Bush visit helps Austins make name in GOP ranks

Four years ago, when Eden Prairie hearing-aid magnate Bill Austin was asked to describe himself, he said he was "somewhat apolitical."

Well, that was then.

Austin and his wife, Tani, have quickly and quietly become major benefactors to Republicans, having donated more than $100,000 to candidates and the party in recent years.

Their political emergence is scheduled to culminate this afternoon, when they open the doors of their home for a big-dollar fundraiser for Sen. Norm Coleman, featuring none other than President Bush.

While in the Twin Cities, Bush is to receive a briefing on the recovery efforts involving the Interstate 35W bridge collapse and the flash flooding that devastated southeastern Minnesota, the White House said.

Next Monday, the Austins will host a $1,000-a-person fundraiser for Fred Thompson, the still-undeclared Republican presidential Republican candidate.

Although the Austins are exceptionally well-known and well-regarded within the hearing-aid industry and the philanthropic world, they are virtually unheard of in political circles. Several Republican operatives and fundraisers drew a blank when asked about the Austins and their political activities.

"I've never met him, never even heard of the guy," said longtime GOP activist Annette Meeks. "I didn't even know he and his wife were Republicans. But if he's raising money, God bless him."I'm sort of flummoxed, but he's not even on my radar screen," said David Strom, president of the Minnesota Free Market Institute and an anti-tax activist well-connected with Republicans. "It seems like the emergence of a new guy who's clearly already a major player."

Jan Unstad, a Republican fundraiser, also said she was in the dark about the Austins' political activities. "Unfortunately, I don't really know Bill, other than he's been an incredibly generous donor for quite a while," she wrote in an e-mail. "He's certainly much better known for his charitable work rather than the political side."

Campaign officials declined to provide details about the relationship between Coleman and the Austins, who have sprinkled $7,300 to previous Coleman campaigns. "They've just been supporting him, his campaigns and what he's done in the Senate," said Cullen Sheehan, a campaign spokesman. Calls to Bill Austin's assistant at Starkey Laboratories, the hearing aid manufacturer he founded more than 40 years ago, weren't returned.

Famous for philanthropy

Starkey is "one of the major players in the industry worldwide and one of the few manufacturers remaining in America," said Carol Rogin, executive director of the Hearing Industries Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. "It's fair to say Bill's been an innovator and leader in the industry. Bill Austin is all about people."

In a 2003 Star Tribune profile, Austin, now 65, spoke about his homegrown business and passion for philanthropy.

A medical school dropout, he parlayed a hearing-aid repair business and a small hearing-aid company into a privately held juggernaut that he said has revenues of about $400 million a year, employing more than 4,000 people, 1,000 of them in Minnesota.

He scoffed at one business publication's estimate that his personal net worth was $269 million, calling it a "fantasy," but said he's been offered upward of $1 billion to sell Starkey.

"My wealth is meaningless," he said at the time, preferring to emphasize the work of the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which has given away and fitted tens of thousands of poor kids around the world with hearing aids.

That charitable work has brought Bill and Tani Austin most of the publicity they have received in recent years, most often in conjunction with the foundation's annual gala, held in the Twin Cities, raising millions of dollars and attracting such celebrities as Jay Leno and Walter Cronkite.

Political luminaries including President Bush as well as former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton have received Starkey's devices, which Bill Austin has personally fitted for all of them.

Which means that when Bush arrives this afternoon, Austin will have his ear, in more than one sense.

To attend the fundraiser will cost a minimum of $1,000; 10 times that contribution (divided between Coleman and the party) will allow a couple to be listed as a co-host; $14,600 will buy a designation as a host.

Staff writer Jon Tevlin contributed to this report. Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184

Bob Von Sternberg • vonste@startribune.com