Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 13, 2004.

Jay Van Andel is a bit hard to explain for those of you who aren't West Michiganders. The standard bio reads like this: Van Andel together with Richard DeVos founded Amway, a manufacturing company that sells its many products (from laundry detergent to vitamins) through a home product distribution network. Because of Amway's success, Van Andel became stupendously wealthy -- $2.3 billion net worth wealthy. He was a devout Christian, a devout Republican, and a devout philanthropist (not "philanderer" which is what I first typed, but my dictionary tells me is actually something quite different). He died earlier this month.

That's the basic poop. But what that doesn't tell you is what he meant to our community. A few years ago, I drew a comic with this little aside in it: Question: "What do you call Grand Rapids without our rich guy patrons (DeVos, Van Andel, Wege, Cook, and others)?" Answer: "Flint"

Over the past 25 years, Van Andel and his friends provided an enormous amount of money and leadership in making the city of Grand Rapids first relevant, then vibrant. While nearly every other mid-size Midwestern city has seen their downtowns wither and crumble, Grand Rapids has added hotels, an arena, a museum, and a world-class medical research facility with the Van Andel name on them. Now say what you will about Van Andel's company and his politics (and believe me, I've said some non-endearing things), but you can't argue his devotion to providing others with the means to attain the very American dream that he achieved.

So in the comic, I wanted to say, hey, not all billionaires are the same. The new Martin Scorsese film "The Aviator" comes out next week. It chronicles the exciting bits of the life of Howard Hughes -- that is, the "young Elvis" parts when Hughes built and flew aircraft, not the "fat Elvis" parts when Hughes infamously holed up in hotels and grew his fingernails to frightening lengths. And I thought, ya know, if Hughes was the Elvis Presley of rich guys, then Van Andel was sort of the George Harrison -- the quiet Beatle who certainly had his faults but ended up living his life to the positive benefit of all.