"There is no substitute for knowledge. To this day, I read three newspapers a day. It is impossible to read a paper without being exposed to ideas. And ideas.. more than money.. are the real currency for success."
An only child, Broad was born in the Bronx to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a housepainter, his mother was a dressmaker. His family moved to Detroit when he was 6 years old. Broad attended Detroit Public Schools; he was a 1951 graduate of Detroit Central High School and went on to attend Michigan State University, where he majored in accounting with a minor in economics and graduated cum laude in 1954. Broad married Edythe "Edye" Lawson in 1954 when he was 21 and she was 18. He became the youngest Michigan native to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Prior to entering the home building business, he worked as an accountant for two years, and partnered with Donald Kaufman to found a homebuilding company, Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation (now KB Home). Looking to diversify the cyclical homebuilding business, Broad in 1971 acquired Sun Life Insurance Company of America, a small family-owned insurance company in Baltimore, for $52 million. Broad transformed Sun Life into the retirement savings powerhouse SunAmerica. He sold SunAmerica to AIG in 1999 for $18 billion. He was CEO of SunAmerica, now a subsidiary of the American International Group, until 2000.
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