Fred Eychaner

Eychaner's has been an unlikely path to wealth. Growing up in the Chicago suburb of DeKalb, he dreamed of being a newspaper reporter. During high school he worked as a sportswriter for the DeKalb Daily Chronicle and later tallied sports scores for City News Bureau of Chicago. He helped pay his way through Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism as an announcer for WLBK, a radio station in DeKalb. Low-profile? Not Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner. He has given away millions of dollars to the Democratic Party and to the Joffrey Ballet. But just try to snap his picture. In 1997, when his alma mater, Northwestern University, honored him along with 75 other graduates, Eychaner was the only one of the group who didn't contribute a photograph. "We put out an all-points bulletin for a picture," says Associate Dean Richard Roth. "There wasn't one. We assume he exists." Eychaner is director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. He also serves as secretary and director of the Auditorium Theatre Council and the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Eychaner earned a bachelor's degree from Medill in 1966.