Ohio billionaire and adventurer Larry Connor, 74, has set his sights on exploring the Titanic shipwreck.
Partnering with Patrick Lahey, co-founder and CEO of Triton Submarines, Connor aims to demonstrate that such deep-sea voyages can be conducted safely, particularly in the wake of the OceanGate tragedy last year, where CEO Stockton Rush and four others perished when their Titan submersible imploded en route to the Titanic site.
Connor, a seasoned explorer who has previously journeyed to space and the Mariana Trench, emphasized the transformative potential of ocean exploration when approached correctly.
He is the founder of The Connor Group, a luxury real estate investment firm based in Ohio, boasting over $5 billion in assets across 18 U.S. markets. The company, which started in 1991, evolved from a small venture into a significant enterprise with properties in cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Miami. Forbes estimates Connor's net worth at $2 billion.
In addition to his real estate ventures, Connor founded The Greater Dayton School, Ohio's first non-religious private school for under-resourced students, which opened in November 2023 and enrolled 105 students from Pre-K to fourth grade by October 2023.
Connor is also an accomplished racer with over 70 wins, including victories in the Baja 1000 and Baja 500, the Formula Atlantic National Championship, and the Petit Le Mans. His exploratory achievements include dives to the Mariana Trench's Sirena Deep, Challenger Deep, and a seamount with Lahey in April 2021, using Triton Submarines' Triton 36000/2.
They collected valuable video footage and samples for scientific research in the hadal zone, the ocean's deepest area.
In April 2022, Connor became the first private astronaut pilot, leading the Axiom Mission 1 crew to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon. The mission involved 25 experiments and over 100 hours of research in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic on studies related to the heart, brain, spine, and aging.
Most recently, in September 2023, Connor and four others set a Guinness World Record for the highest HALO (high altitude, low opening) formation skydive at 38,139 feet, jumping from a hot air balloon to support the Special Operations Warfare Foundation charity.