American businessman Steven Rales has an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion as of January 2016, according to Forbes and he is considered as the richest person in Washington, D.C. According to Forbes.com, #353 in the World Billionaires List, #344 in 2012, #115 in the United States, and #120 in the Forbes 400 List. Born Stephen M. Rales in 1951, he earned his B.A. from DePauw University and was awarded a J.D. from American University.

Rales worked for a year in his father’s real estate firm and left a year later to co-found Equity Group Holdings along with his brother Mitchell Rales. Using junk bonds, they bought diversified businesses related to housing construction and parts manufacturing such as a vinyl siding manufacturer, Mastershield, Mohawk Rubber Company, and the Diversified Mortgage Group. They changed the company’s name to Diversified Mortgage Investors in 1978 and later became Danaher 1984 where he served as the Chairman of the Board of the public traded company.

Since then, the company has expanded and diversified. In February 2013, the firm’s blood analysis division agreed to pay a reported $300 million for Quest Diagnostics’ Home Cue, a manufacturer of blood-testing equipment for doctors’ offices. Earlier in the year, it has acquired Navman Wireless, a company that makes a tracking system for monitoring fleets of vehicles. In 2008, the Rales brothers took Colfax, an industrial pump maker. In January 2013, it finalized a $2.4 billion deal to buy Charter International, a British wedding, cutting, and automation company.

Steven Rales is the founder of Indian Paintbrush, a film production company based in Santa Monica, California which produced Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. In January 2013, he produced Breathe In which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.