The
Carolina RailHawks hope to remove all doubt about their future with the
revelation that Bob Young has purchased an ownership stake in the USL
First Division team in Cary.
Young is the founder and CEO of
Lulu.com,
a self-publishing web site headquartered in Morrisville. Prior to
launching Lulu.com a few years ago, Young was the CEO of Red Hat, Inc.,
an RTP company dedicated to free and open source software and a Linux
distribution vendor.
At Red Hat, Young served on the company's board of directors with Selby
Wellman, who along with son Brian are the RailHawks' majority owners.
Paul Singh is also a part of the team's ownership group.
"Selby Wellman is the smartest guy I know," Young said by phone Tuesday
evening. "Any project Selby is involved in, Selby has to be successful.
I'm just pleased to be Selby's partner. … I just always had a lot of
respect for Selby so we when approached me, I jumped at the chance."
While Young has made his fortune in software, he's no stranger to
sports ownership. He has owned his hometown Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the
Canadian Football League since 2003.
"He's completely in sync with us and what we're doing," Brian Wellman
said. "The team has never been stronger from a financial standpoint,
and never stronger from a leadership standpoint."
>>
Read Tim Candon's full article at WRAL Sports Fan.