This Mysterious Who Is John Galt Billboard Raises More Than Just One Question

• Jeff Zoline

In a lonely gravel lot on the 6200 block of North Pulaski Road, a billboard poses a question in plain black text to all who pass: “Who is John Galt?” It seems a rather cryptic query, unless of course you’re one of Ayn Rand’s devotees, a group whose membership has included everyone from the late Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey to the Catholic churchgoing congressman Paul Ryan. But even casual Rand readers will immediately recognize this as the opening line of the author’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.

“My parents saw a bunch on their way down to Florida via Jersey,” says Anne Omrod, owner of the local software company John Galt Solutions. The bio page of her firm’s website carries the headline “Who is John Galt?” But she’s quick to add that her organization isn’t associated with the Sauganash billboard.