Rockey, 43, turned down the Romeos but said yes to Harold Ruttenberg, founder and chairman of Just For Feet, the 352-store athletic-footwear chain based in Birmingham, Ala.

FORBES: Follow through

Undaunted, Green set his sights on British Home Stores, the country's fifth-largest retail chain: 156 outlets with 4.4 million square feet of space stocked with everything from housewares to bridesmaids' dresses.

FORBES: Billionaires

In time they buried some 380, 000 miles of pipelines throughout the United States, which now handle 63 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 20 million barrels of crude a day, removing a crucial variable from the supply chain and stabilizing markets.

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