Judith Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic Systems, took the No. 3 spot on Forbes' list of America's Richest Self-Made Women.
Forbes pegged the healthcare information technology entrepreneur's net worth at $2.4 billion.
Putting in 90-hour weeks, working part time as a programmer at the University of Wisconsin and part time building her new company, Faulkner launched what was then called Human Services Computing in 1979 out of a basement in Madison, Wis., that served as a small business incubator. Faulkner has a master's degree in computer science from UW and a bachelor's from Dickenson College.
Her first gig was developing a computer program to track physicians' on-call schedules at the university hospital. Epic rode the at-first, slow-building wave of healthcare computerization to become a leader in the field, getting its big break in 2003 when it signed a contract to replace home-grown inpatient and outpatient electronic health record systems across the Kaiser Permanente health system.
Epic posted revenues of $2.02 billion in 2015 and claims 385 healthcare organizations as customers, according to a company fact sheet. They include some of the largest and most notable health systems in the U.S., such as Kaiser, Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, as well as retail clinics in CVS and Walgreens.
Epic software runs in 1,600 hospitals, 33,500 clinics, 1,700 retail clinics and is used by 330,000 physicians, the company reported. It has 9,500 employees. In addition to its sprawling and quirky headquarters in Verona, Wis., Epic has offices in Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
In 2014, Faulkner, 72, announced plans to donate most of her shares of Epic stock to a charitable foundation that will benefit the communities of Epic's customers. Faulkner also said she hopes the restructuring will enable Epic to remain privately owned.
In a rare 2014 interview, the usually publicity shy Faulkner was asked about the accuracy of a Forbes listing that at the time had her net worth estimated at $2.8 billion.
“I don't even know. How do they know?” Faulkner said. “Forbes says I'm a billionaire. But I'm the worst billionaire ever. That's what one of my staff said.”
Why?
“My car is about 5 years old—an Audi station wagon. The previous car, also an Audi, was about 11 years old.”
Faulkner isn't the highest-ranking Badger on the new Forbes list.
Forbes' top honors go to Diane Hendricks, 69, co-founder and chairwoman of ABC Supply, a distributor of roofing materials based in Beloit, Wis. Her net worth is estimated at $5 billion.
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, 62, took the No. 2 spot with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion.
