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Notable Businesspeople

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Adams, Allen, Anderson, Baldwin and 16 others
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Profiles

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    Bill Bain (1937 - 2018)
    William Worthington Bain Jr. (July 30, 1937 – January 16, 2018) was an American management consultant, known for his role as one of the founders of the management consultancy that bears his name, Bai...
  • Bruce Nordstrom (1933 - 2024)
    Bruce Allen Nordstrom (October 1, 1933 – May 18, 2024) was an American billionaire businessman, and the chairman of the retailer Nordstrom, a company founded by his grandfather John W. Nordstrom. He ...
  • Monty Lopez
    Monty Lopez is an American businessman, actor, and internet personality. Wikipedia
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Businesspeople (also businessmen or businesswomen) are people involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, and physical capital.

List of notable businesspeople

Aerospace industry‎

Advertising

Automotive industry

Arms industry

  • Samuel Prescott Bush (1863 - 1948) USA railroad executive, steel company president, federal government official in charge of coordination and assistance to major weapons contractors during WW1, Businessman, Industrialist.
  • Col. Samuel Colt (1814 - 1862) USA
  • Adnan Khashoggi (1935-2017), notorious Saudi arms dealer.
  • Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) French born-USA
  • Pierre Samuel du Pont (1870 – 1954)
  • Eliphalet Remington, Jr. (1793 - 1861) USA Remington Rifle
  • Edward Curtis Smith (1854-1935) USA President of Welden National Bank, and a founder of Peoples Trust Bank of St. Albans and New York Citys Sherman National Bank. His other holdings included an ammunition manufacturing company and various mining ventures.

Arts and crafts industry

Agriculture

Banking

Chemical industry‎

Communications

  • Lars Magnus Ericsson (1846-1946) A Swedish founder of Ericksson
  • Bob Galvin (1922 - 2011) Motorola USA
  • Paul Vincent Galvin (1895 - 1959) Motorola USA
  • Theodore Gary (1856 - 1952) USA
  • Isaac Bell, Jr. (1846 - 1889) USA one of the key investors in the Commercial Cable Company that broke the Transatlantic cable monopoly. Also a successful cotton broker and investor.
  • Cyrus West Field (1819 - 1892) USA who led the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the company that successfully laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858.
  • John William Mackay (1831-1902) USA miner and business leader, controlled the richest ground in the Comstock mining area of Nevada and founded the Postal Telegraph Company.

Computers

Construction

Entertainment industry

Food and beverage industry

Also see: Food and beverage industry businesspeople.

Consumer Industries

Cosmetics

Technology‎

Domestic Appliances and Equipment

  • Edward Cabot Clark (1811 - 1882) USA a founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, along with his business partner of Isaac Merritt Singer.
  • Isaac Merritt Singer

Electrical Appliance Manufacturers

  • George Westinghouse, Jr. (1846 - 1914) USA entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry.

Electricity Supply Industries

Electronics

  • Kenneth H. Dahlberg (1917-2011) USA "Miracle-Ear" Hearing aids - subsidiary of Siemens Medical Solutions

Engineers

Engineering and Construction

Energy Markets

Entrepreneurs

Sex industry

Exploration/Navigation

  • Christian Hülsmeyer (1881-1957) German Inventor and entrepreneur, often credited with the invention of radar - Telemobiloscope first patented device using radio waves for detecting the presence of distant objects.
  • Herman Anschütz-Kaempfe (1872-1931 German co-inventor, with Elmer Ambrose Sperry of the gyrocompass. He and Friedrich Treitschke, founded the first firm to manufacture gyroscopic navigation instruments.
  • Robert Morris Page (1903 – 1992) USA was an American physicist who was a leading figure in the development of radar technology.
  • Aleksandr Stepanovitš Popov (1859-1906) Russian physicist who along with Guglielmo Marconi was the first to communicate messages by radio waves.
  • Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
  • Robert Giffard (1587-1668) Founding member of "la Companie des Cent-Associés" and leading developer of the New-France colony.

Fashion

Financiers

Fur Traders

  • Brig. General William H. Ashley (1778 - 1838) USA pioneering fur trader, entrepreneur, and politician. Started the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1822 with Andrew Henry.
  • Major Andrew Henry (1775-1832) USA fur trader who, with William H. Ashley started the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1822
  • Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (1802 - 1886) USA - fur trader, insurance underwriter and land speculator

Health care industry

Horticulture

Also see: Notable horticulturists.

  • Jonathan Chapman "Johnny Appleseed" (1774 - 1845) USA American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
  • James Hart Stark, Sr. (1792 - 1873) USA

Hospitality industry

Importers

Industrialists

Insurance

  • Morgan Bulkeley (1837 - 1922) USA first president of the National League; Under his guidance, Aetna had been transformed from a life insurance company into a company that offered accident, health, automobile, workers compensation, and group insurance.
  • George Leslie Harrison (1887 - 1958) USA general counsel and president of the Federal Reserve Board of New York, president and board chairman of the New York Life Insurance Company.
  • John Davis (1787-1854) USA In 1844, Davis and his nephew Isaac were among the founders of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, one of only five life insurance companies in the country.
  • Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (1802 - 1886) USA - fur trader, insurance underwriter and land speculator
  • Webster Bray Todd (1899 - 1989) USA In 1928 he formed his own architectural-engineering firm, Todd & Brown Inc. He also served as director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company

Interior Designers

Investments/Investors

Iron and Steel

Journalism

Logistics

Lumber industry

  • Chancy Lamb (1816-1897) pioneer in the lumber industry in Clinton, Iowa.
  • William Price (1789-1867) timber baron in Québec, Canada. Founder of William Price Company, which held a monopoly on the lumber sector in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in the 1800's.

Manufacturing

Media (Television and Radio)

Mining

  • William Andrews Clark, Sr. (1839 - 1925) USA copper magnate from Montana
  • William Earl Dodge, Jr. (1832 – 1903) USA businessperson and philanthropist. For many years one of two controlling partners in the Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the largest copper mining corporations in the United States.
  • John Hays Hammond (1855 - 1936) USA
  • John William Mackay (1831-1902) USA miner and business leader, controlled the richest ground in the Comstock mining area of Nevada and founded the Postal Telegraph Company.
  • Anson Green Phelps (1781 - 1853) USA co-founder of mining company Phelps Dodge, which he founded in 1833 with his son-in-law William E. Dodge
  • Francis Marion "Borax" Smith (1846-1931) USA
  • Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn (1818 - 1882) USA - Wisconsin Mining Company
  • Cyrus Woodman - Wisconsin Mining Company

Newspapers and Magazines

  • Gordon Bennett (1841 - 1918) USA publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
  • James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (1795 - 1872) Scottish Immigrant USA founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald and a major figure in the history of American newspapers.
  • William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow (1805 – 1877) USA newspaper editor, minister, and politician. Formed the Knoxville Chronicle in 1870
  • George Bannerman Dealey (1859-1946) USA publisher of The Dallas Morning News
  • William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) USA newspaper magnate and leading newspaper publisher
  • Henry Robinson Luce (1898 - 1967) USA publisher of Time, Fortune and LIFE magazines.
  • William Rule (1839 – 1928) American newspaper editor and politician best known as the founder of the Knoxville Journal
  • Ellen Browning Scripps(1836 - 1932) Born in London, USA Started The Detroit News with her brother James. She wrote a widely-distributed daily newspaper column until the year of her death in 1932. She founded Scripps Hospital and Scripps Metabolic Clinic.
  • John Hay Whitney, (1904-1982) USA publisher of the New York Herald Tribune

Petroleum and Oil Industries

Philanthropists

Photography

Printing

  • Robert Hoe (1784 - 1833) English born USA introduced the original Hoe press and was, it is thought, the earliest American machinist to utilize steam as a motive power in his plant.

Publishing

Railway industry

  • Matthias W. Baldwin (1795 - 1866) USA American manufacturer of steam locomotives
  • Lt. Colonel Roger Preston Chew (1843 - 1921) USA prominent West Virginia businessman and railroad executive.
  • Chauncey Depew (1834 - 1928)
  • Henry Morrison Flagler (1830–1913) USA industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil. Key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida; Founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway.
  • John Edgar Thomson (1808-1874) USA American civil engineer, railroad executive and industrialist.
  • David Hoadley (1806 – 1873) USA businessman, and an executive in the banking and railroad industries.
  • Melvin Ezra Ingalls (1842-1914) USA president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (the Big Four Railroad).
  • George Laidlaw (1828-1889) Canada
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt, II (1843 - 1899) USA
  • Frederick William Vanderbilt (1856 - 1938)USA
  • William Henry Vanderbilt, I (1821-1885) USA
  • George Westinghouse, Jr. (1846 - 1914) USA entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry.
  • David Levy Yulee (1810 - 1886) USA president of the Florida Railroad Company 1853-1866; president of Peninsular Railroad Company, Tropical Florida Railway Company, and Fernandina and Jacksonville Railroad Company; known as the “Father of Florida’s railroads”

Real estate

Retail industry

Sports

  • Bud Adams (1923 - 2013) USA
  • Morgan Bulkeley (1837 - 1922) USA first president of the National League; Under his guidance, Aetna had been transformed from a life insurance company into a company that offered accident, health, automobile,workers compensation, and group insurance.
  • Walter A. Haas Jr. (1916 - 1995)
  • Peter Holt (12948) USA owner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment
  • Sir John Moores, CBE (1896 - 1993) Littlewoods Football poolsUK
  • Francis Asbury "Fran" Tarkenton (born 1940) commentator on Monday Night Football and as a co-host of Thats Incredible! Founded Tarkenton Software, a computer-program generator company.
  • Joan Whitney (1903-1975) USA co-founder, majority owner baseballs New York Mets

Steel industry

  • Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Scottish born USA who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century
  • F. Kenneth Iverson (1925 - 2002)

Textiles

  • Amos Lawrence (1786 - 1852) USA merchant and philanthropist. Founded a dry-goods mercantile in Boston, which became extraordinarily successful. In 1830, Lawrence established a cotton factory in Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • Jim Thompson (1906 - c.1967)
  • George W. Woodruff (1895 - 1987) Continental Gin Company from 1930 to 1985, which was a cotton-processing business

Transportation

  • Phineas Banning (1830 – 1885) USA businessman, financier, and entrepreneur. He operated a freighting business and a stage coach line between San Pedro and Wilmington, and later between Banning, California
  • Malcom McLean (1913-2001) Pioneer of containerization
  • Preserved Smith (1820 - 1887)
  • John D. Spreckels (1853 - 1926) USA
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794 - 1877) USA shipping and railroads.
  • Cassius Milton Wicker (1846 - 1913) railroad manager and banker USA
  • Alfred Booth (1834-1914) UK
  • Rt Hon Charles Booth, PC, FRS (1840 - 1916) UK Founded, with his brother Alfred,‎ the shipping company which became the Booth Steamship Company.
  • Sir Samuel Cunard, 1st Baronet (1787-1865) UKJ British shipping magnate, born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, who founded the Cunard Line.
  • Archibald Gracie (1755 - 1829) Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant. Insurance, Banking
  • Thaddeus Leavitt (1750-1826) USA Connecticut, merchant who invented an early cotton gin. Merchant and shipowner
  • Colonel John Stevens (1749-1838) USA lawyer, engineer and inventor who built the Phœnix steamship with his son Robert Livingston Stevens.
  • Colonel Robert Livingston Stevens (1787 – 1856) In 1807, he and his father, Colonel John Stevens, built the Phœnix steamship
  • William Fletcher Weld (1800 - 1881)Shipping Magnate. USA
  • Henry Melville Whitney (1839-1923) USA founder of the West End Street Railway Company of Boston, Massachusetts; Dominion Coal Company Ltd.;Dominion Iron and Steel Company Ltd. of Sydney, Nova Scotia. President of the Metropolitan Steamship Company, long an important transportation link between Boston and New York City.
  • Samuel Gardner Wilder (1831 - 1888) USA

Other businesspeople

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