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Stryker among world’s billionaires

By Tom Hacker — 

FORT COLLINS — Philanthropist Patricia Stryker is among Colorado billionaires included on Forbes magazine’s just-released list of the world’s wealthiest people.

Stryker, whose grandfather launched medical products company Stryker Corp., ranks 413 among 497 worldwide billionaires, with $1.1 billion in net worth. Stock losses shrank the global list from the 580 counted in 2001. She joins seven other state residents on the list, all ranked above her, with Wal-Mart heir John Walton — worth $20.7 billion — topping the Colorado group.

Stryker is noted by Forbes under her married name, Patricia Short, on the list released Thursday. With former husband Tommy Short, she co-founded the Fort Collins-based Stryker Short Foundation, a granting agency that supports education, arts and environmental causes in Larimer County.

Among Stryker Short beneficiaries are the Boys and Girls Clubs of Larimer County, who received $2 million last year for the building of a new center in Fort Collins. Styker’s foundation also gave $1 million to Colorado State University for the conversion of the old Fort Collins High School into CSU’s new performing arts center. Other foundation beneficiaries, according to Stryker Short Executive Director Beth Juday, include:

  • The Poudre School District, with more than $100,000 in gifts over the past two years;
  • Twice the Ice, a community effort to double the city’s ice rink capacity, with a $500,000 gift;
  • Idea Wild, a local non-profit group of biologists that supports land conservation and preservation work in Latin American countries, with $25,000 in Stryker Short help.

    The foundation is also a major United Way contributor and has made individual gifts to Open Stage Theater Co., the Crossroads Safe House and the Namaqua Center, among other groups.

    Stryker was out of town on Friday and not available to comment on her appearance on the Forbes list. She is listed for the second consecutive year, having debuted in 2001, also at $1.1 billion, but lower on the list at No. 452. Stryker’s sister and brother, Michigan residents Jon and Rhonda Stryker, also appear on the new list, tied at No. 378 with $1.2 billion in net worth. Both Stryker and her sister attended the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.