Steven Rales and his brother Mitchell acquired a REIT in 1983 and merged it into their firm Danaher, named after a Montana creek. Focused on tax avoidance and cash flow, they acquired more than three dozen companies and turned Danaher into a diversified firm. Rales serves as chairman of the board at Danaher, which had $22.3 billion in sales in 2020. In July 2016, the industrial conglomerate spun off some of its assets into a new company, Fortive Corporation. In June 2021, he and his brother each transferred Danaher shares worth more than $1.5 billion to their charitable foundations.
