Michael J Cudahy

Mike Cudahy, one of Milwaukee's most prominent business and philanthropic leaders, died at the age of 97 on Friday March 11 2022. His grandfather, meatpacker Patrick Cudahy, built the apartments. Cudahy's father and uncle oversaw an expansion. "My daughter Julie is running this place now and she's doing a fabulous job," Cudahy says. Cudahy has accomplished a lot. He wants to do more. He made a fortune and then gave away millions. And he's still giving through his foundation. Cudahy notes he didn't inherit Patrick Cudahy's wealth. He received a modest amount of company stock from his father's estate. He and his business partner Warren B. Cozzens co-founded Marquette Electronics, now part of GE Healthcare. "I started it with 15,000 bucks, sold it for just under a billion. It was 99% luck, 1% elbow grease," he says. He bought the Pabst Theater for a dollar, invested hundreds of thousands more, installed Gary Witt as the boss and then watched as a music and entertainment revival took shape downtown. The Pabst empire spread to the Riverside Theater and Turner Hall. He's on the board of Compact Particle Acceleration Corp. of Livermore, Calif., helping the firm as it tries to develop a proton therapy cancer treatment. His father was a more remote figure. During the 1930s, John C. Cudahy served as American ambassador. His posts included Ireland, Belgium and Poland. In 1941, Cudahy's father, still in Europe, interviewed Adolf Hitler. The ex-diplomat wrote of Hitler: "He had the same look as prisoners who have been denied the sun during a long period of confinement." Two years later, John C. Cudahy was killed after he was thrown from a horse while riding on the family's estate in Brown Deer. He has a brood of children and grandchildren. He has been divorced four times and lives with his fourth wife, Lisa.