The richest person in Orange County is undoubtedly real estate developer Donald Bren. With an estimated net worth of $17.2 billion, Bren is not only the richest person in Orange County, but he is also the wealthiest man in all of California.
Bren began his career in the early 1960s working for various real estate development firms in Los Angeles and quickly rose to prominence as one of the most successful developers in Southern California. In 1963, he founded The Irvine Company and over the next several decades transformed Irvine from a sleepy agricultural town into a bustling metropolis with a population of over 250,000 people. Today, The Irvine Company remains one of the largest landowners in Orange County and its portfolio includes some of the most valuable real estate assets in all of California.
In addition to his work with The Irvine Company, Bren has also been active philanthropist, donating billions of dollars to various causes throughout his lifetime. In 2012, he was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 36th most generous billionaire alive with donations totaling $1 billion over the previous 10 years. Some notable recipients of Bren’s philanthropy include UC Irvine (which houses The Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences), Hoag Hospital Foundation, and Chapman University.
