Billionaire John Walton Crashed & Died

Billionaire John Walton Crashed

John Walton, a billionaire heir of retail giant Wal-Mart, died when the small home-made plane he was flying crashed in a national park in Wyoming, authorities said.

A park spokeswoman said Walton, 58, was an experienced pilot who was flying a home-made aircraft with an aluminum frame and wings wrapped in fabric similar to heavy-duty sail cloth.

"This was an experimental, very lightweight aircraft," the spokeswoman, Joan Anzelmo, told AFP. It weighed between 400 and 500 pounds (180 to 225 kilograms), she said.

The Park Service's statement described it as an "ultralight aircraft with a small, gas-powered engine.“ Weather conditions were good at the time of the crash, Anzelmo said.

Walton, the second son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, was the world's 11th richest person with a net worth exceeding 18 billion dollars, according to Forbes magazine. He had been a member of Wal-Mart's board of directors since 1992 and lived in Jackson, Wyoming, a town known as a resort for wealthy Americans.

Sam Walton is an American folk hero who parlayed a single dime store in a cottage town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The astonishing and extraordinary success story about Sam Walton was the way he built his empire with a good old-fashioned style which inculcate a basic value system. In Sam's philosphy of business management, "What’s really worried me over the years is not our stock price, but that we might someday fail to take care of our customers, or that our managers might fail to motivate & take care of our associates. I also was worried that we might lose the team concept, or fail to keep the family concept viable & realistic & meaningful to our folks as we grow.

Another aspect of his philosophy is that: "Lip service won’t make a real partnership – not even with profit sharing. Plenty of companies offer some kind of profit sharing but share absolutely no sense of partnership with their employees because they don’t really believe those employees are important, but they don’t work to lead them. The real challenge for managers is to become servant leaders."

In regard to competition and globalization, Sam was of the view that: "If business is going to prevail, and be competitive, we’re going to have to get accustomed to the idea that business conditions change, and that survivors have to adapt to those changing conditions."

Sam Walton finally rested in peace in 1992. His second son, John Walton took over control of Wal-Mart. John Walton was an earnest philanthropist and had played a leading role in guiding the Walton Family Foundations contributions to elementary and high school education, including scholarship programs to provide parents with greater choice in education

John also served as a medic in the US Army Green Berets during the Vietnam War and was awarded the Silver Star "for saving the lives of several members of his unit while under intense enemy fire," the company said. He worked as a crop duster in the 1970s and as a boat builder in 1980s and 1990s.

Walton formed the holding company True North, which includes businesses ranging from advanced composites to boat building to venture capital investments, Wal-Mart said.

John Walton is survived by his wife Christy and their son, Luke; his mother Helen; and his siblings Rob, Jim and Alice.

I express my heartfelt grief and condolence to the family of John and may God have his comforting hands on them. Amen.