Brown is the chairman emeritus of Stryker Corp., a Michigan-based medical device manufacturer. Brown joined the company as chief executive in 1977, leading it through 2009 when he retired. In that period, Stryker revenues grew from $17 million to $6.7 billion. He owns about 5 percent of the company.
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Brown's fortune is held in Stryker Corp. stock, which he acquired through awards and purchases in his 40 years with the company. He owns more than five percent of the business, a publicly traded medical device manufacturer, which had $13.6 billion in revenue in 2018, according to its 2019 proxy statement.
Brown also directly owns about 0.1 percent of Mid-Con Energy, according to the company's 2018 annual report, filed in March 2019.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, taxes, charitable donations and market performance.
Jon Zimmer, a spokesman for Stryker Corp., declined to comment on Brown's net worth.
Brown was born in 1934 and raised in West Tennessee. The eldest of five children, he attended a junior college after graduating from high school and then transferred to Auburn University where he studied chemical engineering. After graduating, Brown began work at an aluminum company.
He was contacted by a recruiter from Stryker in 1976 and was offered the role to replace Lee Stryker, the company's president and chief executive officer who had recently died in a plane crash. Brown turned down the role at first, but soon after accepted and moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan to run Stryker.
Brown served as chief executive officer and president and then chairman of the board of Stryker Corp. for 32 years until 2009. He led the company's initial public offering in 1979.