The Richest Man In Town
Author: W. Randall Jones
Publisher: Business Plus; 1 edition (May 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446537837
ISBN-13: 978-0446537834
Have you ever wondered who the richest man in town is? W. Randall Jones has. The former magazine executive found himself in a country club near his hometown of Carrollton, Ga., one day when someone he was with pointed out a man at another table and said: "See him? He's the richest man in town."
That got Jones thinking. What his friend did is what people have been doing for millennia: pointing out the richest man in town. Sometimes people just want to know out of curiosity; other times it's because they think such proximity to wealth might present an opportunity.
So Jones got out a map and began identifying the largest metro areas in the U.S., then set out on a two-year search to find out who the richest men were. He spent more than two years interviewing local business editors, and business and community leaders in 100 towns across America in an effort to uncover their wealthiest citizens. In addition, he and a team of researchers combed through all available public data, including SEC filings, LexisNexis, EDGAR, and newspaper and magazine accounts. He even "Zillowed" their homes to determine their valuations.
Excerpt from “The Richest Man in Town: The Twelve Commandments of Wealth” about Allan Jones
Allan Jones of Cleveland, Tennessee, says, “I failed the sixth grade twice and I made a 15 on my ACT, so I’m definitely not the smartest guy in town, but I can run accounting circles around the numbers guys who I went to school with, and I know how to get people motivated to accomplish things. I believe there are multiple levels of intelligence.” Jones has both IQ and EQ. At his core though, he is a people person who loves to have a good time. My bet is that most folks in Cleveland would say he is a lot more fun than his accountant friends, too. For twenty-five years, he threw Cleveland the best Halloween bash in the state right in his front yard. He invented a character call Tall Betsy-in essence a ten-foot-tall, ugly witch (Allan Jones in full costume and on stilts)- to greet thousands of kids and their parents on his favorite night of the year (pg. 133).