Overview
John A. Catsimatidis (born September 7, 1948) is an American billionaire businessman and radio talk show host. He is the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of grocery chains Gristedes and D'Agostino Supermarkets in Manhattan, as well as the Red Apple Group, a real estate and aviation company with about $2 billion in holdings in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania. He is also the chairman and CEO of the Red Apple Group subsidiary United Refining Company.
Catsimatidis is also a talk radio show host. He hosts The Cats Roundtable on WABC and the Cats at Night show. He acquired the WABC radio station in 2019.
Catsimatidis was the runner-up in the Republican nomination for mayor of New York City in the 2013 election. He and his family run the Manhattan Republican Party.
Early life and education
Catsimatidis was born on the Greek island of Nisyros on September 7, 1948. He came to the United States with his parents when he was six months old. The family moved to West Harlem, where Catsimatidis grew up. Catsimatidis' father had been a lighthouse operator in Greece but worked as a busboy in New York. Catsimatidis graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1966. He received a congressional nomination to West Point, but chose to study electrical engineering at New York University instead.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).