Forbes released its 45th annual Forbes 400 list Sept. 15, unveiling a record-breaking group of the wealthiest people in America. The 400 richest Americans are collectively worth $8 trillion this year, up $1.4 trillion from 2025, with a new minimum net worth of $4.4 billion required to make the cut.
Tucked among the tech founders and hedge fund managers is a small cluster of fortunes built directly on orthopedics: implants, surgical instruments and the devices that make joint replacement and spine surgery possible. Here’s a look at the wealthiest names in America with ties to the orthopedic industry.
The Stryker family — Stryker Corp. (Kalamazoo, Mich.)
No family looms larger over orthopedic wealth in America than the descendants of Homer Stryker, MD, the Kalamazoo orthopedic surgeon who founded what’s now Stryker Corp. in 1946 after inventing a mobile hospital bed and a cast-cutting saw. Today, Stryker is one of the largest medical technology companies in the world, with orthopaedic implants, surgical equipment and neurotechnology sold globally. Three of Dr. Stryker’s grandchildren — Ronda Stryker, Jon Stryker and Pat Stryker — each inherited roughly a third of the family’s stake in the company and rank among the country’s richest people.
Family members were not the only ones listed here. John Brown, the company’s longtime former CEO and chairman, also ranks as one of the country’s wealthiest. He built much of Stryker’s modern scale over his 32 years running it. Ronda Stryker, worth roughly $7.7 billion, is the only family member who still sits on Stryker’s board; she and her husband have donated more than $150 million combined to Western Michigan University’s Homer Stryker, MD, School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Spelman College.
Gary Michelson, MD — retired spine surgeon (Los Angeles)
Dr. Michelson is the rare self-made orthopedic fortune on the list, and the only one built by a practicing physician rather than a corporate founder or heir. A retired orthopedic and spinal surgeon, he holds roughly 340 U.S. patents for spinal and orthopedic surgical instruments developed over his career. He became a billionaire in 2005 after reaching a $1.35 billion settlement with Medtronic following years of litigation over his patented spine technology — one of the largest patent payouts in medical device history. Dr. Michelson has since used his fortune to fund animal welfare, medical research and education nonprofits, and has also built a media and entertainment portfolio outside medicine.
Reinhold Schmieding — Arthrex (Naples, Fla.)
Mr. Schmieding founded Arthrex in Munich in 1981 and moved the company to Naples, Fla., in the early 1990s, building it into one of the largest privately held orthopedic device makers in the world. Arthrex specializes in minimally invasive orthopedic and arthroscopic surgical tools, particularly for sports medicine and soft-tissue repair, and Schmieding has retained more than 90% ownership of the company — an unusually large stake for a business of its scale, and the reason his fortune tracks so closely with Arthrex’s growth.
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