From homelessness to med school to medals to $millions$
Ebony, Dec, 2001 by Charles Whitaker
CHRISTOPHER GARDNER
A huge elephant head hangs on the wall of Chris Gardner's 60th floor high-rise office. It is a symbol of the multimillion-dollar deals Gardner negotiates as the president and chief executive officer of Gardner & Rich, an investment house in Chicago that traffics largely in the big-money world of public finance.
"We bag elephants," Gardner says of the high-powered investment deals he negotiates daily. "That's our motto. We go after the big deals because it takes just as much effort to land a $500 account as it does to land a $5 million one."
It's hard to believe that Chris Gardner, "elephant bagger," is the same Chris Gardner who was homeless. But 20 years ago, with his infant son in tow, he was "bathing" in public rest rooms, eating in a soup kitchen, and scrapping and scratching to make a way in the world. "I had two suits," he recalls. "One was blue and one was gray, just like the Civil War. And man, I alternated those suits every day. But I swore that if I ever made it, I was going to have more than two suits."
Today, Gardner, a 47-year-old self-made millionaire, has more than 200 suits. He also has four homes and a custom Ferrari that once belonged to Michael Jordan. But on the road to his present-day riches, Gardner endured the sort of poverty and homelessness that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man.
With intense dedication and singular focus, this high school dropout drove his dreams to the top and now lives a lifestyle he hardly could have imagined in his youth.
He grew up in Milwaukee, the only son and second-oldest in a family of 12 children. His single mother was a schoolteacher by training, but took a variety of jobs to provide for her children. Young Chris' ambitions were always fanciful. At first, he wanted to be Miles Davis. He studied trumpet for nine years, but eventually realized, "I had the attitude, but I didn't have the talent," he says. "Besides, there was only one Miles Davis and he already had that job."
His goals then became a little less specific, career-wise. "I just wanted to make a million dollars," he says. "But I couldn't sing and I couldn't play ball, so I said to my mother, `How am I going to make a million dollars?' And she said to me, `Son, if you believe you can do it, you will.'"
It was the faith of his mother that set Gardner off on the incredible journey that led to his current success. It was a rather circuitous journey, however.
A bright but indifferent student, Gardner decided early on that college wasn't for him. He dropped out of high school, lied about his age and joined the Navy, hoping to see the world and become a medic. But the farthest his naval career got him was North Carolina.
Working in the Navy's medical corps did help him make an important connection with a cardiac surgeon who was also in the service. When both were discharged, Gardner traveled to California and became the doctor's clinical research assistant at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. The work was fascinating, but Gardner was still only making $7,400 a year, a paltry salary even in 1973.
He contemplated becoming a doctor, but staring down the road at medical school loans and wisely anticipating the managed care crisis, he decided that medicine wasn't going to be the best way to make his million.
Ebony, Dec, 2001 by Charles Whitaker
CHRISTOPHER GARDNER
A huge elephant head hangs on the wall of Chris Gardner's 60th floor high-rise office. It is a symbol of the multimillion-dollar deals Gardner negotiates as the president and chief executive officer of Gardner & Rich, an investment house in Chicago that traffics largely in the big-money world of public finance.
"We bag elephants," Gardner says of the high-powered investment deals he negotiates daily. "That's our motto. We go after the big deals because it takes just as much effort to land a $500 account as it does to land a $5 million one."
It's hard to believe that Chris Gardner, "elephant bagger," is the same Chris Gardner who was homeless. But 20 years ago, with his infant son in tow, he was "bathing" in public rest rooms, eating in a soup kitchen, and scrapping and scratching to make a way in the world. "I had two suits," he recalls. "One was blue and one was gray, just like the Civil War. And man, I alternated those suits every day. But I swore that if I ever made it, I was going to have more than two suits."
Today, Gardner, a 47-year-old self-made millionaire, has more than 200 suits. He also has four homes and a custom Ferrari that once belonged to Michael Jordan. But on the road to his present-day riches, Gardner endured the sort of poverty and homelessness that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man.
With intense dedication and singular focus, this high school dropout drove his dreams to the top and now lives a lifestyle he hardly could have imagined in his youth.
He grew up in Milwaukee, the only son and second-oldest in a family of 12 children. His single mother was a schoolteacher by training, but took a variety of jobs to provide for her children. Young Chris' ambitions were always fanciful. At first, he wanted to be Miles Davis. He studied trumpet for nine years, but eventually realized, "I had the attitude, but I didn't have the talent," he says. "Besides, there was only one Miles Davis and he already had that job."
His goals then became a little less specific, career-wise. "I just wanted to make a million dollars," he says. "But I couldn't sing and I couldn't play ball, so I said to my mother, `How am I going to make a million dollars?' And she said to me, `Son, if you believe you can do it, you will.'"
It was the faith of his mother that set Gardner off on the incredible journey that led to his current success. It was a rather circuitous journey, however.
A bright but indifferent student, Gardner decided early on that college wasn't for him. He dropped out of high school, lied about his age and joined the Navy, hoping to see the world and become a medic. But the farthest his naval career got him was North Carolina.
Working in the Navy's medical corps did help him make an important connection with a cardiac surgeon who was also in the service. When both were discharged, Gardner traveled to California and became the doctor's clinical research assistant at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. The work was fascinating, but Gardner was still only making $7,400 a year, a paltry salary even in 1973.
He contemplated becoming a doctor, but staring down the road at medical school loans and wisely anticipating the managed care crisis, he decided that medicine wasn't going to be the best way to make his million.
