Meet Tamara Gustavson…She’s Kentucky’s Wealthiest Woman and Only Billionaire

There was a time, decades ago, when I couldn't have told you the names of any billionaires off the top of my head. It could be because we didn't use to have that many. Inflation will do that.

AMERICA'S BILLIONAIRES

Let me show you what I mean. I accessed an inflation calculator (they are invaluable) and entered $1billion and set the year to 2025. Then I set the other year to 1985. One billion dollars today is the equivalent of $3,327,089.83 in 1985. See? Well, back then, being a millionaire was impressive enough. We weren't thinking in terms of billions.

Today, on the other hand, billionaires are high-profile. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg. There are several others whose names you know, but you get where I'm coming from. According to Forbes, there are more than 3,000 billionaires in the United States, a staggering number. That's a lot of people who aren't celebrities like the ones I mentioned.

RICHEST PERSON IN KENTUCKY

But I doubt that matters to someone like Kentucky's only billionaire, Tamara Gustavson, or any of the other billionaires, for that matter, whose names do not roll off our tongues. The Forbes "Real Time Net Worth" function puts Gustavson's fortune at $8.6 billion, and it's come to her by way of self-storage behemoth Public Storage, of which she is the largest shareholder. Additionally, Gustavson and her husband Eric, own Lexington's Spendthrift Farm, which has been responsible for 10 Kentucky Derby winners.

TAMARA GUSTAVSON MAKES THE FORBES 500

Last year, she was joined by three others from neighboring Indiana on the Forbes list of the 500 richest Americans.

Gustavson is also a board member for American Homes 4 Rent, as well as a director for the William Lawrence & Blanche Hughes Foundation, a 501(c)3 that researches childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia.

As of today, Tamara Gustavson is the 412th richest person in the world.