Richard Yuengling Jr & family

Net worth over time

Biography

• Dick Yuengling, fifth-generation owner of D.G. Yuengling & Son, turned his family's struggling brewery into one of America's largest beer makers.
• When he bought out his father in 1985, the company was producing 137,000 barrels per year; now it pumps out some 2 million barrels annually.
• After dropping out of Lycoming College, Yuengling joined the business but soon walked out following an argument with his father about modernization.
• He spent 11 years running a beer distributorship peddling Yuengling and its competitors to local bars and stores before buying his father out in 1985.
• He quickly upgraded his packaging, equipment and distributor network, then struck gold with Yuengling Lager, today responsible for about 85% of sales.
• Yuengling's four daughters work at the brewery and are being primed to take over the company.
• Yuengling, America's oldest brewery, first opened its doors in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1829 and survived Prohibition by pivoting to ice cream and near beer.
• Yuengling drives a dirty Toyota Camry and heads to work so early every morning he has to pick up the newspaper directly from the distributor.