Estimated net worth: $850 million
John J. Moores plays ball for a living in a nonliteral way as chairman of the San Diego Padres baseball team.
He is worth $850 million and comes in at No. 8 on this year’s San Diego Business Journal list of wealthiest residents.
The Corpus Christi, Texas, native jumps two spots from the No. 10 position on the Journal’s 2006 list. He’s also a millionaire who has known exactly how the other half lives, having grown up in poverty.
According to published reports, he shared a room in a converted garage with his two brothers and used money from a paper route to help buy his stepfather a car.
Moores would later make his fortune in computers as a software code writer who wisely invested his profits.
In 1994, he bought the Padres franchise. It was around the same time that he invested in San Diego-based software company Peregrine Systems Inc.
The company would eventually go bankrupt, but not before going public with Moores at the helm as chairman. He would resign upon reorganization.
Moores and his wife, Rebecca, have four adult children.
According to published reports, Moores founded the River Blindness Foundation, a group that distributes drugs needed to fight disease in Third World countries. Moores is also chairman of the board of The Carter Center, which is committed to advancing human rights and alleviating unnecessary human suffering. Founded in 1982 by former President Carter and former first Lady Rosalynn Carter, the Atlanta-based center has helped to improve the quality of life for people in more than 70 countries, according to its Web site.