Mike Ingram has lived a full and interesting life. But being recognized with something like the Horatio Alger Award still gets his attention. “Back in the 1970s, Zig Zigler was a good friend, and he told me that one of his friends was nominated, and at that time I didn’t know what it was,” Ingram said. “Zig said, ‘Mike, this is one of the highest non-military honors one can receive.’ I started studying about it and thought ‘Wow’ — I never thought I would be considered for something like this. It’s a real honor.” Ingram is well known locally as founder of El Dorado Holdings, which has developed more than 83,000 acres of land in Arizona. He is also part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and has been involved with scores of philanthropic causes. He’s certainly worthy of being honored. But there’s something about the Horatio Alger Award that’s a really nice fit. The award will induct Ingram into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, which honors the contributions of worthy awardees who have overcome significant adversity to be successful. It provides scholarships to students who are also overcoming adversity, to help put them on a similar path to success. Ingram’s inspiring story started when he was 11. His parents had just bought, torn down and rebuilt a motel in New Mexico when his father died of cancer. “It left my mother and me with the mortgage and medical bills,” he said. “It’s a time of having to fight for your life and for your survival. My mother had an eighth-grade education — you could see the fear in her eyes.” Ingram developed a powerful work ethic and an eye toward entrepreneurship, and paid his way through college by working full-time. “The thing it gave me was probably my work ethic,” he said. “By the time I got to college, my mother was not able to help me at all. The last two But the Arizona developer is just getting started MIKE INGRAM RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS HORATIO ALGER AWARD Tom Evans | Contributing Editor 28 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | APRIL 2019 NEXT DOORS {ahead of the curve}

years, my wife and I were both working 40 hours a week and carrying a full class load. You develop a work ethic — you don’t have a choice. If you want to survive you learn to work, learn to persevere.” Ingram persevered, graduated debt-free — and went into the working world. He started at Merck & Company, Inc., one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, where he was the top veterinary pharmaceutical salesman for four years. In 1972, he took the role of president at Tufts & Sons of Oklahoma, Inc., a distributor of animal health and home and garden products, which he grew from a small business into one with $100 million in annual sales. But when the oil and banking crisis of the 1980s hit, the company staggered, and he was forced to sell it at a loss. But Ingram wasn’t done by far. He moved to Arizona in 1987 to start from scratch, founding El Dorado Holdings with a staff of one person at first — himself — and one property south of Phoenix: John Wayne’s El Dorado Ranch. Over the years the company expanded dramatically, building practically the entire city of Maricopa and assets worth more than $1 billion. Now, Ingram is in the process of launching an astonishing new effort — the construction of Douglas Ranch west of the Valley, which when complete will be the largest master-planned community in the western United States. It’s being constructed in partnership with Jerry Colangelo’s JDM Partners, and will eventually be home to more than 300,000 people. Which makes the timing of the award interesting. After all, this is no lifetime achievement honor, and Ingram has no intention of slowing down any time soon. “I think what they (the award committee) are looking for is someone who is going to continue to give back,” he said. “They help these young scholars with state and national scholarships, and so really this award is going to someone who is in the process of giving back, not a lifetime achievement award riding into the sunset. They want a strong commitment from these recipients.” Ingram has long supported charitable causes here in the Valley — TGen, Barrow Neurological Institute and Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West are just a few he has supported — and says giving back is key to him. “It goes back to the early part of my career — Paul Harvey used to be a news commentator, and he would talk about ‘leaving the woodpile a little higher than you found it,’” he said. “It goes back to the Old West days, when as people moving east, there were times they’d come across a cabin and would go in and find a woodpile and start a fire. When they left, the obligation was to leave it higher than when they arrived. It’s an obligation each and every one of us has — to leave our country and society a little better than when we found it.” Ingram credits his family and his work team with inspiring him and enabling him to be successful, and Mike Ingram joins 12 other exceptional business, civic and cultural leaders from across North America in receiving the Horatio Alger Award. APRIL 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 29