In 1949, the average net worth of members of the Economic Round Table was at least four million dollars!

Why?

Because there were 50 members – and the President of ERT that year was Howard Ahmanson. Howard was worth at least 200 million. So that averaged out to four million dollars per member.

Howard, who was one of the founding members of ERT at the very young age of 26, was a financial prodigy. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1906. Every night as he grew up, his father, who was an insurance executive, would tell him: "Howard, the world is your oyster." Howard got the chance to prove that very early. His father died suddenly when Howard was 19. He and his mother decided to move to Los Angeles. Howard enrolled at USC and took an economics degree. But before he even graduated, he started a unique fire insurance company. It quickly became the largest company of its kind in California.

Howard's timing was perfect. It was the eve of The Great Depression. Launching the first of many financial innovations, Howard came up with an idea which would soon become an industry staple – fire insurance for property under foreclosure. And, as the Depression deepened, there were heartbreaking numbers of foreclosed properties across the country.

By 1943, Howard was able to purchase a controlling share in his father's former insur­ance company back in Omaha. That same year, he was recruited back to Washington, D.C. to be the Pentagon's chief expediter for the US Navy's aircraft products division. As soon as World War Two ended, Howard came back to Los Angeles. Within two years, he put to­gether a brilliant merger that would eventually become Home Savings.

By 1954, seven years later, Home had become the nation's largest – financing homes and apartments by the tens of thousands. Howard also developed communities like Baldwin Hills and Laurelwood – and he owned or had a majority interest in half a dozen other companies besides the bank.

The New York Times described him as one of the least known but wealthiest financial magnates in the history of the United States!

Howard collected world famous paintings, became an enthusiastic sailor, and a most far-seeing philanthropist. His Ahmanson Foundation, established in 1952, has made in ex­cess of 12,000 grants valued at more than half a billion dollars.

On the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Economic Round Table in 1957, Howard wrote a congratulatory letter to Durward Howes. In part, it read: "This is a special oc­casion, the Silver Anniversary of an organization that I hold higher in my affec­tions than any other. Even in a life full of accomplishments, your contribution in founding the Economic Round Table is unique. Many things can and will be said about this wonderful group . . . but as far as I am concerned, it has done one thing that stands out above all else. For me, it has been the source of more good and lasting friendships than any other facility in life. To a man whose dream enabled me to make friends, good permanent friends, with so many wonderful guys – all hail!"

Howard showed his uncanny powers of judgment in the 1950's when he hired Millard Sheets, a little-known art teacher and designer from Scripps College, to design an office building for him. Howard refused to look at a single plan or drawing or budget. The re­sult was so spectacular that he later had Sheets design more than 40 distinguished Horne Savings buildings around Southern California. Millard, whose art would ultimately be shown in 42 US museums, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, became President of the Economic Round Table in 1972-73.

Howard Ahmanson's life ended early, like his father's. In 1968, at the age of 62, he suf­fered a stroke and then a fatal heart attack. He had been a heavy smoker all his life.