Background
Eychaner was born to a middle-class Methodist family in DeKalb, Illinois, the son of Mildred and Howard Eychaner. His father owned a moving and storage business.
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Fred Eychaner
Edit Profilechairman philanthropist president
Education
He attended the Medill School of Journalism.
Career
Eychaner is the Chairman of Newsweb Corporation. He was included in Chicago magazine"s 2014 list of the 100 most powerful Chicagoans. In 2005, the Chicago Tribune estimated his wealth at $500 million.
In 2015, he was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
He has three siblings, including Iowa businessman Rich Eychaner. He founded Newsweb Corporation in 1971, which prints a wide variety of newspapers.
A series of transactions led to his ownership of WPWR-Channel 50 in Chicago. In 2002, WPWR was sold to Fox Television for a reported $425 million.
He launched WCPT-Department of Administration and Management, Chicago"s Progressive Talk Radio station in May 2005.
He is President of the charitable organization Alphawood Foundation which granted the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London £20m in 2013. Eychaner has given the Clinton Foundation between $10 million and $25 million. He is also credited with getting the long-delayed Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York finally constructed.
In November 2013, Alphawood announced a $2 million matching grant to help jumpstart construction of the Bloomingdale Trail in Chicago.
He has been a top Democratic donor for several cycles and in the 2012 election cycle was the top donor to Democratic Super PACs, giving more than $14 million. He serves on the board of the Joffrey Ballet, and of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He is also a trustee of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. In September 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Eychaner a General Trustee to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
