High Finance: How to Become a Millionaire (It Still Happens All the Time)

Just a few years back, Don Over was a craps dealer in Las Vegas, Merlyn Mickelson was a disk jockey in Wadena, Minn., and Al Maisin was a long shoreman in San Francisco. Today all three have one thing in common: they are millionaires. Becoming a millionaire is still an eminently realizable goal for many Americans, and many of them —like Over, Mickelson and Maisin — start the journey with little or no capital and reach the magic $1,000,000 mark well before they are 45. In the past decade, about 5,000 new millionaires have been added to the federal tax rolls.

Despite the dominance of large corporations, increasing competition, and a tax structure that takes as much as 70% of income, it is still easier to make a million in the U.S. than anywhere else. Reasons: a rapidly changing American technology, the shift to a service economy, and the insatiable appetite for new and better ways of doing things. Says Arthur Decio, 34, president of Indiana’s Skyline Homes Inc., who rode the mobile-home boom to a personal fortune of more than $5,000,000: “It’s easier to get ahead than it was 15 or 40 years ago. Look at the population growth and the tremendous rise in personal income. It’s easier to borrow money than in the old days, when bankers were real stuffy. This country is just loaded with opportunities.”

The trick is to discover a need, then find a way to fill it. Don Over, 37, saw a need for a trade journal that would tell big builders what major construction jobs were up for bidding: he took over a failing Honolulu magazine and printing press, built up a circulation in 60 countries for his International Construction Reporter (cost: $50 per year). Merlyn Mickelson decided that the computer companies would need a lot of handmade magnetic memory cores, started turning them out in his basement workshop; that eventually grew into Fabri-Tek Inc., in which his stockholdings are now worth $46 million. Al Maisin sensed the hidden values in old neighborhoods, started remodeling dilapidated houses in his spare time, has become a prosperous builder.

Courage Is Needed. Vastly different in their traits and talents, America’s newly wealthy entrepreneurs nonetheless share some telling similarities. Ambitious, energetic and supremely confident, they have had vision enough to get an idea, courage enough to pursue it. They were often discouraged by the experts, and they failed frequently—only to rebound. So eager were they to test their ideas that many of them dropped out of college, though dropping out is by no means a requisite for making a million. They made tremendous sacrifices, taking meager salaries at first and pouring the profits back into their business. Many did not marry until they were well into their 30s, and then picked women who would put up with long hours of work. “The young millionaire,” says Arthur W. Carlsberg, 32, who has made $5,000,000 by selecting, improving and selling Southern California land, “is the kind of guy people will tell to take a vacation—and he won’t know what they mean.”

Many men have made their millions by manufacturing uncomplicated products and marketing them with single-minded concentration. Atlanta’s Alvin Weeks, 41, began by mixing divinity fudge on his mother-in-law’s stove; with his profits, he branched into baking, saw the potential of marketing sweet rolls in easy-to-heat foil pans, this year will sell $6,000,000 worth of “Aunt Fanny’s” sweet rolls to supermarkets, airlines and other large buyers. For Cincinnati’s Joseph McVicker, 34, the payoff idea was to turn doughlike wallpaper cleaner into a nonsticky modeling compound for children. Although the toymakers told him it would never sell, he has built a $4,000,000-a-year business from his “Play-Doh.” Says McVicker: “I guess I wasn’t bright enough not to act: you have got to believe in your product so strongly that you can overcome the doubts of others.”

Money Makes Money. Cleveland’s Art Modell, 41, a former shipyard worker, parlayed three growth businesses—television, supermarkets and professional sports—into a fortune. He put TV sets in supermarkets, then broadcast special programs for shoppers, and with the profits from commercials bought football’s Cleveland Browns, now worth about $10,000,000. Among the many men who have made money from electronics, Greek-born Vessarios Chigas, 43, left a job at Sylvania, set up Boston’s Microwave Associates; he now is worth at least a million. Charles Stein, 37, sensed a rich future in convenience foods. He began by buying oranges at retail and squeezing them into juice for hospitals and hotels; the business grew so vitamin-rich that National Dairy bought it from him for 17,000 shares of stock (now worth $1,530,000), and Stein has gone on to become president of Chicago’s Kitchens of Sara Lee, Inc.

“To become a millionaire,” says Bernard Feinberg, 40, “you have got to have confidence and ego—and I have both.” On a map of Chicago, he pinpointed neighborhoods with strong business potential but weak banking facilities, opened up a score of small-currency exchanges in those areas; as his business developed, he started the Jefferson State Bank (assets: $35 million), and became one of the youngest U.S. bank presidents. Another millionaire who has used money to make money is Phoenix Mortgage Banker A. B. (“Bob”) Robbs Jr., 43, who went into New York cold in 1949, sold bankers on the wonders of Arizona, since then has brought $250 million into the state.

Publicity Helps. Though small-manufacturing and consulting services contribute many millionaires, real estate has probably produced more than any other field. Among them: former Carpenters Jordon Perlmutter, 34, and Samuel Primack, 39, who have lately put up more than 8,000 houses in the Denver area; and Gerald Blakeley, 45, who once had planned to become an Episcopal minister but instead has earned close to $100 million constructing industrial parks from Boston to San Francisco.

In any field, a flair for personal publicity helps. Iowa Lawyer Jack Schroeder, 39, made headlines through politics—he is a longtime Republican state legislator—and he is sure that the exposure aided in launching his General Life of Iowa Insurance Co., whose assets are now more than $8,000,000. Most millionaires have a compulsion to be in business for themselves, but some employees in the corporate world have taken the optional road to riches. At Idaho’s Boise Cascade Corp., Vice President William Eberle, 41, has piled up $2,300,000 worth of stock through options, and the chief designer of Control Data’s computers, Seymour Cray, 39, has stock worth well over $1,000,000. They, of course, showed fine timing and an expert instinct for opportunity. Through the careers of all the young millionaires runs a golden thread: they determined early in life to devote themselves to accumulating great wealth, and they pursued that goal with uncommon passion.