and then commercial real estate.
When the real estate market collapsed in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles where he continued developing real estate opportunities, leading to a string of acquisitions. In 1978 he acquired control of International Mining. He became the largest shareholder in L.A.-based Occidental Petroleum, by selling the corporation his 18% share of the Iowa Beef Packers company for $800 million worth of Occidental stock in May 1981 with support from Armand Hammer: after this acquisition, Occidental, through its ownership of IBP and with support from Leonid Kostandov, became the largest United States supplier of beef to the Soviet Union. [4] [8]
Murdock purchased Cannon Mills in Kannapolis, North Carolina, in 1982. At the time, the company was profitable and had no debts. He used the company's profits to pay back the loans he secured to make the acquisition before terminating 2,000 positions and selling the company-owned homes. He eliminated the company's $100 million pensions plan, taking $36 million to make personal investments and using the remainder to purchase annuity policies from Executive Life Insurance Company for Cannon employees. Executive Life later failed due to its own poor investments and reduced its payouts to retired employees. [9] Murdock sold the Cannon Mills to Fieldcrest in 1985. [10]
In 1985 Murdock took over the nearly bankrupt Hawaiian firm Castle & Cooke, which owned pineapple and banana producer Dole Food Company. He developed Castle & Cooke's real estate portfolio into residential and commercial properties and turned Dole into the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables. [11] Acquiring Dole privately in 2003, Murdock completed a $446 million initial public offering in October 2009 and the company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DOLE until a private merger agreement was approved October 31, 2013. [12] As a result of his purchase of Castle & Cooke, Murdock acquired ownership of 98% of Lanai, the sixth-largest island in Hawaii. In June 2012 Murdock sold his interest in Lanai to Larry Ellison. [13] He owns other companies, including Pacific Clay. [11]
He has helped contribute to the redevelopment of a 5,800,000-square-foot (540,000 m2) complex in Kannapolis, North Carolina, of a biotechnology research center, the North Carolina Research Campus. [4] The research center is a joint public-private venture, involving major North Carolina universities and private investment. The site of the research center in the middle of Kannapolis was formerly occupied by Plant #1 of Cannon Mills (which became Pillowtex after a series of mergers and acquisitions). [14] Pillowtex filed for bankruptcy in 2003, and closed the mill. This resulted in the largest mass layoff of workers in North Carolina history. Murdock acquired the site and demolished the mill in 2006. [15]
Since the death of his third wife, Gabriele, [16] he has been involved to finding a cure for cancer, advancing nutrition, and life extension. [1] He established the Dole Nutrition Institute to advocate the benefits of a plant-based diet to promote health and prevent disease. With the help of UCLA, he oversaw the writing of the Encyclopedia of Foods, A Guide to Healthy Nutrition. In 2006, he opened the California Health and Longevity Institute (CHLI). [1]
Murdock has contributed more than $500 million toward the creation of the North Carolina Research Campus and David H. Murdock Research Institute which research the health benefits of plants in boosting longevity and reducing disease risk. [4] [17]
He has been married six times. In 1967, he married his third wife, Gabriele; they had two children together and he also adopted her son from a previous marriage, Eugene. Gabriele was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1983 and died in 1985. [18] A year later, Eugene died after hitting his head while swimming in the family estate's swimming pool. In 2004 his son David Jr. died in an auto accident on the Santa Monica Freeway. [19] His remaining son Justin serves as CEO and executive chairman of NovaRx and is senior vice president of investments for Castle & Cooke. Previously, Justin was a director at the Dole Food Company, as well as their audit and finance committee until his retirement on May 17, 2013. [20] In 2011, Forbes ranked David Sr. as the 190th-richest person in the "Forbes 400" list and 613th in the "World's Billionaires" list, with a net worth of US$2.4 billion as of March 2013. [4] [5]
Since 1985 Murdock has been a pescetarian and promotes a plant-based diet that is high in fruits and vegetables. [4] [21] He drinks smoothies two or three times a day with as many as twenty fruits and vegetables, including pulverized banana and orange peels. [4] He eats fish, seafood, egg whites, legumes and nuts whilst avoiding dairy, poultry and red meat. He also shuns the use of alcohol, processed sugar and salt. [4] Murdock does not take vitamin supplements and claims he can live to 125 years on his plant-based diet. [4]
The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever".
Kannapolis is a city in Cabarrus and Rowan counties, in the U.S. state of North Carolina, northwest of Concord and northeast of Charlotte and is a suburb in the Charlotte metropolitan area. The city of Kannapolis was incorporated in 1984. The population was 53,114 at the 2020 census, which makes Kannapolis the 19th-most populous city in North Carolina. It is the home of the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, the Low-A baseball affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, and it is the hometown of the Earnhardt racing family. It is also the headquarters for the Haas F1 racing team. The center of the city is home to the North Carolina Research Campus, a public-private venture that focuses on food, nutrition, and biotech research.
Lanai is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation. The island's only settlement of note is the small town of Lanai City. The island is 98% owned by Larry Ellison, cofounder and chairman of Oracle Corporation; the remaining 2% is owned by the state of Hawaii or individual homeowners.
Danone S.A. is a French multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in 1919 in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris, where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of the company's products are branded Dannon in the United States.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the United States, Canada, and Chile. It is incorporated under the Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Houston. The company ranked 183rd on the 2021 Fortune 500 based on its 2020 revenues and 670th on the 2021 Forbes Global 2000.
Dole plc is an Irish-American agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is among the world's largest producers of fruit and vegetables, operating with 38,500 full-time and seasonal employees who supply some 300 products in 75 countries. Dole reported 2021 revenues of $6.5 billion.
The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers are a Minor League Baseball team of the Carolina League and the Single-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. They are located in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and play their home games at Atrium Health Ballpark. The team was established in 1995 as the Piedmont Phillies. From 1996 to 2000, they were known as the Piedmont Boll Weevils. From 2001 to 2019, they were known as the Kannapolis Intimidators, after Kannapolis native NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, who was known as "The Intimidator," purchased a share of the team before the 2001 season.
Castle & Cooke, Inc., is a Los Angeles-based company that was once part of the Big Five companies in territorial Hawaii. The company at one time did most of its business in agriculture, including becoming, through mergers with the modern Dole Food Company, the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables. In 1995, it was spun off from Dole and today most of the company's business is in real estate and residential, commercial and retail development.
Joseph, Luca, and FelixVaccaro, known as the Vaccaro brothers, were Italian-American businessmen originally from Sicily.
The Cannon Mills Company was an American textile manufacturing company based in Kannapolis, North Carolina, that mainly produced towels and bed sheets. Founded in 1887 by James William Cannon, by 1914 the company was the largest towel and sheets manufacturer in the world.
Charles Albert Cannon was the son of Cannon Mills Company founder James William Cannon and president of the firm from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was born, lived and died in Concord, North Carolina.
The North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) is a public-private research center in Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States. The Campus was envisioned by David H. Murdock, owner of Dole Food Company and Castle and Cooke, Inc., as a center for improving human health through research into nutrition and agriculture. The campus was formed and operates as a partnership with the State of North Carolina and the University of North Carolina system.
Four Seasons Resort Lanai is a Four Seasons resort hotel located in Lanai City on the island of Lānaʻi, the smallest and least inhabited of Hawaii's six major islands that once was recognized for its pineapple plantation. The island of Lānaʻi hosts two other hotels, Sensei Lanai, A Four Seasons Resort, and Hotel Lanai, a 3-star boutique hotel.
Pillowtex Corporation was a United States textile manufacturing company from 1954 to 2003. Beginning as a pillow manufacturer, the company diversified and manufactured bedsheets under various brand names. The company was officially declared bankrupt on October 7, 2003. The company liquidated over the following nine years, including machinery and brands.
The Dole Nutrition Institute (DNI) is a research and education foundation within the Dole Food Company and is based in Kannapolis, North Carolina, at the North Carolina Research Campus. The DNI was founded by David H. Murdock in 2003. The institute exists as a resource offering educational publications on a plant-based diet.
Mary Ann Lila is the director of N.C. State University's Plants for Human Health Institute (PHHI) located at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, North Carolina. The institute is part of N.C. State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In her role with PHHI, Lila is a David H. Murdock Distinguished Professor and part of N.C. State's Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences. She is a researcher and has been called "the rock star of blueberry research."
The Plants for Human Health Institute (PHHI) is a North Carolina State University based research and education organization located at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States. The PHHI researches food crops, like fruits and vegetables, and the potential health-promoting properties they may convey when consumed.
The Amoskeag Company was a privately owned American holding and operating company. It was calved off from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company (AMC) of New Hampshire in 1925, which went bankrupt a decade later. Through its subsidiary the Pillowtex Corporation it was the last owner of the Fieldcrest Mills in North Carolina. When AMC profits declined in the mid-1920s, the Amoskeag Company was created as a shelter in order to transfer all of the profits from the manufacturing company's booming years clear both of that firm's operational needs and possible business failure. When AMC declared bankruptcy in 1936 that money was untouchable, allowing the holding company to continue unaffected.
Andrew J. Conrad is an American geneticist who was a co-founder at Verily, a life sciences division of Alphabet Inc. As its chief executive officer, Conrad has recruited a multidisciplinary team of chemists, doctors, engineers, behavioral scientists and data scientists to research health and disease.
Atrium Health Ballpark is a baseball stadium in Kannapolis, North Carolina. As of March 2021, it is the home of the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, the Carolina League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, replacing Intimidators Stadium. The stadium is located adjacent to the North Carolina Research Campus and is the centerpiece of a $100 million redevelopment of downtown Kannapolis.
