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Up for sale a RARE! "The Home Depot" Bernard Marcus Hand Signed TLS Dated 2005.
chairman until retiring in 2002. Bernard Marcus was born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Newark, New Jersey. He
grew up in a tenement and graduated from South Side High School in
1947. Marcus wanted to become a doctor but could not afford the tuition,
so he worked for his father as a cabinet maker. He studied at Rutgers there he joined the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. Marcus worked at a drugstore as a pharmacist but became more interested in
the retailing side of the business. He worked at a cosmetics company and various other retail jobs,
eventually reaching a position as CEO of Handy Dan Improvement Centers, a Los Angeles-based chain of home improvement stores. In 1978,
both he and future Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank were fired during a corporate power struggle
at Handy Dan. In 1979, they co-founded the home-improvement retailer The Home Depot, with the help of merchandising expert Pat Farrah and New York investment banker Ken Langone who assembled a group of investors. The store
revolutionized the home improvement business with its warehouse concept. Blank,
Marcus, and Langone became billionaires. Marcus served as the company's first
CEO for 19 years and also served as chairman of the board until his retirement
in 2002. Marcus was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of
Fame in 2006. Marcus is one of several business tycoons who opposed the Employee Free Choice Act,
a controversial proposal they claim gives unfair advantage to labor unions. The
EFCA would outlaw conducting employee union votes with secret ballots while
allowing fines and injunctions when employees claim they are being punished for
union activity on the job. In
January 2014, Marcus founded the Job Creators Network, a
conservative advocacy group, with $500,000 in seed funding. In
2015, Marcus donated $1.5 million to Super PACs supporting Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. On June 1,
2016, Marcus publicly announced his support for Republican presumptive
presidential nominee Donald Trump. When Marcus
announced in 2019 that he would inancially
support the Donald Trump
2020 presidential campaign, it triggered calls for a boycott of Home
Depot even though Marcus was by then no longer with the company. In a June 2019
interview, Marcus said most of his wealth is in Home Depot stock. Marcus
co-founded the Israel Democracy Institute in
1991, contributing $5 million for the construction of the institute's building
in Jerusalem's Talbiya neighborhood and investing
hundreds of millions of shekels in its ongoing operation over
the years. He heavily contributed to the launch of the Georgia Aquarium, which opened in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, in 2005. Based mostly on the US$250M million donation
for the Aquarium, Marcus and his wife, Billi, were listed among the top
charitable donors in the country by The Chronicle of
Philanthropy in 2005. Marcus also funded and founded The
Marcus Institute, a center for the provision of services for children and
adolescents with developmental disabilities.
In May 2005, Marcus was awarded the Others Award by the Salvation Army, its highest honor. Marcus donated $25 million
to Autism Speaks to
spearhead its efforts to raise money for research on the causes and cure for
autism. He is an active member of the board of directors. Bernie and Billi
Marcus are signatories of The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of
their wealth to philanthropic causes. Marcus is chairman of the Marcus
Foundation, whose focuses include children, medical research, free enterprise,
military veterans, Israeli causes and the community. Marcus is on the
Board of Directors and an active volunteer for the Shepherd Center. His main focus is in providing care for war
veterans with traumatic brain injuries. He was named a Georgia Trustee in 2009. The
award is given by the Georgia Historical Society,
in conjunction with the Governor of Georgia, to
individuals whose accomplishments and community service reflect the ideals of
the founding body of Trustees, which governed the Georgia colony from 1732 to 1752.
In 2012, Marcus was awarded the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership. In 2016,
Marcus and his wife Billi donated $25 million (U.S.) to the construction of the
$133 million MDA Marcus National Blood Services Centre in Israel. Also in 2016,
Marcus was one of Trump's largest donors, giving $7 million to his campaign,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics.