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Born on June 24, 1897 in the lakeside town South Haven, Michigan, Daniel K. Ludwig
ended his formal schooling with the eighth grade. His early working life
was spent as ship chandler, machinist, sea-going engineer and operator of
a tug and barge. Educated by experience and observation, Mr. Ludwig went
on to own and operate a commanding complement of some 60 ocean-going vessels
at the height of his career.
In building his fleet, Mr. Ludwig was an innovator in ship design, construction and financing. His leadership in the progressive and continual expansion of tanker size pioneered the development of today's supertanker and enabled substantial reductions in the cost of moving crude oil internationally, yielding significant savings to end-users of oil worldwide. Mr. Ludwig's tankers set the standard for size, quality of construction and operating performance as well. His ships assembled "on-hire" records that were the envy of the world tanker fleet. His contributions to marine transportation were not limited to oil. They extended to the movement of iron ore, salt and other bulk commodities. In addition to marine transport, Mr. Ludwig participated in major oil and gas projects throughout the world. He was a major investor and operator internationally in the production of coal and other minerals, conducting mining and exploration activities in Latin America, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and North America. He developed the Princess chain of luxury hotels in Bermuda, Mexico and the Bahamas and conceived and engineered the development of Westlake Village, California, a residential community of approximately 50,000 which includes shopping centers, office buildings and a hotel. Other investments of Mr. Ludwig in the United States and throughout the world included real estate, cattle ranching, orange groves, banking and insurance. One of his last and most monumentous commercial undertakings was the Jari project in Brazil. A combination of forest-products and agricultural development, this enterprise encompassed three million acres in the Amazon Basin. In his later years, Mr. Ludwig directed his interests and efforts to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, which he founded in 1971 and endowed with substantially all of his foreign holdings. Mr.
Ludwig died on August 27, 1992 at the age of 95. |
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