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Dick DeVos

American businessman

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ5272818
Source-derived summary

Richard Marvin DeVos Jr. ( də-VOSS; born October 21, 1955) is an American businessman, author, and former politician. The son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, he was CEO of the multi-level marketing company from 1993 to 2002. In 2006, DeVos ran for Governor of Michigan but lost to the then-incumbent Democrat Jennifer Granholm. In 2012, Forbes magazine listed his father as the No. 351 richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately US$5.4 billion. DeVos is the husband of Betsy DeVos, the former United States Secretary of Education in the first Trump administration.

Family and early life

DeVos was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Helen June (Van Wesep) and Richard Marvin DeVos. His grandparents were Dutch immigrants. DeVos is a graduate of the Forest Hills public school system.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Dick DeVos” as american businessman. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dick, DeVos and American.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1993, 2002, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-10-21. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dick, DeVos and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dick DeVos”, the useful work is to connect “american businessman” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5272818. VIAF identifies the subject as 11914628. The Library of Congress control number is no97063272. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1993, 2002 and 2006.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Dick DeVos primary sources, Dick DeVos archive and Dick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dick DeVos” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.