Mitchell Rales

Mitchell P. Rales (born August 1956) is an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. He founded Danaher Corporation in 1984 with his brother Steven Rales and is the chairman of its executive committee. Rales is also the chairman of Enovis and ESAB, president of the National Gallery of Art, and founder of Glenstone, his art museum and residence he established with his wife Emily Wei. His net worth was estimated by Forbes in April 2023 to be US$5.6 billion.

Mitchell Rales
Rales in 2018
BornAugust 1956 (age 66)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationMiami University (1978)
Occupations
Known forCo-founding Danaher and Glenstone
TitlePresident, National Gallery of Art
Board member of
Spouses
  • Lyn Goldthorp (div. 1999)
  • ​
    (m. 2008)​
Children2
FamilySteven Rales (brother)

Early life

Rales was born in August 1956 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[1] and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, where he graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 1974.[2][3][4] He was a captain of their football and baseball teams.[3] Rales earned a degree in business administration at Miami University in 1978 and was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.[5]

Career

Business

In 1979, Rales left his father's real estate firm to found Equity Group Holdings with his brother, Steven Rales. Using junk bonds, they bought a diversified line of businesses. In 1978, they changed the name to Diversified Mortgage Investors and then to Danaher in 1984.[6]

In the 1980s, the AM side of radio station WGMS was sold off to Rales, who converted it WTEM, a sports-talk station, in 1992. In 1988, he made a takeover bid for Interco, Inc., which was, at the time, the nation's largest manufacturer of furniture and men's shoes.[7][8] He later ended the bid after five months with a profit of $60 million.[9] In 1995, Rales and his brother founded Colfax Corporation, an industrial pumps manufacturer now known as Enovis.[10] Rales is a majority shareholder of Fortive and served on their board of directors from July 2016 to June 2021.[6][11]

In 2023, Rales was a part of an investment group led by Josh Harris that reached an agreement to purchase the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL), for $6.05 billion.[12] The deal, the largest for any sports franchise in history, is expected to be ratified at a league meeting in late May.[12]

Art
Main article: Glenstone
Glenstone, an art museum he founded with his wife

In 2006, Rales and his wife Emily Wei Rales opened Glenstone, an art museum in Potomac, Maryland.[13][14] The museum displays the Rales's collection of post-World War II art, including paintings, sculptures, and both indoor and outdoor installations, and also functions as his personal residence.[15][16] In 2018, Glenstone finished a $219 million expansion which increased both the gallery space and the wooded land surrounding the galleries.[17] Rales donated $1.9 billion to the Glenstone Foundation in 2021, increasing the museum's asset value to $4.6 billion, nearly the same as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[16] The museum is free to visit, with appointments booked online.[18][19]

Personal life

Rales is Jewish and is one of four sons of Ruth (née Abramson) and Norman Rales.[20][21] Norman was raised in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York and later became a successful businessman, who sold his building supply company in Washington, D.C. to his employees in what was the first employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transaction in the US. Norman was also a philanthropist, having founded the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation and the Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service.[20] Rales has three brothers: Joshua, Steven, and Stewart.[20]

Rales has been married twice. He and his first wife, Lyn Goldthorp Rales, had two children before a divorce in 1999.[22] He married his second wife, Emily Wei, in 2008.[17][23][3] He lives in Potomac, Maryland.[24] Rales is the president of the National Gallery of Art and serves as chairman of the board of Enovis and ESAB. He is also a former board member of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.[25] In 2023, he was elected as a member of the Business, Corporate, and Philanthropic Leadership class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[26] Rales signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, with his net worth being estimated by Forbes in April 2023 to be US$5.6 billion.[24][27]

References
  1. "Mitchell RALES". gov.uk. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  2. Alessia Zorloni (August 19, 2016). Art Wealth Management: Managing Private Art Collections. Springer. p. 135. ISBN 978-3-319-24241-5. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  3. Edgers, Geoff (September 24, 2018). "Meet the very wealthy, very private couple behind Washington's most original museum". Washington Post. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  4. Murphy, Carolyn and Lynn Stander (September 2005). "We Knew Them When". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008.
  5. Kiger, Patrick J. (November 1994). "The good guys: Steven and Mitchell Rales have quietly brown-bagged their way to fortunes worth half a billion dollars. But they'd rather you didn't know that. Or them". Regardie's Magazine.
  6. "Bloomberg Billionaires Index #309 Mitchell Rales". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved March 8, 2022.
  7. David A. Vise; Steve Coll (August 23, 1988). "The Rales Brothers Play for Big Stakes; Little-Known Area Family Builds an Industrial Empire". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
  8. "COMPANY NEWS; Request on Interco". The New York Times. August 4, 1988.
  9. "COMPANY NEWS; Rales Brothers Sell Their Interco Stake". The New York Times. December 16, 1988.
  10. Thomas Heath (July 7, 2008). "The Quiet Dynamism of the Brothers Rales". The Washington Post.
  11. "Fortive Announces Appointment of Daniel Comas to Its Board of Directors and the Retirement of Steven Rales and Mitchell Rales From the Board". investors.fortive.com. March 11, 2021. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  12. Maske, Mark; Jhabvala, Nicki (May 12, 2023). "Josh Harris has signed, exclusive deal with Daniel Snyder for Commanders". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 12, 2023.
  13. Russeth, Andrew (September 21, 2018). "Maximum Minimalism: Emily and Mitchell Rales's Glenstone Museum Grows". ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  14. Sernovitz, Daniel J. (September 6, 2018). "Contractor sues Glenstone museum for $24 million 'disorganized' expansion planning". Washington Business Journal. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
  15. Sussman, Anna Louie (September 25, 2018). "Inside the $200 Million Expansion of America's New Must-See Museum". Artsy. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  16. Maloney, Tom (February 28, 2023). "This Upstart Museum Now Has a Met-Sized Endowment". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  17. Vogel, Carol (April 18, 2013). "Mitchell and Emily Rales Are Expanding Glenstone Museum". The New York Times.
  18. Pogrebin, Robert (September 21, 2018). "Glenstone, a Private Art Xanadu, Invests $200 Million in a Public Vision". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 2, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  19. Smee, Sebastian; Higgins, Adrian. "Glenstone: See inside (and outside) D.C.'s newest museum experience". Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 2, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  20. Huriash, Lisa (March 15, 2012). "Norman Rales, orphan to wealthy businessman and philanthropist, is dead at 88". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  21. Art Wealth Management: Managing Private Art Collections. Zorloni, Alessia. August 19, 2016. ISBN 978-3319242415. OCLC 957318205.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. Valdez, Angela (June 6, 2008). "A Very Private Collection". Washington City Paper. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  23. Kennicott, Philip (May 17, 2013). "Museums". The Washington Post.
  24. "Forbes profile: Mitchell Rales". Forbes. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  25. Selvin, Claire (September 27, 2019). "National Gallery of Art Names Darren Walker Trustee, Mitchell Rales Appointed President". ARTnews. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
  26. "New Members Elected in 2023". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  27. "Emily and Mitchell Rales". givingpledge.org. Retrieved March 9, 2023.
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