Fred A Lennon

Lennon first appeared on the Forbes 400 in 1990 with a fortune of $600 million. In the 1997 issue, the last before he died, that fortune had grown to $1 billion. His climb to billionaire status began when he bought out his business partner's half of Crawford Fitting Co. for $2,000 in 1948. He then aggressively expanded the valve-maker into an array of categories: parts for vacuum cleaners, oil and gas facilities, nuclear power plants. He changed the name of the company to Swagelok, which is what he and Crawford called their new and improved valve. He set up an employee stock ownership program in the early 1990s through which he sold 30% of the company to employees. Meanwhile he quietly became a powerhouse in the Republican Party, with liberal magazine Mother Jones estimating that he was America's top political contributor between the years 1993 and 1996 -- donating over $500,000 during that period. When Lennon died at the age of 92 in July 1998 so did all the attention that his wealth and politics had generated. Did he divvy his estate among his family? Did he parcel it off to close confidants? No one knew. Or, at least, no one was talking. And his family was left to enjoy the anonymity that their patriarch so coveted. William Lennon, Fred's grandson, who in 2002 took his aunt Catherine Lozick, Fred Lennon's daughter, to probate court in Cuyahoga County. Also named in the suit were other of William’s relatives and members of Swagelok’s leadership. Documents from that case, obtained by FORBES, show that in 1986, Fred Lennon set up a trust for the benefit of Lozick that would contain the vast majority of the assets in his estate. Lozick would be the sole recipient of income from the trust’s assets and the trustees were required to distribute those assets to Lozick 21 years after Fred Lennon’s death. But the trust also stipulated that the trustees could distribute the assets to Lozick earlier if they so chose. If Lozick died before the assets were distributed to her, Fred Lennon’s grandchildren would inherit what assets remained in the trust. In May 2003, Lozick settled, agreeing to pay each of Fred Lennon's grandchildren, William included, $1.25 million, up from a reported $50,000 apiece in the original estate. Plus each of his great grandchildren (including those yet to be born) got $15,000. Lozick agreed to a settlement to fend off further litigation, according to court documents. Then in April 2003, her trustees distributed all of the assets in the trust to her directly, officially making her a billionaire. Forbes estimates that low-profile Lozick is worth $1.7 billion, derived from 65% ownership in Swagelok, which has $1.8 billion in annual revenues, plus other cash, stock, bonds and real estate. Another $100 million of the estate was earmarked for charity (according to 2011 tax documents, the Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust contained $62.8 million in assets); her brother John, William's father, got $25 million. Lozick is approximately 68-years-old, according to court filings. She most frequently lists herself as a "homemaker" when making political donations and is married to Edward A. Lozick, who worked for her father in various capacities and now serves as Swagelok’s chairman. The couple owns property in both Ohio and Florida and runs the Edward A. and Catherine L. Lozick Foundation, which had $16.2 million in assets in 2011. Roughly half of those assets come from the Lozicks, the other half comes from Swagelok, which in 2008 began donating $3 million to the foundation annually. The foundation gives to a wide variety of causes. The Lozicks have also carried on Fred Lennon's tradition of donating to the Republican Party, including giving the maximum allowed donation of $61,600 to the RNC in 2012. Donations have also been made to Mitt Romney, John Boehner and Herman Cain.