Ken Langone - Home Depot

Home Depot founder Ken Langone is a New Yorker, born and raised. He currently resides in Sand Point, New York, is married to his wife, Elaine and has three grown children.

As an escape from the raucous world of business Langone takes pleasure in reading and playing golf with his wife. He is the son of a plumber and a cafeteria worker and had to be considered an unlikely candidate to become a billionaire. While in high school his principal suggested to his parents that they would be wasting their money by sending the younger Langone to college.

Ken Langone proved the principal wrong and made his parents proud by graduating from Bucknell University in 3 ½ years with degrees in Economics and Political Science. Always staying true to his working class roots he worked as a butcher’s helper, caddy and even ditch-digger to pay his way through school. He followed his work at Bucknell with a graduate degree from NYU’s School of Business where he earned his MBA. As a patriot Langone also served two years in the U.S. Army.

It was after this brief hiatus in the military that Langone grew into the man he would become known as. He got his start in the Wall Street firm R.W. Pressprich and Co. He became an Executive Vice President and from this position took Texas millionaire Ross Perot’s company Electronic Data Systems (EDS) public. He also acted as an advisor to Perot and the two formed a strong friendship which has lasted well into the 1990s when Langone supported Perot’s bid on the Presidency.