Joshua Rechnitz

Mr. Rechnitz was born on June 2, 1965, in Red Bank, N.J., into a fortune amassed by his grandfather, Robert H. Heilbrunn, who invested in undervalued companies beginning during the Depression. Joshua Rechnitz grew up biking to public schools in Middletown, N.J., and raced for the first time in 1988. He moved to New York City after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1991. His interest in bicycling soon blossomed, friends said, and he became a competent amateur racer, if not one who excelled. Mr. Rechnitz’s parents, Robert and Joan, are themselves prominent philanthropists in the area near their New Jersey home, founding a theater company in Red Bank and financing the construction of an arts building on the campus of Monmouth College, where Robert Rechnitz was a professor of English. Mr. Heilbrunn and his wife, Harriet, gave millions over the years to New York City institutions, including Columbia and Rockefeller Universities, the American Heart Association, Jewish groups and museums. Visitors to the American Museum of Natural History can walk along the 360-foot-long Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway, spiraling down from the exit of the Hayden theater and through the 13-billion-year history of the universe. A family gift created a similar timeline of art history for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Web site.