Mitchell Morgan

Morgan is founder of a real estate investment, development and management company -- Morgan Properties -- that has 500 employees, 17,000 apartment units and real estate worth more than $1 billion. After receiving his accounting degree, he enrolled in Law School night classes, not because he wanted to be a lawyer but because he thought a legal education would be helpful in a business career. While studying law at night, Morgan took a huge pay cut and left the shoe store for a $1.65-per-hour accounting job, just to get the two years of work experience necessary to become a certified public accountant. After finishing at the Law School, he worked briefly for an international accounting firm and then for a client in the apartment business, before striking out on his own in 1985.