  reginald f. lewis (december 7, 1942 â january 19, 1993), was an american businessman. he was the richest african-american man in the 1980s. born in baltimore, maryland, he grew up in a middle-class neighborhood. he won a football scholarship to virginia state college, graduating with a degree in economics in 1965. he graduated from harvard law school in 1968 and was a member of kappa alpha psi. in 1992, forbes listed lewis among the 400 richest americans, with a net worth estimated at $400 million. he also was the first african american to build a billion dollar company, beatrice foods. ==business career== recruited to top new york law firm paul, weiss, rifkind, wharton & garrison llp immediately after law school, lewis left to start his own firm two years later. after 15 years as a corporate lawyer with his own practice, lewis moved to the other side of the table by creating tlc group l.p., a venture capital firm, in 1983. his first major deal was the purchase of the mccall pattern company, a home sewing pattern business for $22.5 million. lewis had learned from a fortune magazine article that the esmark holding company, which had recently purchased norton simon, planned to divest from the mccall pattern company, a maker of home sewing patterns founded in 1870. with fewer and fewer people sewing at home, mccall was seemingly on the declineâthough it had posted profits of $6 million in 1983 on sales of $51.9 million. at the time, mccall was number two in its industry, holding 29.7 percent of the market, compared to industry leader simplicity patterns with 39.4 percent. he managed to negotiate the price down and then raised $1 million himself from family and friends and borrowed the rest from institutional investors and investment banking firm first boston corp. within one year, he turned the company around by freeing up capital tied in fixed assets such as building and machinery, finding a new use for machinery during downtime by manufacturing greeting cards, and he then started to recruit managers from rival companies. he further strengthened mccall by containing costs, improving quality, beginning to export to china, and emphasizing new product introductions. this new combination led to the company's most profitable year in its history. with the addition of mccall real estate worth an estimated $6 million that the company retained ownership of, he later sold mccall at a 90-1 return,
1942_births 1993_deaths African-American_businesspeople African-American_lawyers African-American_non-fiction_writers American_business_writers American_businesspeople_in_retailing American_chief_executives_of_food_industry_companies American_financiers American_grocers American_manufacturing_businesspeople American_real_estate_businesspeople Businesspeople_from_Maryland Businesspeople_in_the_beverage_industry Deaths_from_brain_tumor Harvard_Law_School_alumni Maryland_lawyers People_from_Baltimore,_Maryland Virginia_State_Trojans_football_players