Mark R. Hughes (January 1, 1956 – May 21, 2000) was an American entrepreneur who was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Herbalife International Ltd, a multi-level marketing company. Early life Hughes was born in La Mirada, California on January 1, 1956, the son of Stuard Hartman and Jo Ann Hughes. His parents divorced in 1970, when Mark was 14, and his mother retained custody of Mark. At this point, the family survived on welfare payments with Hughes' mother suffering from "emotional problems." She battled obesity and tension via amphetamines and sleeping pills. In the ninth grade Hughes dropped out of school and began using drugs himself. "I was a little delinquent," he says. "I got in trouble with the law." At 16, he was sent to CEDU High School, a private residential school for troubled youngsters in Running Springs, CA whose origins were associated with Synanon, a group founded in 1958 and later described as a cult. Part of Hughes' CEDU rehab required him to raise money by selling raffle tickets. Hughes became the school's best salesman. "The approval there was based on how much funds you raised," Hughes told People magazine in 1985. "There was a lot of pressure, and I wanted to be the best right away." Hughes was 19 years old and still working for CEDU when his mother died in her apartment of an accidental drug overdose on April 27, 1975. According to the autopsy report, several empty vials of prescription drugs were found beside her bed, and her doctor told the coroner she "was known to over-ingest her prescription drugs." Toxicological tests showed potentially lethal levels of the painkiller Darvon in her system. Career Hughes began his career in 1976 at Seyforth Laboratories selling diet products. He spent three years there and was listed as one of the company's top 100 earners. In 1976, after Seyforth Laboratories shut down, he joined Golden Youth, a direct-sales outfit that sells exercise equipment and weight-control products. When Golden Youth went out of business, Hughes decided to start his own operation. In February 1980, aged 24, Hughes founded Los Angeles-based Herbalife International. It has since become one of the world's largest distributors of Herbalife products through multi-level marketing, with sales of about $3.5 billion in 2007 and 2.1 million Independent Distributors. Now in 95 countries and achieving record retail sales of $7.5 billion in 2013 according to company