Joe Ricketts

John Joseph Ricketts (born July 16, 1941) is an American businessman and philanthropist.

He is the founder, former CEO and former chairman of TD Ameritrade.

He has a net worth of US$2.7 billion according to Forbes.

He has pursued a variety of other entrepreneurial ventures including DNAinfo.com, High Plains Bison, The Lodge at Jackson Fork, and The American Film Company.

Ricketts also engages in philanthropy through The Ricketts Art Foundation, Opportunity Education Foundation, The Cloisters on the Platte Foundation, and The Ricketts Conservation Foundation.

Regarding his time in Omaha during the 1960s, Ricketts wrote in his 2019 memoir The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get about "stockbrokers destroying their lives with dope, alcohol, and sex, which was just another kind of drug":

"Our substance of choice was beer. Beer, whatever its drawbacks, is not dope. Marlene generally did not come out for drinks on Friday at the Rookery. She went home and got supper ready for the children. Often, I did not get home in time to eat with them. I might have had twelve beers on a Friday evening. I might have had more. I'm sure there were a few nights that it was only by the grace of God that I didn't have a car accident. But it was only beer and it helped me get rid of all my pent-up stress. I got myself home, and our family and our business could press on together."

He obtained a bachelor's degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in 1968.

Ricketts is married to Marlene Margaret (Volkmer), with whom he has four children, Pete, Thomas, Laura, and Todd, who were raised Catholic.

He currently resides in Hoback Basin, Wyoming.

In 1975, Ricketts and a few partners invested $12,500 each to form First Omaha Securities, a retail securities brokerage firm that through mergers and acquisitions grew into Ameritrade, later known as TD Ameritrade.

In 2004, Ricketts founded High Plains Bison, a retailer of natural bison meat.

In addition to online and offline sales channels, High Plains Bison is the official bison vendor at Chicago's Wrigley Field.

Some of the bison are raised on a Wyoming ranch owned by Ricketts.

A four-bedroom lodge named The Lodge at Jackson Fork Ranch is located on the same property.

Joe Rickett's Grizzly Ridge Bison Ranch in northern Montana comes at the expense of the Blackfeet tribe's wild herd; it represents 2% of their ancestral lands, which the tribe were deprived of despite trying to buy back their own land.

In 2008, Ricketts founded The American Film Company, which produces feature films about true stories from American history.

He and his family have been the owners of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team since October 2009.

John Joseph Ricketts was born and raised in Nebraska City, Nebraska, the son of Florence M. (Erhart) and Donavon Platte Ricketts.

In 2009, Ricketts founded DNAinfo.com, a digital news service that used to cover neighborhood news in New York City and Chicago.

In October 2009, the Ricketts family acquired a 95 percent controlling interest in Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, as well as 20% of Comcast Sportsnet Chicago.

The Ricketts family represents the eighth ownership group in the 133-year history of the team.

While Ricketts is not directly involved in the team's operations, his son, Tom Ricketts, is Cubs chairman and his three other children (Pete, Laura and Todd) are on the board of directors.

The Conspirator is a 2010 historical drama film directed by Robert Redford.

It served as the debut film of The American Film Company.

In 2010, Ricketts led a campaign against earmarks and what he perceived to be wasteful federal spending.

Ricketts founded an independent organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks that classified every Member of Congress as either a spending "hero" or "hooligan."

Along with Taxpayers for Common Sense and WashingtonWatch.com, Taxpayers Against Earmarks developed a database of earmarks requested by members of Congress.

The group successfully pressed for a moratorium on earmarks in 2010.

Ricketts established and funded The Ending Spending Fund, a political action committee, in 2010.

The Ending Spending Fund spent over $1 million sponsoring independent advertisements in several Congressional races.

Ricketts retired from the TD Ameritrade board in October 2011 to concentrate on entrepreneurship and philanthropy.

Taxpayers Against Earmarks changed its name to Ending Spending in 2011, as part of a broadening of the group's focus.

In 2016, seven years after purchasing the Cubs, they won the World Series, ending a 108-year-old drought without a championship.

Ricketts co-founded the Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA) with Eric O'Keefe, Leo Linbeck III, and Tim Dunn.

It targets both Democratic and Republican incumbents in primary elections.

Ricketts shut it down on November 2, 2017, one week after their employees voted to unionize.

Gone with it were Gothamist, Chicagoist, DCist, LAist, SFist, and Shanghaiist.

On the 3rd of November, 2017, archived versions of Gothamist, DNAinfo, and other sites were back up.

In September 2017, Ricketts wrote, "I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed."