Diane Hendrix did not grow up in the legacy of celebrities or political leaders. Instead, she spent her childhood on a dairy farm in Wisconsin – a work ethic training that eventually helped her build a business empire.
Last week, Hendrix – which has a net worth of 11.6 billion dollars – topped the Forbes list of the richest self-made women in America for the fifth consecutive year. Her fortune largely depends on ABC Supply, a building materials company she built with her late husband in 1982. She is currently the company’s chairman.
In 2017, Hendrix told Forbes that watching her parents run the farm 24/7 established her work ethic, which became important at an early age: she became pregnant at age 17 and had to finish her final year of high school while living in at home. . At the age of 21, she filed for divorce from her high school sweetheart and, as a single mother, tackled a series of strange office jobs – instead of choosing a career and purposefully pursuing success in it – before eventually pursuing a license. for real estate.
“Motherhood got in the way very quickly and I grew up very fast,” Hendrix said. “It didn’t stop me from wanting to achieve my dream. In fact, I think I became even more focused on what I wanted to achieve.”
Some of her dreams were simple, Hendrix said: moving to the city and wearing a suit to work every day. These dreams came true after she met and married construction contractor Ken Hendrix in the 1970s. Together, the duo combined talent and co-founded ABC Supply in Beloit, Wisconsin.
By 1994, the company had 100 locations. Four years later, it raised more than $ 1 billion in annual revenue for the first time, according to Forbes.
After her husband’s death in 2007, Hendrix ran ABC Supply alone. The company already has more than 840 locations, according to its website, and is the 23rd largest private company in the country, according to Forbes. ABC Supply’s website notes that it has acquired the assets of 18 other companies in the last five years, a sign of its market dominance.
Success did not come without controversy. In 2016, the first year Hendrix topped the Forbes list, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that she “did not pay a penny of state income tax from 2012 to 2014.” She also did not owe money for state taxes in 2010, according to the publication.
This is not necessarily illegal: ABC Supply tax director Scott Bianchini tells CNBC Make It that the company has changed its tax classification from C-corp to S-corp over the years. Under Wisconsin state law, corporations can apply for a federal-level S-corps and a state-level C-corps, which means that ABC Supply can choose outside the status of U.S. tax options – potentially including all checks made by the company. Hendrix – if all his federal taxes are paid.
Today, Hendrix is still based in Beloit, which has less than 37,000 inhabitants. According to Forbes, she has spent millions of dollars on local projects to restore abandoned properties and start a new business in the country.
In 2017, Hendrix opened a local career center that hosts seminars to teach secondary and high school skills such as coding and construction. She told Forbes that the program aims to expose teenagers to the “value of work”.
“The kids say, ‘Wow, is that how a welder works?'” She said. “They can go to vocational school and become a welder who will pay $ 50,000 a year. These are good jobs. Really good jobs.
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