He was one of the last of a breed. He went from being a tenth grade dropout to become one of the top four hundred richest people in America. When asked about dropping out of the tenth grade he replied, "I should have dropped out sooner".
He never did anything in a small way. I had the opportunity to fly on one of his jets to his compound, Jumbolair. He had his own private landing strip. At the time is was the largest private landing strip in the world, capable of accommodating a Boeing 474. At his compound there were 60 African elephant's, 700 crocodiles and alligators, 400 snakes, and one very large gorilla named Mickey.
At one time he ran a snake farm outside of New Orleans. In the 1960s he had produced an early TV nature show called Wild Cargo. Though he did not have the benefit of a formal education he was relentless in his pursue of knowledge. He worked for decades to find a better way to exercise. In the early 1970s he stepped to the forefront of the exercise world with his development of Nautilus exercise equipment.
After he sold Nautilus he started up MedX, and by his reckoning, he devoted to more than 100 million dollars in research to developing a back exercise machine that would safely and effectively strengthen the back. About this MedX machine he once said that if everything he had done in life was bad or negative this one advance in exercise science more than made up for it. His contributions to exercise science have enabled millions to live with a higher quality of life.
