Donald Joel Aronow (March 3, 1927 – February 3, 1987) was an American designer, builder and racer of the famous Magnum Marine, Cary, Cigarette, Donzi, and Formula speedboats. He built speedboats for the Shah of Iran, Charles Keating, Robert Vesco, Malcolm Forbes, and George H. W. Bush. Retired President Lyndon B. Johnson owned several 16 ft. Donzi speedboats on his Texas ranch with which he would race his Secret Service agents. Early life and education Aronow was born in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, the youngest son of Russian-Jewish immigrants Herman and Ruth Aronow. He had two elder sisters, Sylvia and Lillian. His father owned a gas station and then a taxi company which collapsed during the Great Depression. He graduated a top athlete from James Madison High School in 1944, worked as a life guard at Coney Island, and enrolled at Brooklyn College. In 1945, he joined the merchant marine and worked overseas until the end of World War II. In 1947, he returned to the USA and completed his studies graduating from Brooklyn College in 1948 with a physical education degree earning letters in football, wrestling, and track. Career After school, he worked as a physical education teacher for a time until he accepted a job at his father-in-law's southern New Jersey construction business which was booming thanks to demand from returning World War II veterans. In 1953, he established his own construction company, the Aronow Corporation which quickly became one of the largest construction companies in the state. In 1959, at age of 32, the now-millionaire Aronow moved to Miami with his family, where he began racing boats as a hobby. The hobby evolved into a business and by the end of 1962, he had formed the Formula Marine boat company, which he then sold to Merrick Lewis' Alliance Machine Corp out of Dayton, Ohio. In 1964 he started Donzi Marine; the Donzi brand became an international success and Aronow quickly sold the company to Teleflex Inc. in mid-1965. In 1966, he founded Magnum Marine and in 1967 proceeded to win his first World Championship driving two 27' Magnums, a single engine inboard and a triple engine Mercury-powered outboard. Since he was not supposed to be building boats in 1969, according to his non-compete clause following the sale of Magnum Marine, Aronow built the first Cigarette boat under the name Cary, with the help of Elton