Profile · Eau Claire, Wisconsin
John Robert Menard Jr.
Founder of Menards home-improvement stores; born and based in Eau Claire
$19.4 billion
John Robert Menard Jr. is Wisconsin’s hardware billionaire who never moved the headquarters out of Eau Claire. Born there on January 22, 1940, the oldest of eight in a Catholic family of teachers, he attended Regis High and UW–Eau Claire, put up pole buildings to pay for college, turned down IBM in 1963, and built a cash-and-carry lumber and hardware shop into Menards. His father, John Sr., was a university professor; his mother, Rosemary, taught grade school. First construction work came in 1958, years before Home Depot launched. The chain grew to more than 340 stores from Wyoming to West Virginia, with estimated sales around $13 billion, still privately held and still headquartered in Eau Claire. Inside the company he is famous for making even senior people punch a time clock. The white-haired “Save big money at Menards” pitchman was Milwaukee actor Ray Szmanda, not Menard himself. Racing is the other empire: decades of IndyCar, a 2019 Indianapolis 500 winner after nearly forty years of trying, son Paul in NASCAR, and fluorescent-yellow cars visible from the grandstand. Local gifts include $15 million to Luther Midelfort Hospital in 2008 and $10 million toward the John and Fay Menard YMCA tennis center. He has also been a polarizing employer, with union hostility and older environmental and labor cases on the public record. Forbes listed him at $19.4 billion on its March 10, 2026 World’s Billionaires ranking. The Eau Claire claim is birth, schooling, residence, and the plant that never left.