DETROIT

Billionaire Richard DeVos, co-founder of direct-selling giant Amway, owner of the Orlando Magic and father-inlaw of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, died Thursday. He was 92.

Family spokesman Nick Wasmiller says DeVos died at his western Michigan home due to complications from an infection.

DeVos was born in Grand Rapids, not far from Ada, the community about 140 miles west of Detroit where he later lived and died.

In 1949, he and friend Jay Van Andel took $49 and invested the modest amount into manufacturer and vitamin direct-seller Nutrilite. They became independent vitamin distributors and later used the company’s person to-person selling approach when starting Amway in Ada with an all-purpose household cleaning product.

They coined the name Amway as an abbreviation of “American Way.” Over five decades, Amway became a multibillion-dollar international corporation. Van Andel died in 2004.