JOE RITCHIE
Joseph Ritchie (born 1946) is a commodities and options dealer (finance)
, the founder of Chicago Research and Trading, whose capital went up from $200,000 to over $225 million in 11 years(*). According to Business Week
Business Week is a business magazine published by McGraw-Hill. It was first published in 1929 under the direction of Malcolm Muir, who was serving as president of the McGraw-Hill Publishing company at the time....
, "Ritchie is widely acknowledged to be one of the sharpest minds in the options business".
As an avid aircraft owner/operator, Joe Ritchie and his personal friend and mentor, record-setting balloonist Steve Fossett
James Stephen Fossett was an United States businessman, aviator, sailor, and adventurer and the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon....
, captured 4 world records previously held by Chuck Yeager in a Piper Cheyenne 400LS. Flying a Piaggio P.180 from San Diego to Charleston, S.C. on February 6, 2003, Ritchie and Fossett averaged 546.81 mph, setting a class transcontinental record and, in the process, establishing new point-to-point records from El Paso to Charleston and Fort Worth, and from Fort Worth to Atlanta. The transcontinental speed record was selected as one of the National Aeronautic AssociationNational Aeronautic Association
The National Aeronautic Association of the United States is a non-profit 501 organization and a member of the Fed?ration Aeronautique Internationale , the international standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics....
's Most Memorable Aviation Records of 2003. He has also served as chief of mission control on all of Fossett's missions.
In 1989 Ritchie committed $ 30 million of his own cash to buy Eastern Airlines.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washing....html?dids=73880740:73880740&FMT=ABS&FMTS..In 2000 he and his brother James tried to unite AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
and overthrow the Taliban.
Gorbachov's chief economic advisors said about Ritchie "My dear friend Joe Ritchie is able to use socialist principles and still make a profit."
Joe Ritchie is also currently serving as the CEO of the Rwanda Development Board.(*)