28 Who Do You Think You Are?
Bill Bartmann
“The only voice you should listen to is the voice that comes from within.”
America loves a “rags to riches” – an “underdog” – an “against all odds
come-back” - a “survivor!” Bill has been a millionaire three times, bankrupt
twice, and a billionaire once.
Bill is the ultimate underdog/survivor/achiever overcoming personal
circumstances and tragedy to rise to the top of corporate America. Home-
less at age fourteen, a member of a street gang and a high-school dropout –
he took control of his life by taking the GED exam and putting himself through
college and law school.
Bill and his wife Kathy have individually graced the covers of na-
tional business magazines, Kathy on the cover of Forbes, and Bill on the
cover of Inc. They were listed individually in the Forbes 400 wealthiest people
in America. One national magazine ranked them number 25.
In 1998, tragedy struck when Bill’s former business partner commit-
ted fraud and sent the company into bankruptcy. Although Bill’s former busi-
ness partner told the prosecutors that he had acted without Bill’s knowl-
edge, admitted his guilt and was sent to prison – in the post Enron environ-
ment, U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft, indicted Bill on 57 felony counts
relating to Bill’s partner’s activities. Five years later, after a 2½ month long
trial where the Government called 53 witnesses and produced over 1,000
exhibits, Bill rested his case without calling a single witness or producing a
single exhibit. The jury unanimously acquitted Bill on all counts.
Ironically, seventeen months after his acquittal and six and a half
years after his company was liquidated, the Federal Bankruptcy Trustee is-
sued his report, which publicly acknowledged for the first time, “CFS was
not a fraud.”
This experience would have embittered most people, but not them.
Bill and Kathy now travel the country, sharing their stories of how they cre-
ated their successes and how they dealt with their challenges. It is their life’s
goal to do for “failure” what Betty Ford did for alcoholism and Susan Komen
did for breast cancer.
Find out more about Bill at: http://www.BillBartmann.com