Family
Prince's father, Edgar D. Prince, began Prince Machine Corporation, an automobile supply company, in 1965. The business "exploded" and Prince began to invest some of the profits, through the Prince Group, into shopping malls and other types of car parts, creating a network of companies and real estate worth a billion dollars. In the early 1970s, Edgar Prince's company patented a sun visor that could light up and sold 5,000 to General Motors. When the company was sold in the 90s, the company produced 20,000 a day.
In 1995 after the death of his father, Erik assumed control of daily operations, which was eventually sold for $1.35 billion in 1996. Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party and wife of former Alticor (Amway) president and Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos.
Prince has seven children. His wife, Joan, died of cancer in June 2003. His youngest, Charles Donovan, was named after William "Wild Bill" Donovan.
Read more about this topic: Erik Prince
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Diamonds may have been a girl’s best friend in an era when a woman’s only hope of having a high family income was to marry a man who was well-off, but today, marketable skills that will enable a woman to command a good income over her lifetime are a better investment.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)