Richest Person in Every State

The founder of auction website eBay, Pierre Omidyar, has an estimated net worth of $13.2 billion. Omidyar, who spent several years of his childhood in Hawaii, moved back to Honolulu in 2006. He invested millions in various business and philanthropic projects throughout the islands, focusing in areas such as local food production, renewable energy, and waste reduction.

Idaho’s richest person is Frank VanderSloot, the founder and long-time head of consumer products and supplements company Melaleuca. VanderSloot has helmed the company since he started it in 1985. Melaleuca now reports annual revenue of over $2 billion.

Ken Griffin founded global investment fund Citadel in 1990. With an estimated net worth of $13.1 billion, Griffin is the richest person in Illinois and one of the 40 wealthiest people in the United States. Griffin has donated an estimated $900 million throughout his life, much of which went to nonprofits in his home of Chicago.

Bloomington’s Carl Cook is the CEO of Cook Group, a long-time maker of medical equipment. The company specializes in devices used in minimally-invasive surgery such as stents and filters. Carl inherited control of Cook Group from his parents, who founded the company. With a net worth of $10.4 billion, Cook is the wealthiest person in Indiana.

With an estimated net worth of $5.4 billion, Harry Stine is the wealthiest person in Iowa. Stine made his fortune in the state’s substantial corn and soybean industries. The Stine Seed Company — originally founded in the 1950s by Stine’s father as Stine Seed Farm — today owns hundreds of patents in soybean and corn genetics and does over $1 billion in sales annually. Stine still resides with his family in Adel, where his grandparents first moved in the late 1800s.