Dan Gilbert (businessman)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the businessman; for the social psychologist, see Daniel Gilbert (psychologist).
Daniel "Dan" Gilbert is the Chairman and founder of Rock Finanical and Quicken Loans Inc. Dan Gilbert is also the majority owner of the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers (having purchased them in March 2005). He then purchased the American Hockey League's Utah Grizzlies and brought them to Cleveland, and renamed them the Lake Erie Monsters.
In 1981 Gilbert was arrested with 3 other students on charges of operating a bookmaking ring at Michigan State that handled $114,000 in bets on football and basketball games [1]. He was fined, given three years' probation and ordered to do 100 hours of community service. This arrest was brought to light while Gilbert was negotiating to purchase the Cavaliers, and the public black eye led several media members to question whether or not the NBA would approve the transaction.
Gilbert founded Rock Financial Corporation in 1985 with Ron Berman. Dan was a first-year law student. Gilbert, then 22 years old, served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. Rock Financial grew into one of the largest independent mortgage banks in the country. In May 1998, Gilbert took the company public. Initially a brick and mortar lender, the company launched “Rockloans.com” in January of 1999, which quickly positioned itself as the leader in online retail mortgage lenders.
In December 1999, Intuit Inc. (makers of market leading software TurboTax and Quicken) purchased Rock Financial. The national web operation was renamed "Quicken Loans" and grew substantially as the leading provider of direct-to-consumer home loans on the Internet, offering mortgages in all 50 states. Gilbert remained at the company as its CEO.
In July 2002, 30 months from the sale of Rock Financial, Gilbert led a small group of private investors and purchased the Quicken Loans subsidiary back from Intuit. While Quicken Loans, Inc. is now 100 percent privately held, the company retains all Quicken Loans branding and marketing initiatives, including partnerships with Yahoo!, MSN.com and AOL.com. Quicken Loans is currently headquartered in Livonia, Michigan.
In 2004 Gilbert and Quicken Loans were sued by 462 former employees alleging that Gilbert refused to pay overtime wages to salaried workers[2].
Gilbert was recently named one of the Forbes 400 in the magazine’s 2006 rankings.
Gilbert received an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University, a law degree from Wayne State University and is a member of the Michigan State Bar. He currently resides in Franklin, a suburb outside of Detroit. Gilbert claims to be 5'7" tall but in reality is 5'3".
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/cavaliers/2005-01-04-gilbert-background_x.htm
- ^ http://www.detnews.com/2005/business/0502/10/C01-85672.htm
