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Howard Schultz (b. July 19, 1952) is an American businessman and entrepreneur most widely known as the Chairman and Chief Global Strategist of Starbucks and a former owner of Seattle SuperSonics which he sold to Oklahoma businessman Clayton Bennett. Howard Schultz co-founded Maveron, his investment group, in 1998 with Dan Levitan. Schultz grew up in a subsidized public housing project (Bay View Houses) in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, New York. He attended Canarsie High School and is the eldest of three children. He has a sister, Ronnie (b. 1956) and a brother Michael (b. 1961), who both live in New York. His mother lives in New Jersey and his father, of whom he often speaks in his interviews, is deceased. He currently lives in Seattle's Madison Park neighborhood with his wife and their two children, Jordan and Addison. In 1975, he became the first of his family to graduate from college when he earned his bachelor's degree in communication from Northern Michigan University, which he attended on a football scholarship. He is a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon. In 1982, he joined Seattle's Starbucks, which sold only coffee beans at the time. Inspired by Italian espresso bars, he resolved to create a similar experience in the United States. Having been rebuffed by Starbucks management at the time, Schultz responded by leaving to start his own company, Il Giornale in 1985. Two years later, the original Starbucks management decided to work on Peet's Coffee & Tea and sold its Starbucks unit to Schultz and Il Giornale. Schultz renamed Il Giornale with the Starbucks name and aggressively expanded Starbucks' reach across the United States. It can be said that Starbucks popularized espresso drinks such as the cafe latte to many Americans who had previously only ever tasted freeze dried coffee. Schultz co-authored a book called Pour Your Heart into It that expounds on his life journey with Starbucks. Schultz is also the former owner of the NBA's Seattle Supersonics. On July 17, 2006, it was announced that Schultz sold the team to a group of businessmen from Oklahoma City for $350 million. It is speculated that the new owners will move the team to Oklahoma City some time after the 2006-2007 NBA season . This sale was seen by many as very disappointing as Schultz had often claimed that he wished to save basketball in Seattle. He also owned the WNBA's Seattle Storm, and is a significant stakeholder in Jamba Juice. In 2006, Forbes Magazine ranked Schultz as the 354th richest person in the United States, with a net worth of $1.1 billion dollars. On March 29, 2007, Schultz accepted the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Award for Ethics in Business at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. The same night, he delivered the Frank Cahill Lecture in Business Ethics.
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