Bernard Marcus

Bernard Marcus was born in 1929, and raised in Newark, New York by Jewish immigrant parents. Growing up, his family had little money, so they lived in the poorer part of town. Marcus started his working life at thirteen years old, and went to school as well. His ambition was to become a doctor, and to that end, he enrolled at New Jersey's Rutgers after he finished high school. He ultimately wanted to attend the medical program at Harvard, but was told that due to his Jewish heritage he would have to pay a bribe in order to get in. His family could not afford the ten thousand dollar payment, so he instead decided to become a pharmacist, graduating from Rutgers in 1954.

Bernard MarcusHowever, he only worked for a short time as a pharmacist, and within a few years after college he began his retail sales career. Over the next few decades he worked his way up the corporate ladder, working for stores such as Odell and Two Guys. By the middle of the 1970s, he was employed in an executive position at Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, which at the time had several stores in the western US. There, he worked with Arthur Blank, who was to become his business partner.

In the middle of 1978, both Blank and Marcus were terminated from Handy Dan's. A friend and contemporary, Ken Langone, told Bernard Marcus that he should go into business for himself; a few years earlier, Marcus and Langone came up with the idea for a chain of larger home improvement centers. Now that he was out of work, Marcus could bring that concept to fruition. With Blank as a partner, they began looking for a good city in which to open their first store, deciding on Atlanta. The first Home Depot opened its doors in June 1979, and the chain was an immediate success. The company went public within two years, and Blank & Marcus went into an extensive expansion program. Today, Home Depot has more than three hundred thousand employees distributed across 1,800 North American stores.

Due to the success of the Home Depot, Bernard Marcus has been able to donate money and time to various charitable causes. Philanthropy runs in his family- his mother taught him from an early age about donating to good causes, and with his billions, Marcus began to give very generously to causes that he believed in. He founded the Israel Democracy Institute in 1991, as an expression of his Jewish pride. The IDI is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to the promotion of democracy. Marcus' devotion to Jewish affairs inspired then-Secretary of State George Schultz to affiliate himself with the IDI as well.

Not satisfied, Marcus involved himself in children's health after one of his employees' children became seriously ill. He founded the Marcus Institute, which offers treatment to children with brain disorders, and he also donates to other health causes. In 2002, he donated almost four million dollars to the CDC in Atlanta, allowing for the creation of an anthrax response center. Currently, Marcus serves as chairman of the Marcus Foundation, deciding how to distribute his wealth.