Arthur Blank co-founded Home Depot, owns the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, and since 2001 has owned Mountain Sky Guest Ranch near Emigrant, Montana. The ranch was the first of several properties he has assembled in Paradise Valley, along the Yellowstone River.
From Queens to Atlanta
Blank was born Sept. 27, 1942, in Flushing, Queens, to Max, a pharmacist, and Molly Blank. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City and graduated from Babson College in 1963. He started as a senior accountant at Arthur Young and Company, then moved into retail with the Daylin Corporation, where he rose to president of its Elliott’s Drug Stores and Stripe Discount Stores division. When Daylin sold that division, he went to Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers as vice president of finance.
In 1978, Blank and Bernard Marcus were fired from Handy Dan after an internal power struggle. They started Home Depot the same year, with investors assembled by Ken Langone and merchandising help from Pat Farrah. The first two stores opened in Atlanta on June 22, 1979. Blank served as president for 19 years, then succeeded Marcus as chief executive. He retired in 2001 as co-chairman. Both founders became billionaires as the chain grew.
Sports and philanthropy
In February 2002, Blank bought the Atlanta Falcons from Taylor Smith, son of the team’s founder, Rankin M. Smith Sr. He later added the Georgia Force of the Arena Football League and, as an expansion franchise, Atlanta United FC, which began Major League Soccer play in 2017 and won the 2018 MLS Cup. The Falcons and United share Mercedes-Benz Stadium. In 2023 he bought Atlanta Drive GC in the TGL golf league, which won the SoFi Cup in 2025, and he holds an NWSL expansion team scheduled to start play in 2028. He chairs the parent company, AMB Group.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, which he chairs, has made several large gifts. In October 2020 it committed $200 million to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and the Arthur M. Blank Hospital opened Sept. 29, 2024. That month it also gave $20 million to found a stuttering research center at the University of Texas at Austin. In March 2020, it committed about $5.4 million to COVID-19 relief in Georgia and Montana. Blank also sits on the Emory University board of trustees.
In February 2016, he disclosed that he had treatable prostate cancer, and in March said he was cancer-free. He has been married three times, most recently in 2016, and announced that marriage’s end in January 2019.
The Montana connection
Blank was a regular guest at Mountain Sky for years before he bought it in 2001. The ranch has operated as a dude ranch since 1929. It covers about 10,767 acres, according to the Blank Foundation, and sells all-inclusive stays of five or seven nights that include horseback riding, cattle work, meals and a wellness center. It became the first property in what is now AMB West, his Montana holding group.
That group totals about 33,000 acres across four properties in Paradise Valley. West Creek Ranch, about 6,700 acres bought in 2017, is used as an invitation-only conference and retreat site for nonprofits. Paradise Valley Ranch, about 9,600 acres bought in 2019, has been protected by a conservation easement since 2023. The newest, Auster at Dome Mountain, was reported open in July 2026 as a year-round lodge on more than 6,000 acres, with about four miles of river frontage and 20 cabins. The Blank Foundation described it as the first Blank property open to the general public year-round.
Blank’s business base is Atlanta, but Mountain Sky remains the oldest piece of his Montana footprint.
Sources: Wikipedia; Blank Family of Businesses; Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.