(Newswire.net — June 7, 2016) —The first female on the Forbes list of the richest self-made women in the United States is Diane Hendricks, 69. In 1982, Diane and her husband Kenneth founded the ABC Supply roofing company. The distributor grew rapidly and sales more than doubled in the past decade to nearly $6 billion in 2015. The company is based in Beloit, Wisconsin and has over 600 stores and 9600 employees.
Diane is the daughter of dairy farmers, has a high school diploma, seven children and is a widow since her husband’s passing in 2007.
Today, Diane Hendricks has a fortune of $4.9 billion, which brought her to the first place on the Forbes richest women list, although she still goes to work every day.
The second woman on the list is media mogul Oprah Winfrey, with a net worth $3.1 billion. She is an actress, director/producer, entrepreneur, personality, philanthropist, with the main source of her wealth being her TV show, with her cable network, OWN, delivering its most-watched year in 2015.
Oprah, 62 years old, has a Bachelor of Arts/Science from Tennessee State University and has never married and or had children.
Judy Faulkner is in third place on the Forbes list of the richest self-made women in the United States. She is a computer programmer who founded Epic Systems in Wisconsin in 1979. The company provides a software that stores medical information for more than half of the U.S. population; doctors exchange over one million Epic patient records daily. Among its customers are some of the nation’s biggest medical centers, including the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins.
Judy Faulkner has a Bachelor of Arts/Science from Dickinson College; a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin. Judy is 72 and married with three children.
Next on the Forbes list are Doris Fisher, 84, co-founder of Gap with a net worth $2.5 Billion, Johnelle Hunt, also 84, co-founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, with $2.3 Billion and Marian Ilitch, 83, owner of Little Caesars pizza restaurants, with $2.1 Billion.
Meg Whitman, 59, has a net worth of $2.1 Billion and founded the leading online auction site eBay. Lynda Resnick, 72, owner of the Wonderful Company, which has thousands of acres of almond, pistachio, orange and pomegranate orchards in California, Texas and Mexico with a net worth of $2 Billion.
Jin Sook Chang, 53, with $1.9 Billion is ninth on the Forbes list and is in retail fashion. After her on the list is Judy Love, 78, with $1.9 Billion, with retail businesses and gas stations.
One of the youngest on the list is Sophia Amoruso aged 32, with a fortune of $280 Million. Ten years ago she launched the Nasty Gal fashion brand .
Amoruso is also the only representative of the younger generation on the Forbes list who does not come from the entertainment industry.
The only member on the list younger than Amoruso is singer Taylor Swift, 26, with a fortune of $250 million. She is 60th on the list with four places in front of her, Beyonce, who has a net worth of $265 million.
Their older colleagues Madonna, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand are at the 25th, 37th and 38th respectively on the list.
Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer, directors of Facebook and Yahoo, are in the 14th and 33rd places on the list.