[4] He has pursued a variety of other business ventures including DNAinfo.com, High Plains Bison, The Lodge at Jackson Fork, and The American Film Company.

[1][11] He attended St. Bernard's Academy in Nebraska City, where he met his future wife Marlene Margaret (Volkmer).

[13] Joe and Marlene Ricketts have four children, Pete, Thomas, Laura, and Todd, who were raised Catholic.

[4] Regarding his time in Omaha during the 1960s, Ricketts wrote in his 2019 memoir The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get[15] about "stockbrokers destroying their lives with dope, alcohol, and sex, which was just another kind of drug":[16] Our substance of choice was beer.

[29] In September 2017, Ricketts wrote, "I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.

Ricketts co-founded the Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA) with Eric O'Keefe, Leo Linbeck III, and Tim Dunn.

[33][34] Ricketts founded an independent organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks that classified every Member of Congress as either a spending "hero" or "hooligan.

[42] His son, Pete Ricketts, is a member of the Republican National Committee, was elected governor of Nebraska in 2014, and is currently a U.S.

[43] His daughter, Laura Ricketts, is a gay rights activist and prominent bundler for Barack Obama.

[45] On May 17, 2012, The New York Times published a story by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg reporting that The Ending Spending Action fund had been presented with a 54-page proposal entitled, "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good."

According to the Times, the proposal, written by a vendor seeking to be hired by Ending Spending, suggested a $10-million ad campaign to "attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away" and called for "running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Reverend Jeremiah A.

[47] The president of the Ending Spending Action Fund said that the pitch was a "nonstarter"[46] and issued the following statement repudiating the proposal: "Not only was this plan merely a proposal—one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors—but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take.

[50] Ricketts also raised funds for the Future45 Super Pac and the 45Committee, a pro-Trump 501(c)4 organization that is not required to disclose its donors.

[53] Ricketts established Opportunity Education, which is a non-profit organization that empowers teachers with research-backed resources and support to help their students develop the skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.

[54] On September 26, 2013, Louisiana College president Joe W. Aguillard presented Ricketts and his brother, Jim, with two of three Trustees' Distinguished Service Awards at the annual Founder's Day chapel.