"They were preemies, so they took forever to feed and you had to feed them every three hours. It took an hour for each one," recalls Forbes.

His wife, Sabina, took care of most of the feedings, but the 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. shifts fell to Forbes, who was learning the ropes at the same time as a business reporter at his father's magazine, the one he would eventually run.

"After feeding them in the morning, I could shower, dress and go to work," he said.

In 1973, 12-hour days at the office were the norm. So were long train rides to and from work. The pressures piling on Forbes, still practically a newlywed and now a father of two, had intensified.

For the young man raised in the affluent hillsides of Somerset County, N.J., it was a chance to show a patience and single-minded determination that can be seen today on the campaign trail.

"It was made clear to everybody that Steve was the heir apparent," said Jim Michaels, Forbes magazine's editor at the time. "I think he was determined to prove his worth."

Forbes knew colleagues questioned whether the boss' son could ever fill the shoes of his father, Malcolm Forbes.

"When you know somebody at the top, people may question whether you are serious or not," he said. "I've always been accustomed to beating expectations and knowing that, given my circumstance, people would take the Missouri 'show me' attitude with me -- you know, you have to prove yourself."

Forbes, now a Republican presidential candidate, joined the magazine in 1971, the year he finished a six-month stint with the National Guard and the same year he got married.

He entered at ground level -- as a fact checker -- but the job allowed him to bone up on complex issues such as international monetary systems. A year later, he moved up to reporting. He worked directly for Michaels, writing articles about the mutual funds industry.

Heavy edits on Forbes' copy weren't unusual, but Michaels said Forbes "would never grumble."

Instead, he would pore over the changes and try to understand the reasons.

"He approached the job with a good deal of humility as well as a lot of energy," said Michaels, who retired from the magazine last year. "He never took the attitude, nor did his father, that this guy's going to be the boss so he's going to go in on a high level."

Forbes knew he was in line for the family business from the time he was a teen-ager working summers in the magazine's mailroom. But with only two years of professional work experience under his belt, he had yet to prove himself a worthy successor.

"I don't think it was ever an automatic that it was going to go to Steve, as opposed to the other kids," said Mickey Pohl, who attended Princeton with Forbes.

"His father, for all his colorful lifestyle things, was a pretty savvy businessman -- if Steve had been a loser, he never would have wound up the CEO. From what I saw it was very much a merit-based advancement."

Barely a year after he joined the company, Forbes helped write editorials for his father's regular column. He would write them only after finishing his work for Michaels.

"He never used this as an excuse for not making his deadlines or covering his area," Michaels said. "Whatever else he did it was in addition to doing a very full-time job."

Forbes has often quipped about how he rocketed through the ranks: "As my father used to say, there is nothing wrong with nepotism as long as you keep it within the family." But he also says it was a "dicey thing" when he went to work for his father.

In a few more years, Forbes left reporting to learn about the business side of the company. He went on sales calls and played host for functions. By the time his father died in 1990, Forbes had been participating in key decisions for years. His transition into company CEO was seamless.

"It was a perfect handoff, like a relay team," said Jude Wanniski, an economist who has known Forbes for decades.

Michaels said Forbes probably would have done just as well had he stayed in the editorial department as a reporter or editor.

"My basic memory of him was as a very earnest, very hardworking man with a great deal of curiosity and a determination to show that he could excel in that job even though it wasn't going to be his life career," he said.