Diane Hendricks
Born
1947
Wisconsin, US
Residence
Afton, Wisconsin, US
Nationality
American
Occupation
Co-founder and chairman, ABC Supply
Net worth
$3.7 billion (February 2015)[1]
Spouse(s)
Ken Hendricks (deceased)
Children
7
Diane Hendricks (born 1947) is an American businesswoman, film producer and philanthropist from Wisconsin.[2] She is the widow of businessman Ken Hendricks.[2][1]
Contents
[hide]- 1 Early life
- 2 Career
- 3 Philanthropy
- 4 Hollywood producer
- 5 Political donations
- 6 Personal life
- 7 See also
- 8 References
- 9 External links
Early life[edit]
She was born in 1947,[3] the daughter of a Wisconsin dairy farmer, and was already divorced from her first husband when she met Ken Hendricks in 1975.[1]
Career[edit]
When they met, she was selling custom-built homes and Ken was a roofing contractor. They married and became business partners. In 1982, they took a loan to establish ABC Supply.[1]
Diane Hendricks owns the Hendricks Holding Company and owns and serves as chairperson of ABC Supply Co., Inc.[2][4][5][6] She is worth US$4.8 billion, making her the richest woman in Wisconsin.[4][5][7] She is #2 on the Forbes list of richest self-made women. [8]
Philanthropy[edit]
She is a donor to WisconsinEye and co-chair of Rock County 5.0.[2][5] She has served on the boards of Stateline Boys & Girls Club, and the Beloit Hospital.[7] She currently serves on the boards of the Beloit Foundation, WisconsinEye, Forward Janesville, Kandu Industries, Blackhawk Bank, the Hendricks Family Foundation, and Beloit College.[2]
Hollywood producer[edit]
She has produced movies, including The Stoning of Soraya M., about an execution in an Iranian village, and An American Carol.[5][9][10][11][12]
Political donations[edit]
She donated $500,000 to Governor Scott Walker's recall campaign and was his biggest donor in 2012.[4] She also supports Paul Ryan.[5] In 2014, she donated $1 million to the Freedom Partners Action Fund, a pro-Republican Super PAC created by the Koch Brothers.[13] In 2015, she gave $5 million to a PAC associated with presidential candidate Scott Walker.[14]
Personal life[edit]
She has seven children and lives in Afton, Wisconsin.[1]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Diane Hendricks". Forbes. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Hendricks Holding
- Jump up ^ "Diane Hendricks Net Worth". The Richest. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Cary Spivak, Beloit billionaire pays zero in 2010 state income tax bill, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 30, 2012
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Rick Romell, Widow a power in Beloit, beyond, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 25, 2010
- Jump up ^ Ten Questions For Diane Hendricks, Forbes, 11.04.10
- ^ Jump up to: a b Forbes Diane Hendricks
- Jump up ^ http://www.forbes.com/profile/diane-hendricks/
- Jump up ^ "Diane Hendricks Producer". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
- Jump up ^ http://www.beloitdailynews.com/news/top_news/hollywood-comes-to-beloit/article_1a5ca92a-e4ec-5338-9068-fac90be1403c.html Beloit Daily News
- Jump up ^ http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/455322/The-Stoning-of-Soraya-M-/details New York Times
- Jump up ^ http://variety.com/2008/film/reviews/an-american-carol-1200471853/ Variety
- Jump up ^ Vogel, Kenneth (October 14, 2014). "Koch donors uncloaked". Politico. Retrieved October 14, 2014.
- Jump up ^ "Presidential; donors".
External links[edit]
- Who is Diane Hendricks? from Milwaukee Magazine
- Ten Questions For Diane Hendricks from Forbes
- Widow a power in Beloit, beyond from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
- Q&A With Diane Hendricks from Beloit Daily News
- Government, get out of the way of business – opinion piece by Diane Hendricks in USA Today
- The Business Must Go On from The New York Times
Who is Diane Hendricks?
The billionaire Walker's speaking to in the "divide and conquer" video, and much more.
She’s one of two donors who dropped $500,000 on Walker earlier this year. As such, she holds the state record for the largest donation ever given to a gubernatorial candidate. (The other $500,000 came from Texas conservative funder Bob Perry.) She owns the Beloit-based ABC Supply Co., a wholesale roofing and siding supplier with 400+ locations around the country. She ranks 188th on the Forbes 400, with an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion. She has seven children, many of whom work for ABC Supply, and oversees a couple dozen more companies under Hendricks Holding Co. She’s the widow of Ken Hendricks, whom became her business partner soon after they started dating; they founded ABC Supply in 1982. She had grown up on a dairy farm, and he was a roofing contractor. On their first date, Ken asked to eat the rest of another customer’s sandwich, according to Inc. magazine. The writer of said profile, which ran in 2006, says Diane offered some of her leftover pizza to another group of diners (three strangers) while meeting with her during her reporting. Diane is frugal.
In 2007, Ken died after falling from a roof at a construction site, but Diane’s star has only continued to rise. Like Ken, whom Tommy Thompson called one of America’s “finest sons,” Diane has contributed heavily to Republican candidates. She’s also funded the Beloit International Film Festival, bankrolled some feature-length films with conservative messages, invested heavily in downtown Beloit, and sits on the Republican National Committee. When George W. and Laura Bush made an unannounced visit to Wisconsin in late 2010, they parked their jet in ABC Supply’s private hangar, lunched with Diane and met some of the company’s employees. (News accounts speculated the visit had something to do with Diane’s support for the George W. Bush Institute think tank.) And she attended the Koch Brothers’ Summer Seminar, a hot ticket for Republican high-rollers, in 2011 – a few months after running into newly-inaugurated Gov. Scott Walker in Janesville.
As coincidence would have it, a documentary filmmaker, Brad Lichtenstein, had a camera running nearby and captured this exchange, as most everyone has read by now …
“Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions?” Hendricks asks, after greeting Walker with a hug.
“Oh yeah,” he says.
“… and become a right-to-work?”
“In fact, the … “
“What can we do to help you?”
“Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions.”
“Right.”
“Because [indecipherable, has been widely interpreted as ‘you’ but could also be ‘use’] divide and conquer.”
A month later, Walker’s administration introduced the contentious Budget Repair Bill that eventually stripped public employees in the state of most of their bargaining rights, sent 14 Senate Democrats running for the hills, brought a small world of protesters down on the State Capitol, etc.
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