In 1979, Rales left his father's real estate firm to found Equity Group Holdings with his brother,
Steven Rales. Using
junk bonds, they bought a diversified line of businesses. In 1978, they changed the name to Diversified Mortgage Investors and then to Danaher in 1984.[6] In the 1980s, the AM side of radio station WGMS was sold off to Rales, who converted it
WTEM, a sports-talk station, in 1992. In 1988, he made a takeover bid of Interco, which was the largest manufacturer of furniture and men's shoes in the U.S. at the time.[7][8] He later ended the bid after five months with a profit of $60 million.[9]
In 1995, Rales and his brother founded
Colfax Corporation, an industrial pumps manufacturer later rebranded as Enovis in 2022.[10] He is a majority shareholder of
Fortive, which split off from Danaher in 2016, and served on their board of directors until June 2021.[6][11] In 2017, Rales paid a fine of $720,000 to the
Federal Trade Commission after inadvertently reporting purchases of shares in Colfax and Danaher were not above the filing threshold, which violated the
Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.[12] He had previously been fined $850,000 by the
U.S. Department of Justice in 1991 for violating the same act after buying Interco.[13]
Rales is the top
limited partner in a group headed by
Josh Harris that owns the
Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the
National Football League (NFL).[14] The team was bought in 2023 for $6.05 billion, the highest price ever paid for a sports team.[15] He considered the opportunity to be humbling, as he grew up a fan of the team and frequently attended home games at
RFK Stadium with his brothers.[16]
Art
In 2006, Rales and his wife
Emily Wei Rales established the art museum
Glenstone in
Potomac, Maryland.[17][18] Rales had owned the land since 1986 and had previously made it his residence.[19] Glenstone displays the Rales's collection of post-World War II art, including paintings, sculptures, and both indoor and outdoor installations, and also functions as his personal residence.[20][21] In 2018, Glenstone finished a $219 million expansion which increased both the gallery space and the wooded land surrounding the galleries.[22] Rales donated $1.9 billion to the Glenstone Foundation in 2021, increasing the museum's asset value to $4.6 billion, nearly the same as the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[21] The museum is free to visit via online booking.[23][24]
Personal life
Rales is
Jewish and is one of four sons of Ruth (née Abramson) and Norman Rales.[25][26] Norman was raised in the
Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York and later became a successful businessman, who sold his building supply company in Washington, D.C. to his employees in what was the first
employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transaction in the U.S. Norman was also a philanthropist, having founded the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation and the Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service.[25] Rales has three brothers: Joshua,
Steven, and Stewart.[25] In 1988, he had a
near-death experience during a fishing trip in Russia after a plane exploded 10 feet from their helicopter.[19]