DEVOS NIXES LEGACY

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May 08, 2006

Amway co-founder Rich DeVos made a curious statement after receiving the taxpayer-subsidized Woodrow Wilson award for public service. According to Mark Fellows in the May 4th edition of Business Review Western Michigan, DeVos stated that he and his wife "have no concern about keeping a foundation alive" after they die. He apparently has no plans of endowing, upon his demise, a foundation to carry out charitable works.

He then, once again, boasted about getting his name on various things in Grand Rapids and prided himself on his vanity which drove him to "outbid" everyone else to get his name on projects like the new convention center downtown. Of course, vanity is of little use to a man six-feet-under. Likewise, a foundation that has been the vehicle for that vanity. So, DeVos's coolness to an enduring charitable legacy makes sense in that regard.

Then again, the old man may be setting the stage to pre-empt the embarrassing prospect of his heirs looting the cash from his foundation after his death in the way the children of his late partner Jay Van Andel sacked the Van Andel Foundation a month after their father's funeral and then permanently shut it down.

Posted on May 08, 2006 at 10:46 AM in Project: Pyramid Power | Permalink

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