Michael Shanahan Sr.
St. Louis’s hometown paper covers the stepping down of Engineered Support Systems’ CEO. Michael Shanahan, chairman and co-founder, stepped aside to become the non-executive chairman. He founded the company based on a $10 million leveraged buyout in 1982 that spun off American Air Filter, a division of Allis-Chalmers. The firm’s market capitalization today stands at about $1.5 billion. USA Today noted recently that Shanahan’s compensation ranked eighth among CEOs of publicly traded firms. He took in $40 million in 2004, more than the CEOs of Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics or Northrop Grumman (and GE and Wal-Mart, for that matter).