IBHF - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Founder

Albert Lasker can justifiably be called the founder of the modern advertising industry. Albert, the son of a wealthy Galveston, Texas banker, Morris Lasker, became interested in journalism in his early youth. Upon graduation from high school, his first job was with the Galveston Morning News. Disapproving of his son's journalism career, Morris Lasker managed to persuade his son to try an advertising position with the Lord and Thomas agency in Chicago, Illinois. Albert Lasker reluctantly accepted the position with Lord and Thomas, fully intending to only stay a few weeks to satisfy his father. Surprisingly, Albert Lasker was with Lord and Thomas for forty-four years. Albert Lasker began his job at Lord and Thomas as an office clerk. After a year, Lasker asked for and was granted a chance to try his luck as a salesman, soliciting accounts in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. He was an immediate success. Before the next year was over, Lasker made another daring move. He asked Mr. Thomas to put him in charge of a few accounts that were not making any money so he could practice copy writing. Within a year, he achieved a dramatic success with a hearing aid company. Both Mr. Lord and Mr. Thomas were impressed with Lasker's ingenuity, which in turn caused a fond rapport to develop among the three men. In 1903, when Mr. Lord retired, Lasker purchased his share of the business, thus becoming a partner in Lord and Thomas. Albert Lasker saw merit in Kennedy's views and explanation of the principles of advertising. He hired Kennedy to work with him at Lord and Thomas. Kennedy stressed hat the way the ad copy was written was crucial to advertising. Lasker began to perceive the need for a copy writing department. He hired several young newspapermen and trained them according to Kennedy's advertising prescription. Thus Lasker created the first systematically trained copy writing staff in America. Kennedy soon left Lord and Thomas to establish his own business but not before Lasker was able to obtain the knowledge and understanding of advertising he needed. In 1916, Lasker purchased a large block of stock in the Chicago Cubs baseball organization. He soon became the controlling stockholder. In 1919 amidst claims that gamblers had bribed ball players to throw the World Series, Lasker took it upon himself to do something to restore the game to it's former, honorable place. He fought long and hard for an outside, unbiased authority to run the game. And so it was that Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis became the first baseball commissioner. Albert Lasker's ingenuity and unique ability to explain the product being advertised using the philosophy of "Advertising is Salesmanship in Print" have earned him the title of Founder of Modern Advertising by his peers. His focus on the ad copy and establishment of the copy write department were crucial to the advertising industry's evolution. Lasker's creative use of coupons, radio, and potential to see alternative uses for products were keys to his success and the success of Lord and Thomas.

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor

Job Titles:

• CEO
• President of Motorola

Bob Galvin (on the left) was named president of Motorola in 1956 and succeeded his father, Paul Galvin (on the right), as the chief executive officer in 1958. The company began life with Paul Galvin s development of a battery eliminator in 1928 followed by the development of an automobile radio in 1929. The battery eliminator had a very short life while the automobile radio became a profitable product for decades. Motorola subsequently expanded into two-way radio communications (e.g. police communications, military communications). Next came the company s entry into the production of television receiving sets and semiconductors. Motorola was prominent in all of those markets when Bob Galvin followed his father as CEO. In addition to formal management training Bob Galvin learned the business by working in lower level jobs and by receiving mentoring from older employees. Among his most important mentors was Paul Galvin. And among the most important ideas passed on from father to son were Paul Galvin s two favorite sayings about building and maintaining an entrepreneurial culture. First, there was the saying that encouraged the entrepreneurial act Do not fear failure! In other words, entrepreneurs take risks and risk takers will inevitably experience some failures. Fear of failure can prevent a potential entrepreneur from taking risks. Second, there was the saying that kept those risks manageable Recognize the signs! In other words, recognize the possibility of failure and move quickly to cut losses once it is clear that a new project will not become profitable. When Paul Galvin died in 1958 these two admonitions were part of the philosophy which he left behind. Business ethics was an important issue with Bob Galvin. Motorola s corporate statement on this matter read as follows for customers, employees, shareholders and community. (FOR) CUSTOMERS, (our objectives are) to serve every customer better than our competitors with products and services of excellent value and quality , and thereby earn continued enthusiastic trust and support. (FOR) PEOPLE (our objectives are) to treat each employee with dignity, as an individual; to maintain an open atmosphere where direct communication with employees affords the opportunity to contribute to the maximum of their potential and fosters unity of purpose with Motorola; to provide personal opportunities for training and development to ensure the most capable and effective work force; to respect senior service; to compensate fairly by salary and benefits and, where possible, incentives; and to practice the commonly accepted policies of equal opportunity and affirmative action. (FOR) SHAREHOLDERS, (our objective is) to have our shareholders prosper and, therefore, make our equity securities an attractive investment. (FOR THE) COMMUNITY, (our objective is) to be a good corporate citizen by contributing to the economic and social well-being of every community and country in which we operate. The corporation will encourage its employees to actively participate in community affairs. (For Which We Stand. A Statemelnt of Purpose; Objectives and Ethics. Schaumberg, Illinois, Motorola, Inc. Bob Galvin s success in dealing with the Japanese business strategy of sancturary reflected his broader view that a company CEO should play a role in writing the rules by which firms in an industry compete. In fact, when talking to college audiences he sometimes would refer to the three topics of sanctuary, credentialing and writing the rules. Sanctuary, he would say, is what the Japanese achieve by preventing American entry into the Japanese home market. Re-writing the rules of international competition is what must be done in order to open up the Japanese market. But to convince the American Congress to rewrite the rules it is necessary for industry spokespersons to have credibility. To have credibility one must be credentialed. And to be credentialed an executive must have a track record of industry expertise. One of the ways Bob Galvin credentialed himself was to become active in industry trade association activities. Bob Galvin s Motorola was truly an organization of proactive empowered leaders with a sense of proprietorship. It was an egalitarian culture which was maintained by Bob Galvin s constant role modeling and such techniques as addressing everyone on a first name basis, working in shirt sleeves and encouraging open discussion. With respect to the last point, management guru James O Toole approving quotes the following comment by a Motorola manager, The expectation is that you will challenge any idea. The top three guys Galvin, Weisz and Mitchell disagree with each other in front of their managers. The upshot is a healthy disrespect for the idea that those at the top are necessarily the wisest. (James O Toole, Vanguard Management, Doubleday and Company, 1985, p. 292). This emphasis on participative management was promoted throughout the company.

Brick Lundberg was born in 1920 in Kewanee, Illinois, where his father, Gust E. Lundberg, Sr., was a local auto dealer. The senior Lundberg had given much though to the relationship between business and life. In high school, he and two friends had pooled their resources to buy an encyclopedia in the belief that the self-improvement they would accomplish through knowledge would allow them to accomplish great things. The two other boys, through exclusive dedication to business, eventually became founders of major American corporations. But the senior Lundberg believed that business was an important part, but only one part of life, and raised his sons in the same belief. After graduation from high school, Brick Lundberg enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he earned part of his expenses by working for the Elmo Roper survey organization. He found this work to be so interesting that he decided to work full time for Roper in New York as soon as he graduated. World War II and military service, however, interrupted these plans. Upon graduation Brick received a commission in the Air Force and married Eleanor Miller of Cairo, Illinois a few days later. During the war Brick was an adjutant with the 387th bomb group. He was partially responsible for the organization's outstanding sense of cohesion and spirit - a spirit so strong that for thirty years after the war the group held annual reunions organized by Brick and the group's flight surgeon. The duration of the war gave Lundberg some perspective on the career plans he had formulated in college, and the glamour of working for Roper in New York began to fade. Perhaps because of his father's influence, Lundberg began to think more positively about business in a small town and when the group's flight surgeon, Dr. Harry Schwartz, came through with an offer of financial backing, the two decided to become partners. In 1946, Lundberg and his partner began acquiring a series of Culligan Soft Water franchises in Kewanee and Macomb, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1948, however, the death of Brick's older brother forced him to return to Kewanee to help his 73-year old father liquidate an automobile dealership, necessitating the sale of Lundberg's shares in the Culligan dealerships in Macomb and Kenosha. Remaining in Kewanee, he put up a large Culligan building with a shop in back where his father could indulge his love for mechanical tinkering. The shop, in turn, gave Brick the idea of forming a company to market some of his father's inventions. The business, named Kewanee Rite, sold a number of products successfully and gave young Lundberg his first real experience in merchandising. During the same period, Lundberg became an active civic leader. His devotion to Kewanee's industrial development efforts and other projects led the Kewanee Junior Chamber of Commerce to name him Outstanding Young Man of the Year in 1951 and again in 1955. In the latter year, he received the same award for the State of Illinois. Lundberg's achievements were many during this period -which also included an unsuccessful campaign for mayor - but none so dramatically illustrates his ability to motivate people and his dedication to the community as his work for the local National Guard unit and its armory. In the late 1940's the National Guard unit at Kewanee was so seriously undermanned, that it faced the loss of this Federal charter. Local officials petitioned the State of Illinois for a new armory in hopes that the new facility would encourage recruitment. But the state's response reversed the order of things. If, and only if, the community could bring its unit up to strength would the new armory be built with state funds. Meeting the challenge was discouraging. A series of company leaders turned to Lundberg. The story of how Lundberg, at a sacrifice in reserve rank, revitalized the unit and brought Kewanee its armory is vividly recalled by Ted Vlahos (One of the recruits): "They had one company commander after another and they couldn't get anybody to do any recruiting. So that got good ol' Brick Lundberg ..He had to resign his commission as a lieutenant colonel and go as a captain… and I think in about three or four months he filled up the one company with a hundred and sixty-five men, and then he started another company, a medical company, which was like a hundred men …which led to the State of Illinois building not a single unit armory but a double unit armory. Vlahos' recruitment into the Guard was the beginning of a friendship and business relationship that was to last a lifetime. It demonstrates dramatically Brick's care and concern for everyone he come into contact with, whether they were Sandy's employees or National Guard recruits. In this particular case, Lundberg sensed the coming of the Korean war and sought out Vlahos: "He said,'We're gonna' have another war' … and I was a sergeant at the time … and he said, ‘ I would like to see you try and get a commissioin. You're gonna' have to face it sooner or later, and you might as well go as an officer than as an enlisted man.' So again, I became an officer because of Brick Lundberg." Vlahos was not so lucky in Korea, however. He was seriously injured; his back barely permitted him to walk, and he returned to Kewanee to find his business in ruins. Ted Vlahos was depressed and bitter when, once again, he ran into Brick Lundberg: " I was hurt in the service and I went from 205 pounds to 128. And I didn't have any clothes that fit. So I borrowed a neighbor's car and went downtown to buy some clothes … and a car pulled up and there was Brick Lundberg." The two were celebrating their reunion with a drink when Brick hit his friend with a new responsibility: to command and reorganize the local guard unit. It was the last thing from Vlahos' mind: "I said, ‘ Brick, I've lost my business, I've got a bad back, I've got some other problems,' and he said, ‘ what have you done for your country?' I said, ‘ Brick, I was in the Army yesterday,' and he said, ‘ What have you done for your country today?' "

Job Titles:

• Mormon Leader

Charles Deere died in 1906 and was succeeded as company president by his son-in-law, William Butterworth. Trained as a lawyer, Butterworth ushered in an era of conservative management with an emphasis on group decision-making by the board of directors. His team orientation included a deep concern for the welfare, loyalty and trust of employees. He recognized and perpetuated the Deere tradition of total commitment to quality. By the mid-1920s he was actively Charles Wiman, Charles Deere's nephew, for the company presidency. In 1928 Butterworth was elected president of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce and Wiman assumed the presidency of Deere and Company. Wiman held a college degree in engineering from Yale University and his distinctive contribution to Deere was to make engineering a company strength. Under his prodding the company became a leading manufacturer of farm tractors (second only to International Harvester). Particularly impressive was Wiman's insistence on maintaining research and development programs in the midst of The Great Depression. Charles Deere (1837-1907) began working in his father's firm at the age of sixteen in 1854 (104). He was a recent graduate of Bell's Commercial College in Chicago where he learned bookkeeping, commercial law, business math, and the art of detecting counterfeit bills. (104) It was bookkeeping that his father John Deere (1804-1886) was especially interested in seeing Charles learn. Bookkeeping and other financial aspects of business were a mystery to John and this disability almost sank the plow manufacturer more than once (97, 125). In Charles, John had a family member he could trust implicitly and who was better educated. This freed John to do what he did best, innovating and marketing.Charles quickly developed an understanding of the company's books and established family control over internal finance. Having accomplished this he turned to selling, shortly becoming the head of sales (104). In 1857 Charles Deere, became a partner in a newly formed partnership called John Deere & Co (125). This partnership accomplished three things. First, it assigned an ownership interest in the company to Charles for the first time (twenty five per cent). Second, it shifted as much cash as possible out of the company and into the hands of John and Charles Deere. Finally, it established Charles Deere as the principle manager of the company, while removing John as principle manager (126-127). Charles was barely 21 (or possibly 20) and may not have been completely prepared for this elevation, but external circumstances forced the reorganization. In order to understand Charles Deere, his early ascension, and his influence on the John Deere Company it is necessary to begin with John Deere and the company's emergence. Charles Deere fulfilled his business potential for John Deere at just the right time. He was educated for business and had the drive and skills necessary to carry his father's company through its worst time. John Deere and Company, Inc. today carries his stamp as much as it does John Deere's. Understanding Charles Deere can be aided by looking at the few glimpses of a personal nature we have. The first view available is during that high pressure period after the Panic of 1857 when Charles was taking responsibility for the business. John Deere and Christopher Webber, both partners in the company to whatever extent was true of that period were hounded by creditors and the company itself was at risk. It was a difficult time for many people and, during a business trip Charles reached a point of great resolution which he followed throughout his life. In a memorandum book he carried with him on business trips he recorded a hard learned lesson: "I will never from this seventh day of February, eighteen hundred sixty A.D. put my name to a paper that I do not expect to pay - so help me God." Is this as a result of observing his father's difficulties? Did he have financial problems of his own historians know nothing about? Or had he just witnessed some financial tragedy of a third party? Whatever the case, his future financial management of his company was very effective. A second look at Charles is during the Candee, Swan & Co. court case of 1867 in which Charles may have let his anger get the better of his judgment. Candee, Swan & Co took up manufacturing of plows in Moline in 1866. Their plows were extremely similar to the Deere plows, their trademark could be mistaken for the Deere trademark at ten paces, and by today's standards, Candee, Swan's sales representatives were clearly misrepresenting themselves as coming from the Deere manufacturing works, unless they were asked specific, astute questions by the dealers. The Candee, Swan catalog adopted almost identical products, product numbers, and prices. This was too much for Charles and he took to advertising to express himself: Charles Deere was a tough competitor, a good leader, and a business manager who showed himself to be capable in finance, marketing, sales, company organization, new product development, and labor relations. He left his stamp on the company as surely as his John Deere left his. Charles Deere was able to take a financially troubled regional manufacturing firm and bring it through economically bad times, significant technological changes, important social changes, and rapidly advancing business practices so that it was ready for the new challenges of the Twentieth Century - even though Charles himself was educated in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. On October 29, 1907 Charles Deere died in Chicago. He was, of course, on John Deere & Company business.

Cora Gates moved to Quincy, Illinois, in 1918 with their only son, Parker, age 11, and lived in a rented bungalow at 2315 Broadway. In the attic of this house, Parker began to build crystal radio sets that could be ordered through the mail. Henry, a food-products specialist, was hired by United Cereal Mills to be plant superintendent of the Egg-O-See Cereal Company. When the Egg-O-See plant closed, the family moved to Cereal, PA, where Henry was hired to manage Jersey Cereal Mills. The family was asked to reside in the president's house located halfway up a hill from the factory and office complex. Henry soon found out a strike was looming, and the president was afraid to live in his newly built residence. Henry was sent to Pittsburg on business to meet with representatives of the Westinghouse Corporation. He took Parker along and the two of them spent several hours at KDKA, the first radio station to go on the air in the United States.

Cyrus McCormick was born on February 15, 1809 on a farm in the Valley of Virginia, 18 miles away from the little town of Lexington. His father, Robert McCormick, was a very successful farmer who owned and operated a 532 acre farm. "Except for a few luxuries, the McCormick estate was self sufficing. Flax, hemp, and sheep furnished the fiber and wool for spinning wheel and loom. Robert's cattle and hogs yielded the yearly meat supply for brine barrel and smoke-house, the tallow for candles, and the oil for soap. The hides were taken to a nearby tannery and made ready for shoes and harnesses. His grain became flour at his own grist-mill or whiskey at his own distillery. When lumber was needed his sawmill could cut it from timber felled on his own land. His mechanical skill found expression at the forge and anvil of his smithy…"[1] The senior McCormick was fascinated by machinery and had at an earlier point in his life attempted to invent a mechanical harvester without success, earning only the derision of neighbors who said such a thing was impossible. Nevertheless, Robert encouraged his son's attempt to succeed where the father had failed and in 1831 Cyrus built a small experimental harvester. The machine successfully cut six acres of oats and, although the grain was not cut perfectly, the machine did incorporate for the first time in history all of the mechanical principles of the modern reaper. At the age of twenty-two, Cyrus McCormick had achieved an historical breakthrough but not a single one of the 850 newspapers in the United States carried mention of the invention, nor did anyone rush to purchase a machine from McCormick. Recognizing that his invention required much more development before it would be a commercial success, McCormick set to work to make the numerous modifications that together would make the machine work well under most conceivable harvest conditions. An improved model harvested fifty acres of wheat in 1832 and several public trials were conducted. Further refinements were made that winter and in 1833 the new model impressed a number of local farmers with its ability to cut 10 to 12 acres a day. The spectators had to agree that the machine did the work of several men but money was scarce, labor was plentiful, there was considerable fear of breaking with tradition, and the farmers feared that they would not be expert enough to handle the machine. At least one of those farmers considered buying a reaper from McCormick but McCormick himself later said that he did not sell his first machine until 1839. McCormick had been delaying the act of patenting his reaper until he had improved the machine to the point where he felt ready to manufacture it for sale. In the spring of 1834, he read of a reaper invented the previous year by a man named Obed Hussey and reacted by obtaining a 14-year patent on his own design, thus beginning a decade of rivalry between the two. During the first four years of that rivalry, Hussey was the commercial winner by default since McCormick withheld his machine from the market place. This delay was due in part to McCormick's desire to perfect his machine further and to the fact that, in 1835, Robert McCormick gave his son a 400-acre farm, confronting Cyrus with the necessity of working to make that farm profitable. The delay was also due in part to a decision by the McCormick family to enter the iron furnace business. The iron business turned out to be a financial disaster for the McCormicks, and in 1839, Cyrus returned to the reaper and began to manufacture the machines for sale. He picked a good time to return to the industry, for prosperity was returning to the farms and there was, consequently, a demand for the reapers. Hussey had been selling his machines for six years by the time McCormick returned to the business, but Hussey's product was plagued by quality problems and in 1840 he made an unwise alteration of his machine that significantly damaged the Hussey reputation. McCormick's reluctance to enter the market earlier thus gave him an opportunity to achieve a reputation for a superior machine, and this he proceeded to do. At about this time, a farmer named James Hite cut 175 acres in under eight days and gave McCormick his favorite sales slogan: "My reaper has more than paid for itself in one harvest." McCormick was able to sell sales rights to farmer Hite and several others, thus beginning the job of creating a sales force. Farm papers began to take notice of the machine now known as McCormick's Virginia Reaper and, by 1844 when he was selling fifty machines a year, McCormick found himself faced with the need to expand his production facilities. The largest potential market for the reaper was in the "West" in such states as Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri where the land was flat, farms were cheap, but labor was scarce. Cyrus McCormick sensed this opportunity and in 1844 he traveled to Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri to demonstrate his reaper. Several manufacturers in Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio contracted to produce his machine and pay him a royalty, but none of these agreements worked out very well. The Wisconsin sub-contractor failed to fulfill the contract; the Missouri contractor sold only a few machines and failed to pay McCormick. Machines were abandoned in fields because farmers did not know how to use them; and other machines went unsold because they arrived too late for the harvest. McCormick was deeply disappointed by this first experience in the "West", but he had learned a lesson. As Hutchinson put it: Neither errors in his plan of campaign nor defects in the principles of his implement could be fairly charged with the collapse of his hopes. His agents had canvassed enough orders, the press had usually been friendly and generous with its space, and self-reproach on the score of lack of energy was unwarranted. The failure of his manufacturers to fulfill their contracts, the poor construction of the machines they had succeeded in building, and the tardiness with which this defective output was placed upon the market, summed up the causes of the season's discontent… …Before the McCormick reaper could become as familiar as the plow on every grain-growing farm in the land, it would be necessary to erect a big factory at a spot where grain, transportation facilities, and building materials met, and personally guarantee both the quality of the product and the timeliness of its delivery. [2] During the following two years the system of sub-manufacturing fared better, particularly in the cases of McCormick licensees in Brockport, New York and in Illinois. In the harvest of 1847, over 500 McCormick reapers were sold and Cyrus made almost $9,000 in profit. But by this time Cyrus McCormick was well along with his plans to build his own factory in the "West" and in 1848 he moved to Chicago where his new factory had been erected. Cyrus McCormick pointed the way toward the company's later emphasis on international marketing. He displayed a Reaper in the 1851 industrial exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. The British laughed at the clumsy looking machine until they saw it at work in a field. Over the following years, a number of reapers were sold in Europe. Thus McCormick helped to make the United States an exporter of manufactured goods as well as raw materials and agricultural products. The value of the reaper in helping to feed the hungry of the world was first demonstrated in the Crimean War when large amounts of wheat were shipped to Europe. By 1855, 2,500 reapers a year were being produced by McCormick and his labor force of 200 men and boys. A year later production jumped to a rate of 4,000 reapers a year and McCormick was about to become a millionaire. McCormick's first decade in Chicago marked the beginning of a major change in the competitive environment of the reaper industry. With the expiration of McCormick's original patent in 1848, several new competitors appeared and soon became far more significant factors in the industry than Hussey. McCormick had patented several significant improvements in his reaper in the mid 1840s and had hopes of gaining an extension on his original patent. But the extension was denied and the improvement patents did not bar other firms from entering the industry. By 1864, there were more than 50 independent reaper manufacturers in the United States and the consequences of this growth were felt throughout the industry: Cyrus McCormick died in 1884 and was buried in a Chicago which had grown to sixty times the size it was when he first arrived. McCormick's factories had produced between five and six million harvesting machines. In 1902, the firm was combined with four smaller harvesting machine manufacturers to form the International Harvester Company.

Job Titles:

• Illinois Marketing and Small Business Professor

Dick Heath joined the Leo Burnett Company, Inc. and brought in some small businesses. After a disagreement with Burnett, Heath left the company. Another year passed and the Leo Burnett Company failed to add any new business clients. Finally, O'Kieffe talked Leo Burnett and Dick Heath into making up and the company began to prosper. In 1940 Leo Burnett landed the American Meat Institute account. He launched a memorable campaign in 1945, in which red meat was placed on a red background and the copy urged the reader to eat more meat. This "red on red" campaign became a classic example of Burnett's technique of "stressing the inherent drama in the product".

Dr. Burdick and wife, formerly Ella Brown of Milton, have relatives in Milton and Milton Junction. The doctor was a son of the late Stephen Burdick, who was a Seventh Day Baptist minister at West Hallock, Ill. at one time. At the time of his death Dr. Burdick was president of the Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, editor of a medical magazine and was at one time associate professor at the Illinois Medical college. DR. ALFRED S. BURDICK In 1904, Dr Alfred S. Burdick joined Abbott, and he soon took on many of the administrative duties, ultimately succeeding Abbott as President of the Company. Abbott lived until 1921, long enough for the company to change its name in 1915 to Abbott Laboratories and to break ground for its first suburban office complex.

Job Titles:

• Director - International Business Institute

Job Titles:

• Motorola 's Research Director

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor in Business at Ohio Dominican University

Dr. Grant is an Associate Professor in Business at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to pursuing an academic career he spent five years in sales and marketing with Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi-Cola. He then earned his doctorate in business administration from Arizona State University. His emphasis was in the marketing of services. Dr. Grant's major teaching and research interests are in the fields of sales management, service marketing and business ethics. He has been active in several professional associations including the American Marketing Association and the Midwest Business Administration Association. He has published work in the Journal of Personnel Selling and Sales Management and the Journal of Services Research. In addition he has presented papers at meetings of the American, Midwest and Southern marketing associations. He also earned national recognition for his innovative web-based design of the introductory marketing course at Southern Illinois University. Dr. Grant made his first connection with the American National Business Hall of Fame while at Eastern Illinois University where he earned his bachelor and master of business administration degrees. After returning from Arizona to take a position at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in the 1990s, he began using hall of fame classroom presentations and then became a board member of both the Illinois Business Hall of Fame and the American National Business Hall of Fame. Because both he and his students benefited from the sharing of the stories and lessons of the Hall's laureates, Dr. Grant took the initiative to help the hall launch several new programs. He initiated the process of digitizing some of the hall's programs; provided the initial work for the development of the hall's web site; directed doctoral student candidates in the development of classroom presentation materials; and was one of the planners of the new hallway display program scheduled to be launched in 2006. In 2004 Dr. Grant sponsored the proposal to move the executive offices of the American National Business Hall of Fame from Western Illinois University to Ohio Dominican University. In 2005 he was officially selected as the new executive director of the American National Business Hall of Fame.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Management and Organizational Leadership

Job Titles:

• Consultant
• Management and Quantitave Methods ( MQM )
• Professor of Management

Dr. Lee A. Graf is a Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods (MQM) at Illinois State University. His teaching responsibilities include classes in entrepreneurship and small business management, fundamentals of management, organizational behavior, and human resource management, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has taught previously at the University of Hawaii, Indiana State University, Mississippi State University and Northern Illinois University. From 1992 to 1994 Dr. Graf served as Acting Chairperson in Illinois State University's Accounting Department. From 1997 to 1999 he served as Internship Coordinator for the MQM Department. In August of 1999 Graf was appointed Director of Business Administration (MBA) Programs at Illinois State University. He continues to serve in that position. Dr. Graf's research program has focused primarily on projects in international management, innovative management practices, unionization in institutions of higher learning, experiential learning/pedagogical innovation, sexual harassment, and issues related to entrepreneurship/small business management. More recently, however, his research has shifted to terrorism and reduction of risk associated with terrorist attacks. Dr. Graf has published more the thirty refereed articles in prestigious journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Management, and the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. He also has published more than sixty business cases. His most recent books include Experiencing Modern Management and Experiencing Modern Management: Canada. Graf has been a consultant to business and industry for over twenty-five years and has worked with such companies as Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, State Farm Insurance, Caterpillar, Country Insurance and Financial Services, Verizon, and General Electric. He has also consulted with governmental, healthcare and banking institutions and numerous small businesses. Dr. Graf has been active in his profession, serving in leadership positions in numerous professional organizations such as the Academy of Management, Decision Sciences Institute, and the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning (President, 1986). He has also served on the Board of Directors of the American National Business Hall of Fame and the Illinois Business Hall of Fame since 1989. He has been a member of the executive committees of both halls since 1991. In 1992 Dr. Graf was selected as a Fellow of the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning. In 1995 he was awarded the Illinois State University designation as Outstanding University Researcher. In 1998 he received the Caterpillar Scholar designation.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Marketing

Job Titles:

• Professor of Economics ( Retired )

Job Titles:

• Director

Job Titles:

• Assistant Professor of Marketing

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor of Economics

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor

Job Titles:

• Vice President for Sales

Eugene McDonald was born on March 11, 1888, in Syracuse, New York. After graduation from high school, he worked for Franklin Manufacturing Company "an early automobile manufacturer" (p. 69). In 1910 McDonald moved to Chicago and started his own unsuccessful company "in the automobile self-starter business" (p. 69). He continued working in the automobile business in 1912, "buying Ford automobiles for cash and selling them on the installment plan" (p. 69). McDonald enlisted in the Navy in 1917. By the end of WWI, McDonald "had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in Naval Intelligence" (p. 70). After the war, "he remained active as a naval reserve officer" (p. 70). "Shortly after returning from military service" (p. 70), McDonald heard his first radio broadcast on New Years Eve in 1920. He was fascinated with radio, and after researching the radio receiver industry he decided to enter the business. Because he was unable to obtain the license needed to build patented receivers, he decided to join a firm that already had a license. R.H.G. Mathews and Karl Hassel owned the Chicago Radio Laboratory and had the license McDonald sought. They operated 9ZN, an amateur radio station and also manufactured their own radio sets with the brand name Z-Nith. In 1921 McDonald offered to provide Mathews and Hassel with funds to expand their business. In return McDonald would serve as general manager of Chicago Radio Laboratory. "On June 30, 1923, a marketing organization called the Zenith Radio Corporation was incorporated with McDonald as one of the shareholders. Zenith became the exclusive sales agent for the products manufactured by Chicago Radio Laboratory" (p. 71). Zenith eventually became a manufacturer and it acquired Chicago Radio Laboratories assets. In 1922 Zenith built a transmitter and began broadcasting as radio station WJAZ from the Edgewater Beach Hotel. McDonald felt broadcasting could either be financed through advertising or "government ownership and subsidization" (p. 71). McDonald chose a unique way to advertise. He found a radio magazine publisher who would donate $1,000 to the National Association of Broadcasters and allow McDonald to sell the magazines on the air. Announcers read articles and told their listeners where to purchase the magazine. When the magazine sold out, the publisher agreed to continue advertising. "So far as can be determined, that was the first regular merchandising program conducted over a group of stations" (p. 72-73). By 1925 McDonald's business strategy for Zenith was clear. He wanted to produce high quality merchandise with strict quality control measures, and target the high price market segment. To promote this image, the slogan "The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On" (p. 73) was adopted. To assure that products met this standard before they left the factory Mr. G.B. Baca was placed in charge of the Final Inspection Department. Baca was an Ex-Marine who answered directly to McDonald and was concerned only with quality, not production quotas. As McDonald described the situation, "I create the standard-he maintains it" (p. 73). McDonald further described his business strategy for Zenith in a letter to one of his distributors: "To an opportunist the temptation would be strong to push up production rapidly, slight the quality and get the money while the season is on. But we are not opportunists. We are not in this business for just the present and for next year. We are building a name-a reputation-and it is our hope that we shall always be behind in our orders because of increased demand for quality product" (p. 74).

John Cotter finished high school in 1922. He felt that he was ready to apply for a full-time job with St. Paul's largest hardware retailer, Raymer's. He applied and was hired. In his new job Cotter demonstrated a fettish for efficiency that was to become a foundation of his later success. One day, for example, he developed a way to reduce the assembly time for coaster wagons from one and one-half hours to twenty minutes. Cotter was first hired as a salesman in the sporting goods department. There he met the man he calls his greatest teacher and inspiration, Mr. W..C. "Bill" Hoffman. Hoffman was a department manager. Eventually John Cotter was made manager of the tool department. There he reduced prices and doubled volume. The store's profit from the tool department soared upward, and young Cotter became a company celebrity. It was while working for Raymer's that Cotter made a discovery which was to later lead him into founding his own business. The discovery was that hardware wholesalers gave large retailers such as Raymer's a 10 percent discount on all merchandise bought. But small hardware retailers received no discount and were thus put at a competitive disadvantage. Cotter thought this was unfair. And although he was in no position to change the situation at that time, he did file this feeling of injustice in the back of his mind. Little did he then know that decades later he would right the wrong by founding a dealer-owned wholesale company which would give all hardware stores an opportunity to earn the 10 percent discount and more-much more.

Job Titles:

• Artist and Writer

Fairfax Cone inherited a great advertising agency from Albert Lasker. Together with his associates, Emerson Foote, and Don Belding and their successors, Cone led that agency through more than thirty years of growth and change, preserving the agency's greatness while giving it a new type of stature and keeping the headquarters in Chicago. Cone's leadership began during a period when the advertising industry was subject to intense public criticism. Along with Leo Burnett, Bruce Barton and a small group of others, Cone led the industry's efforts to achieve social responsible self-regulation. Fairfax Cone was raised in a prosperous middle class California university community. His interests in high school were in art, and he intended to become an illustrator. Cone entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1921. His love for drawing, caused him to not spend enough time focused on his studies. He failed to pass the required courses and was sent home. When he returned, Fairfax Cone discovered literature. He concentrated on his studies and decided to become an English professor. Fairfax Cone was one of those individuals and his efforts to improve advertising's reputation during the next quarter century became one of his greatest contributions to the industry. Cone became a significant participant in the Advertising Council. Fairfax Cone was a natural and gifted artist and writer who was able to develop unique advertising campaigns. His abilities were noticed by Albert Lasker, owner of Lord and Thomas, in 1941. Lord and Thomas was dissolved in 1942 and "Foote, Cone and Belding" was established The three new owners were committed to running an ethical, professional and socially responsible company, regardless of the consequences. Cone's professionalism prevailed throughout Foote, Cone and Belding. His favorite part of advertising was product presentations and he was an active member in the development of many campaigns. In addition, his activities in the American Association of Advertising Agencies contributed to the establishment of advertising as a professional vocation and a respectable industry.

Job Titles:

• Associate

Job Titles:

• Printing Plant Manager

Wes Loomis expected commitments to be carried out. Printing plant manager, Frank Broniarcyzk, put it this way, "If you gave him a date, that date was kept. I remember one occasion when the printing plant was falling behind schedule due to problems beyond our control. I went to Wes and told him that we might not be able to make delivery on time. I expected a sympathetic ear. Instead, he said, ‘I'm sure you will have it done on time!' I did."

Franklin Lunding was born in Hope, North Dakota on February 26, 1906. Lunding graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1926 and "worked in the research department of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1927-28" (p. 69) while attending George Washington University Law School. After graduating from law school in 1929, he "went to work as an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission" (p. 69). He began his career at Jewel when John Hancock hired him as general counsel in 1931. Frank Skiff originally founded the Jewel Tea Company in 1899. He sold coffee and tea through home delivery service in Chicago. Skiff offered premiums (coupons that could be accumulated and traded for merchandise) "to encourage repeat business" (p. 67), but his company did not begin to grow until his brother-in-law, Frank Ross, began offering advanced premiums in exchange for future business. By 1916 the company had "1,645 routes in over 20 states" (p. 68). The board at Jewel opened retail stores in 1932 when Green River, Wyoming was the first of many communities to pass an ordinance that made door-to-door solicitation of business difficult. Jewel purchased "81 grocery stores owned by the Canadian firm Loblaw" (p. 70) which lost money until 1937 when Lunding was named general counsel and placed in charge of them. By emphasizing a "high quality meat department" (p. 70) and with an improving economy, Lunding earned a profit with these stores. He convinced his butchers to "become guardians of quality and value for the customer" (p. 70) by selling only "government inspected 'choice' meat" (p. 70). Lunding tried to increase the number of meat departments but the current president, Maurice Karker, objected. Lunding told Karker "If I'm going to fail, I'll fail based on my own judgment. I'm not going to risk my reputation on someone else's judgment" (p.71). Karker then allowed Lunding to open unlimited meat departments. The success Lunding had with the retail stores, his optimism and enthusiasm about Jewel's ability to "keep the routes going during the war" (p. 71), and his "role in developing a profit sharing plan for company employees" convinced the board members that he "would become Karker's successor" (p. 71). Lunding became president in 1942 when he was 36, and he made sure Jewel allowed others to become chief executives at a young age as well. His successor, George Clements, was 41 and Clements' successor, Don Perkins, was 37. Lunding adopted and promoted a company philosophy at Jewel, which was published in 1951. The philosophy was so successful that it "had the distinction of being used as a textbook at the Harvard Business School" (p. 77). Lunding referred to this as "THE FIRST ASSISTANT PHILOSOPHY" (p. 75) and described it as follows: "Executive responsibility involves assisting the people down the line to be successful. The boss in any department is the first assistant to those who report to him. You've got to live your life in a worthwhile way. This is a worthwhile philosophy. It doesn't hurt people, it helps them; and after it helps them, it helps the business. . . It's a much harder job to be a first assistant to people working for you than to tell them what to do. It makes doing your job the same thing as trying to bring people along" (p. 75). In 1950 Jewel's board commissioned an employee survey, which offered strong evidence that employees in general were living by the philosophy" (p. 75). The psychologist that conducted the study expected to see "signs of appreciation and gratitude in the employee toward the company and its beneficial profit-sharing and bonus systems" (p. 75). Instead he saw "the employee proudly referring to his own qualifications and indispensability. Instead of feeling dependent on protective measures and cradle-to-grave security plans of the company, it appears that the employee is convinced that these various plans have been made possible by his own alertness and contributions to the business. . ." (p. 76). The next three Jewel presidents endorsed Lunding s philosophy. In a 1978 interview with Harvard Business Review, Clements stated: "Lunding was the one that gave me, gave the others, the philosophy by which to live" (p. 78). Lunding "remained an active force in the company into the 1970s" (p. 79), and between 1950 and 1984 Jewel grew to one of "the 9 largest American food chains" (p. 79). In 1984 after Jewel refused a merger offer, L. S. Skaggs purchased control of Jewel "with an unsolicited $1.15 billion tender offer. Christopherson was chairman of the board and chief executive officer at the time and decided to retire after the takeover. . . With his departure the Lunding-Clements-Perkins-Christopherson era came to an end" (p. 85).

Job Titles:

• Honorary Chairman
• Honorary Chairman of McDonald 's Corporation

Fred L. Turner is Honorary Chairman of McDonald's Corporation and is also a life trustee of Ronald McDonald House Charities. He retired as Senior Chairman and member of the board of directors of McDonald's Corporation in January 2004. Frederick Leo Turner (January 6, 1933 - January 7, 2013) was an American restaurant industry executive, chair and CEO of McDonald's. He is credited with helping to massively expand McDonald's, introducing new meals and setting service standards for the company and its employees. Turner grew up in Des Moines and Chicago, going to high school at Dowling Catholic High School, and graduated from Drake University in 1954. After college, he served in the US Army. Turner began his career at McDonald's in 1956 as a grill operator and was quickly promoted. He was named Operations Vice President in 1958, when the firm had only 34 employees. In that role, he established strict guidelines for how McDonald's hamburgers and other products had to be served - including that fries "had to be precisely 0.28 inches thick", and that "exactly ten patties had to be formed from each pound of beef". "Quality, Service and Cleanliness" became his motto. He became Executive Vice President in 1967, then President and Chief Administrative Officer in 1968. He became CEO in 1973 and replaced Kroc as Chairman in 1977, later named Senior Chairman upon Kroc's death. Under Turner, McDonald's expanded its operations to 118 countries, with over 31,000 outlets, and more than a billion hamburgers were sold. He retired in 2004, after which he served as Honorary Chairman. Turner served as a director for Aon Corporation, Baxter International, and W. W. Grainger. He received the Horatio Alger Award in 1991. He was a member of the Bohemian Club and Sigma Phi Epsilon. On June 22, 1954, soon after graduating college, Turner married fellow Drake graduate Patricia Shurtleff. The couple had three daughters. Patricia died on October 9, 2000. Fred Turner died on January 7, 2013, the day after his 80th birthday, due to complications from pneumonia. Fred Turner has a small reference to his position as a grill operator in the 2016 film The Founder, which portrays the creation of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. At a later point in the plot in this same movie, Fred Turner has a much larger presence, during Ray Kroc's successful attempts to open up McDonald's restaurants in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. He is also amply portrayed in season 2, episode 12 "Game of Chicken" of The History Channel series The Food That Built America.

Job Titles:

• Beatrice Founder

Beatrice founder, George Haskell, had built a strong company "which emphasized the constant quest for improvement" (complete biography p. 4). Haskell's philosophy was "Be interested in progressive work. Many improvements are being made in systems and methods and it is well to investigate them and adopt the best things in all systems that you can find" (complete biography p. 4-5).

Henry Gates went to Chicago and attended a convention where movie picture equipment was displayed. After assessing the possibilities, they decided to enter this field. Parker went right to work designing the Gates Electrograph, "a non-synchronous disc-sound machine made up principally with amplifiers and speakers that were placed behind the screen." It provided mood music replacing the old theater organ or piano. It sold for $630.00. Motion Picture Magazine ran an article about the Gates Electrograph and orders came in from all over the United States and several countries.

Job Titles:

• President of the Rotary Club of Chicago

Herbert Taylor's claim to business fame rests on his creation of the 4-Way Test and his use of that code of ethics as a tool to turn around a struggling cookware company. Those events are still widely remembered because a major international service organization, Rotary International, subsequently adopted The Four-Way Test and made it a prominent part of that organization's culture. Taylor also represents one of many models of public service in the business world. In his case the model consists of organizing one's business in such a way as to allow the owner to spend most of his time on civic and charitable activities. Taylor first managed the cookware company back to solid profitability. Then he delegated day-to-day management of the company to others while he concentrated his efforts on Christian youth work and Rotary International. Herbert Taylor had an ulterior motive for leaving Jewel to serve Club Aluminum and for investing heavily in Club Aluminum so that he would have ownership control. As he explains in his autobiography (Taylor, p. 45): "(T)he second part of God's plan for me was to get into a business where I could control the company and could influence the setting of policies that would enable me to have time for Christian work. Now, I was able to get away from the business part-time. The Four-Way Test had been created; and, although I couldn't predict the great scope of success that my business eventually realized … it was time to introduce me to the work that would, eventually, claim my full time. I arranged for my salary to be reduced to cover only the time I worked for the company and started to work on Christian character-building projects for youth." Taylor's initial community service was the establishment of a small store front mission in Chicago. The mission offered a Sunday School for youth. It soon became apparent that at least fifty percent of the youth in the area around the mission were not getting religious instruction. Taylor became convinced that this was a nationwide problem and that he could do something about it. In 1940 Herbert Taylor established the Christian Workers Foundation, endowing it with 25 percent of the Club Aluminum Company's stock and a personal commitment of more than one-half of his time. He then set out to find or form non-denominational groups that could "provide Christian witness to the children." One of the resultant ventures was support of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF). This was a British organization which was virtually absent from the United States. Its purpose was to take the message of Christianity to college youth. Herbert Taylor provided the money and leadership to bring the program to the United States and then expand its reach. By 1968 IVCF had chapters or activities on over 700 college campuses. A second venture was the Young Life program. Aimed at the high school student, this program was the original idea of a Dallas seminary student. Taylor offered to provide the venture capital to put the idea into practice. By 1967 Young Life clubs were found in high schools in forty states and more than 10,000 students a year were attending its Christian leadership camps. A third venture was the Christian Service Brigade (for boys) and Pioneer Girls. Organized by a Wheaton College student, these organizations sought to bring Christ into the lives of junior high school students. The method was to organize interesting clubs which met at local churches. Taylor's role was to provide financial help. By 1967 about 60,000 boys were members of a Christian Service Brigade and a similar number of girls were in Pioneer Girls.

J.C. Penney was a nationwide chain of soft goods stores that had traditionally emphasized the small and medium size towns of America. The company founder, James Cash Penney, established his first store at Kemmerer, Wyoming, on April 1, 1902. His previous experience as a clerk in dry goods stores in Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming had convinced him that he had the ability to purchase the right soft goods at the right price for the small town customer. His Christian upbringing led him to believe that an emphasis on Christian fair dealing would create a loyal group of customers. He called his first store the Golden Rule Store, and he laid down in print the Christian principles that the customer could expect to find in practice at his store. The success of that store made James Cash Penney dream of expansion. He solved the twin problems of raising cash and training manager for expansion by developing a partnership system. Every Golden Rule Store manager would be given a chance to open and own a portion of his own Golden Rule Store. First, he had to train a man to replace him. Once this was done he could put up 1/3 of the capital needed for the new store. Penney would put up the other 2/3 and the two of them would be in business as partners. Using this concept, Penney expanded his operation to 34 stores by 1912. At that time the name of the company was changed to J.C. Penney and Company because other firms had begun to use the Golden Rule theme. The company continued to expand and prosper over the next four decades. To be sure there were changes. One of the most significant was the decision in 1927 to abandon the old partnership concept and replace it with a salary plus a commission based on profit. Another was the decision to move corporate headquarters to New York. But the company continued to emphasize rural and small town markets, to sell for cash and shun credit and to focus on soft goods. And the company continued to stress the development of a corporate ethos or way of doing things based on James Cash Penney's Christian concepts. In 1957 the assistant to the president of Penney's risked his job by writing a lengthy, critical memo to the board of directors. In the memo William Batten expressed his belief that Penney was being by-passed by developments in the marketplace. In order to remain a major factor in American retailing, he argued, Penney's would have to expand its merchandise offerings and become a full line department store, it would have to move into the urban malls that were beginning to spring up, it would have to offer customer credit, and it would have to start a catalog operation. Penney's board agreed with Batten's views. They hired him to implement his ideas. And over the next decade, J.C. Penney and Company suddenly became a serious competitor for Sears. (At the time of Batten's memo, Penney's sales were only 28 percent as large as Sears. By 1974 Penney's sales represented 33 percent of Sears' sales.)

Job Titles:

• Management Expert

Management expert James O'Toole was so impressed that he included the Deere and Company of Hewitt's tenure on his list of truly outstanding corporations. O'Toole listed the key elements of Deere's success under Hewitt as follows (O'Toole, pp.

Job Titles:

• Chicago Sun Times Reporter

Job Titles:

• President

John Cotter was born on July 8, 1904 in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father worked for the local street car company. His mother grew up on an Iowa farm and had worked as a maid in St. Paul prior to her marriage. At the age of 12, young John Cotter happened to be in a small hardware store near his home when he spotted a sum of money lying on a shelf. No one else was within sight and it would have been easy for the 12 year old youth to take the money without getting caught. Instead, young Cotter called the store owner's attention to the money. "You ought to put it in a safe place,' he said. John Cotter's original dreams for the new Company were modest enough. He hoped to build Cotter and Company's sales volume to about $7 million a year. With his salary tied to sales volume that would give him a comfortable income and would make the Company large enough to induce manufacturers to offer their merchandise at favorable prices. In 1955 John Cotter achieved his goal when sales reached seven and one-half million dollars. There were 344 member-owners of Cotter and Company at that time. But the growth did not slow down then as Cotter had originally expected. The soundness of Cotter's concept and the excellence of its execution by Cotter set in motion an inexorable growth process which culminated in 1979 when Cotter and Company's sales volume passed the $1 billion mark and the number of actual members totaled over 5,000.

Job Titles:

• Oil Executive

John E. Swearingen, the most powerful oil executive of his generation and a highly visible defender of the industry in the energy crisis of the 1970s, died on Friday in Birmingham, Ala. He was 89 and lived in Chicago. His death was confirmed by John Bryan, a close friend and former chief executive of Sara Lee, who said Mr. Swearingen had Alzheimer's disease. For two decades, Mr. Swearingen presided over Standard Oil of Indiana, the Midwest energy conglomerate, one of the companies founded after the federal government broke up the Rockefeller oil trust. When he took over in 1960, at the unusually young age of 41, it was a lumbering regional energy company with a big problem: low oil and gas reserves. "In many respects," Mr. Swearingen said in an interview at the time, "this is a second-rate company." Soon enough, though, it was the envy of the industry. Mr. Swearingen pushed the company to expand its fuel exploration aggressively, leasing offshore drilling rights in the United States, Africa and the Middle East. To cut costs, he installed labor-saving technology in refineries, merged 26 regional offices into 8 and reduced the number of employees by thousands. He also pursued new ventures through subsidiaries like roadside restaurants and car insurance. Sales, profits and dividends for investors soared, turning Mr. Swearingen into an oil industry legend. By 1980, the total value of his company's stock was exceeded by that of only five other corporations - Exxon, I.B.M., General Motors, General Electric and Eastman Kodak. "He took this ragtag group of oil companies and built them into a major American oil company," Mr. Bryan said. John Eldred Swearingen was born on Sept. 7, 1918, in Columbia, S.C., where his father was the state's superintendent of schools. He entered the University of South Carolina at 16, graduating in 1938, and earned a master's degree at the Carnegie Institute of Technology the next year.

John H. Johnson was a pioneer African-American entrepreneur. His vehicle was a publishing company which earned him the title of "Apostle of the Black Middle Class." His flagship publication, Ebony, made him a wealth man and inspired countless readers to strive for success within the American democratic capitalist society. His story provides timeless inspiration for anyone frustrated by obstacles to success. As Johnson so correctly liked to put it, "Don't get mad; get smart." John Johnson was born in segregated Arkansas City, Arkansas in 1918. His father, a sawmill worker died while John was an infant. His mother remarried but the family lived in poverty. In 1933 John's mother moved with John to Chicago where she hoped her son would have a better chance to realize his potential. At first 14-year-old John found Chicago to be anything but hospitable. The family had to survive on welfare. John was frequently humiliated by teens his age who laughed at his simple country ways including his homemade clothes. But, thanks to his mother, he did not get discouraged. As he put it, "My mother instilled in me the desire to excel, and although there was nothing but defeat around me, she taught me that I could win." John also found inspiration in reading Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was there that he found his future lifetime motto, "Don't get mad, get smart." At DuSable High School in South Chicago John was an honor student, member of the debate team, manager of the school paper, and editor of the yearbook. On one assignment as a reporter he interviewed Harry Pace, president of Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company of America and a leading black businessman in Chicago. Pace offered Johnson a job. PREPARING TO START HIS OWN BUSINESS Johnson worked as Harry Pace's assistant in charge of producing the company newsletter. At the same time he attended first the University of Chicago and then Northwestern University. The company newsletter included information of interest to black Chicagoans and much of that information was drawn from other published sources. Preparing the newsletter introduced him to the black social and political leadership of Chicago and issues related to the local black community. It wasn't long before working on the newsletter caused Johnson to believe that there existed a potential national market for a magazine of success stories serving the black community. And so, in 1942 he launched a monthly publication called Negro Digest. It was to the black communities' equivalent of the then popular American magazine Reader's Digest.

Job Titles:

• Controller

From 1908 to 1925 the dominant figure in the Sears story was Julius Rosenwald. The company's growth continued, but there was a major change in the company's style. Rosenwald had been raised in a Jewish shopkeeping tradition that emphasized full disclosure before a sale was made. Rosenwald carried that tradition to Sears, Roebuck, and it became a source of tension between Rosenwald and Richard Sears. Rosenwald disapproved of Sears' exaggerated advertising promises and fought a constant battle to bring the promises in line with the actual performance. Richard Sears correctly retorted that exaggeration was needed to get the customer's attention. Sears reasoned that when the customer received the merchandise it would still be seen as a bargain for the money, and, in those few cases where the customer was not satisfied, he could return the merchandise and get his money back. In view of the fact that Sears, Roebuck's business was based on millions of repeat orders, Richard Sears must have been correct in his assessment of customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, Rosenwald pushed for change. And once Sears had departed, Rosenwald's consumerism became apparent. The catalog copy for furs, for example, began to provide not only the trade names of the furs, but also an identification of the type of animal whose fur was being used. Similarly, the section on patent medicines was dropped from the catalog on the grounds that there existed no solid evidence that such products were effective. But Rosenwald never lost sight of the basic secret to Sears' success. He continued to employ the strategy of low price based on high volume, which was achieved through large-scale sales promotions. He supplemented that strategy by pushing for cost-cutting improvements in operations, improvements in the quality of merchandise offered and improvements in the standards of service. And he also concerned himself with employee welfare. His greatest accomplishment in this regard was the introduction of an employee profit sharing plan in 1916. During World War I, Rosenwald delegated his presidential duties to Albert Loeb and went to Washington where he performed various executive chores for the United States Government. Returning to active management in 1920 Rosenwald discovered that a degree of laxity permeated the company, particularly in the purchasing area where inventories were dangerously high by past standards. He was unable to rectify the situation before sales started to fall in response to the post war recession of 1920-21. Sears reported a loss for 1921. Worse yet, in December of that year, the company faced a liquidity crisis that threatened the firm with bankruptcy. Unable to raise funds elsewhere, Rosenwald dipped into his own fortune, purchasing some of the company's Chicago real estate for $16 million and giving the company $5 worth of Sears stock. These actions snatched the company from the brink of bankruptcy and the company returned to its profitable ways in 1922.

Job Titles:

• Chief Executive Officer
• Associate from 1954 to 1975 and CEO

Ken Wessner was Hansen's close associate from 1954 to 1975 and CEO from 1975 to 1983. He was the brilliant operating executive who developed the company's management services for hospitals and provided the foundation for further diversification in the 1980's. It was during his term as CEO that ServiceMaster achieved record growth and recognition as the service industry's profit leader. Wessner's contribution to defining the corporate purpose was a fitting milestone in the career of ServiceMaster's third chief executive officer. Wessner was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1922 and grew up in that Pennsylvania Dutch environment. He attended Wheaton College and after graduation went to work as a salesman for Club Aluminum in Chicago. At that time Club Aluminum was headed by an inspirational leader, Herbert Taylor. Taylor ran the company with a code of ethics which later became the Rotary International Four-Way Test (in a modified version). Taylor also used a simple Four-Way Plan (Get the Facts! Plan with the Facts! Sell the Plan! Follow Through!). Both the Test and the Plan made an impact on young Wessner and became reflected in his way of doing business. Ken Hansen also knew Herbert Taylor through work the two of them had done with Christian youth groups. Hansen liked and used Taylor's Test and Plan at ServiceMaster. Thus, when Hansen hired Wessner in 1957 he was employing someone already in tune with Hansen's ways of doing things. As it turned out, Hansen was hiring his replacement. But that was not apparent to Hansen at the time, nor for many years to come. Referring the question of likely candidates to succeed Hansen as late as the early 1960's, Hansen says, "You couldn't tell that Wes would be the next CEO at that point. But he did a towering job and simply outgrew everyone else in the business" [7].

Job Titles:

• CEO

In 1956 Marion Wade experienced a heart murmur that put him face-to-face with the prospect of death. In fact, he lived until 1973. But the experience caused him to worry about the future of his company and so he elevated Ken Hansen to the position of president and chief executive officer. It was not a momentous change. Wade, Hansen and Wenger had been running the company as a threesome with Hansen providing his full share of initiative. Wenger later left the company to move back East, but Wade continued to serve as chairman of the board, and he continued to do many of the things he had been doing when he was CEO. Foremost among those was speaking before customer and employee groups for purposes of gaining and strengthening commitment. He was by far the company's most effective spokesman. As Hansen once put it, "Marion was a magician on the platform" [7].

Leo Burnett initiated one of the classic campaigns of advertising history. Philip Morris had hired the Burnett agency in 1955 to develop and advertising campaign for the Marlboro cigarette. Advertising Age describes the campaign as follows. Burnett " took a minor cigarette brand with a predominantly feminine image and turned it into big seller by using closeup photos of ruggedly masculine men". In subsequent years, Burnett continued to acquire other major accounts. Some of the most memorable accounts and advertising campaigns included - Schlitz Beer for it's " Real Gusto in a great light beer" and "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer" campaigns, Allstate, Maytag, and United Airlines for the "Fly the friendly skies of United" campaign. Leo Burnett had the rare distinction of leaving behind a new approach to the creative side of the advertising business. Burnett had developed a creative approach that many termed 'the Chicago School of Advertising" It stressed finding the inherent drama in the product and writing the ad out of the drama, rather than using mere cleverness. Burnett felt that Chicago was the Midwest - the heart and soul of the nation. In addition, he felt that the down to earth, wide-eyed perspective of Midwesterners facilitated their ability to create ads that appealed to the majority of Americans. Thus using his rare ability to see and use the dramatic in products and the acceptable perspective of Midwesterners, Burnett's philosophy and style spread throughout the advertising industry. Leo Burnett's management style was as distinctive as his approach to creative advertising. He was hardworking and wanted his associates to be equally devoted. Burnett's consuming urge for excellence was contagious If competition brings out the worst in some men, it brings our the best in others. It brought out the best in Leo Burnett and the best in the people who worked for him. Hard work alone can not explain Burnetts' success. There are other managerial traits. Perhaps the most significant was his total dedication to the creative side of the business as the source of agency growth. As Leo Burnett noted " There's nothing with quite the marketing leverage of the brilliant copy idea. It has the power to conquer what seem as insurmountable sales problems." This concept guided Burnett to be a leader in the search for the "Brilliant Copy Idea". Burnett admitted he "rarely attempted to write ads or commercials" instead he provides the direction and vision for many young writers. "My greatest contributions,... have been in uncovering a basic concept now and then, stimulating the fine talent...to do better than they ever thought they could, and or a hell of a lot of editing." (Leo Burnett) DeWitt (Jack) O'Kieffe, a close associate and co-founder of the agency, identified six techniques that Burnett used to stimulate the creative people around him. These include the Creative Bower, Creative Huddle or Group Think, Dragnet, Thought Piece, Outside Expert, and the Creative Review Committee. Leo Burnett's agency was a model of the socially responsible big business. There were two dimensions to this professional performance: Leo Burnett had a creative gift in his ability to stress the inherent drama in the product in his unique advertising campaigns. His use of the products drama instead of mere cleverness has become to be known as the "Chicago School of Advertising". Burnett had a consuming drive for excellence that engulfed his associates in his quest of the best product. Displaying a hard work ethic and a commitment to being a socially responsible company in the advertising industry, Leo Burnett demonstrates why he is a significant part of the Advertising Industry.

Louie B. Neumiller graduated from Peoria High School in 1914 after working at the family business while attending school. After working a few odd jobs, he earned his first position with The Holt Manufacturing Company in East Peoria, IL as a stenographer and blueprint clerk. In 1925, Holt Merged with C.L. Best Tractor Company to form the Caterpillar Tractor Company at which time he became the general parts manager and was charged with consolidation of the department from the two companies. Through his success and customer service, he was noticed by the new company leadership. In 1932, he was promoted to service manager and became the first director of industrial relations in 1937, being selected as a vice president later that year during which time he led the company's first labor negotiations. In October of 1941, Louie was elected President of Caterpillar, becoming Chairman of the company in 1954. Louie also founded Junior Achievement of Central Illinois in 1946 after learning of the organization while on business on the east coast. Under his leadership as Chairman, Caterpillar broadened the product line from 3 to 11 machine families, acquired Trackson Company, grew from 16,000 to more than 36,000 employees, and opened 13 new factories. Retiring as chairman and chief executive of Caterpillar in 1962, he remained a director until 1968.

Job Titles:

• Caterpillar Tractor Co

Marion Wade was born in Pocahontas, Arkansas in 1898. His father was a part owner of a dry-goods store and his mother was a seamstress. While Wade was quite young, the father's store went bankrupt. The father was unable to find other work, so the family was thereafter supported by Wade's mother. Marion was the youngest of four brothers. After the three oldest left home to earn their own livings, Marion's mother left the father and took Marion with her to start a new life in Oak Park, Illinois. She and Marion moved into the house where her parents and a brother lived. Marion would later recall that the grandfather and uncle provided his first strong male role models [20]. Wade's primary interest at the time was baseball. He became a devoted fan of the Chicago Cubs and spent most of his free time either watching the Cubs play or playing baseball with other boys in the neighborhood. After completing school in 1912 he went to work as an office boy in a paper company and became a catcher for an amateur baseball team. Over the next six years he advanced to a sales job with the paper company while continuing to play amateur baseball. In 1918 Wade was hired by a minor league baseball team in Terre Haute, Indiana. It looked like his dream of a baseball career would come true. For several years he did make a modest living as a minor league player. But during that time he also married a Chicago girl he met at a tennis court. Supporting her then became an important goal. When it became clear that he would never make the major leagues and thus never be able to support her adequately as a baseball player, Wade decided to leave baseball and pursue some other career.

Paul Galvin's career strikingly illustrates the principle that failures can become growth experiences which ultimately lead to success. Galvin experienced several early business failures before founding his ultimate success, Motorola. Those failures gave Galvin a risk-taking ability that became a key ingredient in Motorola's success. Here is that story. Paul Galvin was born in the small town of Harvard, Illinois, on June 27, 1895. His biographer tells us that Galvin's upbringing in this small town environment gave him a personality, "friendly, yet with a certain reserve, salty, yet at times very gentle, (with a) stress on personal loyalties, (1) shrewd assessment of men, and (2) strong moral code" [1, p. 3]. Upon finishing high school, Galvin took a summer job as a clerk at the Harvard railroad roundhouse and the following fall he enrolled at the University of Illinois, 150 miles away by train or buggy. There he relied on his savings and part-time jobs to meet his expenses and complete two years of study. But, by the end of his sophomore year, he concluded that he was not getting enough out of the school effort to continue. He returned to Harvard to work as a clerk in the railroad station and a year later went to Chicago where he found a clerk's job with Commonwealth Edison. Shortly thereafter Paul Galvin enrolled in an officer's training program in anticipation of America's entry into World War I. He eventually became an artillery officer and saw duty on the front lines in France. His wartime experience strengthened Galvin's faith in the virtues of a well-disciplined organization able to withstand crisis through mutual loyalty and the leader's concern for the men [1, pp. 39-40]. The wartime experience also strengthened Galvin's determination to make a place for himself in the business world. Paul Galvin started out with the goal of becoming a successful small businessman. He had no vision of building an industrial giant. But Motorola became big because Galvin could not stop. He believed that continued growth was necessary for survival, and so, rather than risk failure, he continued to push his company forward. Perhaps in this regard Paul Galvin's story represents the inherent fate of many of the present generation of new small businesspersons. If there is one message of lasting value in the Paul Galvin story, it is that ultimate success can be built upon the string of short-run failures. As Galvin himself used to say, "Do not fear mistakes. Wisdom is often born of such mistakes. You will know failure. Determine now to acquire the confidence required to overcome it. Reach out." [1, p. 226].

Job Titles:

• John Cotter 's Boss

Ray Kroc was born in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park in 1902. He dropped out of high school because he was too anxious to start earning money. Brimming with confidence, Kroc began his career with two jobs. By day he would sell ribbon novelties, door-to-door. By night he would play the piano for various groups on a one night stand basis. Within a few years he had graduated to selling paper cups to restaurants and playing the piano six days a week for a local radio station. He was only able to work in five hours of sleep at night, but as he put it, "I was determined to live well and have nice things, and we could do so with income from my two jobs." Ray Kroc eventually decided to give up piano playing and devote himself full time to selling paper cups. He was an outstanding salesman and soon had 15 salesmen working under him. At the age of 35 Ray Kroc decided to strike out on his own. He borrowed heavily to raise the money to start a company selling a multiple spindle milkshake mixer. His wife was worried about the risk he was taking, and argued against the move, but Kroc told her, "You have to take risks, and in some cases you must go for broke." For more than a decade, Ray Kroc made a living marketing his mixers. He set up a tiny office run by a secretary while he traveled all over the country visiting potential customers and operating sales booths at restaurant and dairy association conventions. He made good money, but operation was small. It was not until 1948 that he was able to hire a bookkeeper. In a good year he would sell 5,000 mixers. By 1950 Ray Kroc was convinced that the mixer business had peaked and he began a serious search for a new product to sell. He heard stories of the amazing volume of business being done by two Californians at their San Bernardino, California, drive-in restaurant. His curiosity was further aroused when the McDonald brothers ordered a large number of mixers from him. And so in 1954 Ray Kroc went to San Bernardino, California, to find out what the McDonald brothers were doing with their drive-in restaurant. What Ray Kroc found in San Bernardino was the model for the fast food revolution. The McDonald brothers sold a limited menu of hamburgers, french fries, and drinks. They had standardized the production process in a way which cut costs and maintained a high level of quality. By selling a high volume of food every day they could make a good profit at an unbelievably low price for the food being sold. Hamburgers, for example, sold for 15 cents even though "everyone knew" that you couldn't make a profit at less than 25 cents per hamburger. Kroc recognized the potential national market for this approach. He signed a contract with the McDonald brothers which allowed him to own and franchise similar restaurants across the country. Kroc would charge each franchise $950 plus 1.9 percent of gross sales. The McDonald brothers would receive 0.5 percent out of Kroc's 1.9 percent. Kroc returned to Illinois where he prepared to pen a demonstration store. There were numerous complications involved, but Kroc overcame them all and opened his Des Plaines, Illinois store on April 15, 1955. Help was hired to run the store during the day, while Kroc continued to work at his mixer company. But after work Kroc plunged into the task of expanding his McDonalds' chain. In May of 1955 Kroc was visited by Harry Sonneborn, who had just resigned as a vice president of the Tastee Freeze company. Sonneborn had observed the new McDonald's restaurant and concluded that the concept was a winner. He told Kroc that he would like to get involved. Ray Kroc did not believe that he could afford another employee, but he also felt that he needed the skills which Sonneborn had to offer. And so Kroc asked Sonneborn to figure out the lowest possible salary he could live on and Kroc would then decide whether or not he could afford Sonneborn. Sonneborn came back with a figure of $100 a week take home pay. Kroc hired him at that salary. It was one of the wisest moves ever made by Ray Kroc, for Sonneborn's financial innovations were to become crucial for the rapid growth of McDonald's. Ray Kroc's concept of his business was that of a family oriented restaurant giving quick service. The limited menu of standard quality items would be offered at a low price. The food would be served in pleasant surroundings exuding cleanliness. In Kroc's view, it was essential to maintain quality standards throughout the chain. To do so, thought Ray Kroc, it would be desirable to build the restaurants and then lease them to the franchisees. This policy, along with the terms of the franchise agreement, would enable McDonald's to maintain the desired quality standards. However, in order to build the restaurants, Kroc needed capital. And here is where Sonneborn's skills came into play. Harry Sonneborn devised an arrangement whereby a local land owner would lease his land to McDonald's, taking a second mortgage. Kroc and Sonneborn would then go to a bank and get a first mortgage loan on the building. It was a technique which worked because in those days, the land owners did not have any other groups willing to lease the land. Later, of course, competition for the fast food sties would make the arrangement impossible to implement. Ray Kroc himself made a total commitment of his time and resources to the goal of dominating the fast food industry. By 1960 his strategy and its effective execution had created a chain of 228 stores with sales in excess of $56 million. But Kroc was not satisfied with the company' rate of growth. He and Sonneborn decided to build and operate a group of company stores in order to accelerate the cash flow received by the company. To finance this move, Sonneborn arranged a large loan from several insurance companies. He viewed this as the first step in a long run process leading to company ownership of all stores. But Kroc was convinced that the vitality of his organization came in part from the efforts of the franchisees. To Kroc this meant that no more than 30 percent of the stores should be company owned. Kroc's views prevailed.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Business Ethics

Job Titles:

• Irwin Inc. Employees

Dick Irwin used his business to have fun and make a contribution to society. The contribution consisted of collaborating with college professors to produce high quality textbooks, books that influenced the minds of hundreds of thousands of college youth. The fun consisted of doing something that was enjoyable. To be sure, Dick Irwin worked long hours, maintained a heavy travel schedule and took risks daily. But as he put it many years later, "I never had a morning I didn't look forward to going to work." That attitude, combined with hard work and a winning business strategy made the career of Dick Irwin one to be remembered and emulated. And so it will be through the efforts of the American National Business Hall of Fame.

Richard Sears' marketing skills were not balanced by administrative abilities. He had trouble controlling costs. Liabilities rose to three times the amount permitted by the company's charter. Alvah Roebuck became concerned about his personal liability and decided to sell his interest in the company to Sears in 1895 (unlike Richard Sears, Alvah Roebuck was not a risk taker). Sears bought Roebuck's stock and then sold part of it to a new partner, Julius Rosenwald. With Sears promoting sales and Rosenwald providing efficient administration, the company entered a decade of outstanding growth and profitability. But there were tensions between Sears and Rosenwald. These came to a head in 1907 when the nation experienced a severe financial panic and for the first time in its history, Sears, Roebuck and Company failed to set a new sales record. Richard Sears wanted to increase advertising to offset the decline. Rosenwald, on the other hand, wanted to cut staff and other expenses and await the general upturn of the national economy. The conflict was put to a vote of top management. Rosenwald's conservative, cost-cutting approach won. As a result, the company's profit performance improved in 1908, even though sales declined as anticipated. This episode, combined with Sears' ill health, caused him to resign as president of the company on November 21, 1908. He kept the title of chairman of the board, but never attended a board meeting. For all practical purposes, he had severed his ties with the company. Six years later, he died.

Ward's board of directors elected company attorney John Barr to the position of president. Barr immediately reversed directions. In 1956 eight million dollars were spent to modernize stores and in 1957 the company opened its first new store since 1941. While opening new stores, Barr also looked for a merchandising man to replace him and lead Montgomery Ward in its turnaround effort. In 1961 he hired Robert Brooker as president. Brooker had been a vice president of Sears and a president of Whirlpool Corporation. Brooker brought in a number of key new management people, including Edward Donnell, former manager of Sears' Los Angeles stores.

Robert Wood's retail store gamble paid off handsomely. So did his decision to enter the insurance business in the early 1930s. The decision was made by a reluctant board of directors that wanted to say "no" but yielded to Wood's plea that if they had any respect for his managerial abilities they would give him a chance to prove his point. Once again, history proved Wood correct. In fact, in the late 1970s the profits from the Allstate insurance business exceeded total retailing profits. Perhaps the greatest of Wood's gambles was his decision to embark upon a major store building effort after World War II. As the war drew to a close, many learned economists were predicting a post war depression, and some leading rivals of Sears, such as Montgomery Ward and Company, decided to postpone post war expansion until after the depression. But Wood didn't believe the economists. His reading of The Statistical Abstract of the United States convinced him that after the war postponed marriages would take place in unprecedented numbers. He was convinced that America was about to experience a "baby boom" that would produce a generation of economic growth. Wood guessed correctly. The post war economy expanded rapidly as Americans welcomed peace with a spending spree and family raising spurt that continued for two decades. Sears, Roebuck gained a major step on the competition as sales doubled during the first two years after the war and earnings soared. Robert Wood's gamble provided a push that kept Sears far ahead of the competition for the next two decades. Robert Wood was an unlikely candidate for merchandising leadership. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1900 and proceeded to spend 10 years of his active military service in Panama with the troops constructing the Panama Canal. There he became chief quartermaster with responsibility for purchasing and distributing supplies. When America entered World War I, Wood was put in charge of purchasing all Army supplies except ordinance and aircraft. At the end of the war he emerged with the rank of brigadier general. During the war Wood worked closely with officials from Montgomery Ward and Company. After the war he accepted an offer from that retailer to become their general merchandise manager. Wood was an avid reader of The Statistical Abstract of the United States. He was convinced that careful study of the statistics in that book could lead one to formulate winning merchandising strategies. His reading of The Statistical Abstract convinced him that mail order companies were in the process of losing their rural customer base. The statistics showed unmistakably that the American farm population was moving to the city. Wood reasoned that the only way to keep their business was to move with them and that meant mail order companies would have to open retail stores. Unable to convince Ward's management that his idea had merit, Wood was fired and took a job as vice president in charge of factories and retail stores at Sears Roebuck and Company. At Sears, only two other executives favored the retail stores concept. But they were the two whose opinions counted chairman Julius Rosenwald, who recruited Wood, and new president Kittle, whom Rosenwald had also recently recruited. Neither man was particularly enthusiastic about Wood's idea. But they were willing to let him try the concept. And so it was that in 1925 Sears, Roebuck opened its first retail store.

Job Titles:

• Founder

Taylor, Herbert J. The Herbert J. Taylor Story. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1968.

Ted Johnson was brought in to develop the personnel function. His performance became a source of great pride to Loomis.

By that time Wade had learned that he could sell the moth-proofing service on his own. And he had become friends with another person who could handle production. The two men decided to start a moth-proofing business of their own. The biggest stumbling block was the fact that Wade needed an automobile. The one he drove back from Cleveland had been repossessed and he did not have the money to buy another. In desperation he canvassed homes in his immediate neighborhood in search of moth-proofing sales. He closed one sale for $90 and used that money to buy a used car. He was back in business. (In 1931 Wade's original partner left him, and Wade brought in a new partner). It was also in 1930 that Marion became a Christian. He had grown up in a Christian home and had dutifully attended church or Sunday school with his mother. But he did not become a true believer until one Sunday evening in 1930 when he took his mother to church. The sermon dealt with the Bible as a source of inspiration and a source of rules for good living. At the end of the sermon, Wade found himself unexpectedly moved to respond to the altar call. There he made a commitment to Christian living. Immediately thereafter, he began daily Bible study that was to be part of his daily routine for the rest of his life. As Wade gained experience in moth-proofing he became convinced that a better chemical compound was needed to destroy moth eggs and larva. Through crude experimentation he developed a new produce he called "Fumakill" in 1932. He proceeded to use it in his own moth-proofing service and to sell it to others. He later credited it with being a key to his success in that era.

Job Titles:

• Sales Experiences

He first became an insurance salesman. That experience lasted four years and provided him with a decent living. But it also instilled a cynical attitude in him about business ethics. As he put it many years later, "Customer-stealing, commission-cutting, minimizing the importance of the fine print - all these were tricks of the trade I learned after becoming the victim of them several times. I also learned, too, that in most instances, loyalty to the firm was a dollars-and-cents affair, as the firm's loyalty to the salesman usually was. It was a cutthroat racket…(and) made me fast on my feet and enjoying the competition more than I despised the double-dealing" [20]. After four years of selling insurance Wade switched to the sale of aluminum pots and pans through demonstrations in the home. At first he did well. Then in 1926, he ran into a period of poor sales. At one point he was broke and living in a sub-standard apartment. And to make matters worse, it was then that his three-year-old daughter became ill and died. He blamed the poor housing environment and was crushed by the thought that his inability to provide for the family had caused the problem. But he still had a wife to support. And so he increased his selling effort and his earnings improved. Wade's improved sales record was so good that the company made him assistant manager of its St. Louis office. Next he was put in charge of the Cleveland office. Two years later he quit the company on a matter of principle. The company had introduced an inferior product line for sale by retail stores. Wade thought it unethical to lower the quality and to sell in direct competition with the company's direct sales force. He was also convinced that in the long run company sales would suffer because of the change. And so Wade resigned. (The company which Wade quit was called Club Aluminum. As he predicted, its unethical practices eventually led it to the brink of bankruptcy. It was saved by an ethical new executive named Herbert Taylor. In saving it, Taylor employed a "Four-Way Test" and a "Four-Part Plan" which became part of the management philosophy of the new company which Wade would form in 1947). Wade returned to Chicago and looked for a new job. It was late 1929 and the Depression had begun. Jobs were not plentiful. Nevertheless, he found a job selling home moth-proofing services on a commission basis. That job was short-lived. The company went bankrupt a few months after Wade began selling for it.

Wayne Hummer was born in LaSalle, Illinois on August 24, 1884, the son of William B. and Tillie Nafziger Hummer. The father was a third generation American who had moved to LaSalle as a young man. There he secured a job as a clerk at a local drug store and subsequently acquired his own pharmacy. Once established as a business owner, William organized a commercial bank and became its president. It was an unspoken understanding in the Hummer family that young Wayne would eventually go to work for his father at the bank. Wayne grew up in an atmosphere of respect for principle and excellence. His father was a stern man with a well-earned reputation for conducting business and personal affairs on a high ethical plane. The community was blessed by the presence of other high-minded business leaders, including F. W. Matthiessen, founder of the Western Clock Co. (Westclox), who donated a high school to LaSalle and personally selected a principal who was then instructed to make the high school one of the best in the country. The principal was an impressive Princeton graduate named Thomas J. McCormack, a classmate of Woodrow Wilson. When the time came for Wayne Hummer to choose a college, he and his father consulted Principal McCormack who recommended Princeton. Young Hummer accepted the advice and entered Princeton as a freshman in 1903. A year later he transferred to the Wharton School of Finance, then the undergraduate business school at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1907, Wayne graduated from Wharton as president of his class. As class president, Wayne invited Stuyvesant Fish, a prominent New York financier, to address the graduating class. Mr. Fish's message dealt with the idea that confidence is the cornerstone of all financial activity. [1] This idea greatly impressed Wayne and became a guiding principle during his business career. Wayne Hummer's goal was to nurture the brokerage business while continuing to run the LaSalle bank and maintaining involvement in civic affairs. Unlike many persons entering the securities industry, Hummer was not looking for fame or fortune. Hummer did not believe in trying to make speculative gains in the short run. Consequently, his investment advice appealed to customers who planned to buy a security and hold it for the long run. That being the case, his firm could be and was run in a conservative and orderly fashion. Wayne spent Monday through Thursday in Chicago helping with the affairs of the brokerage firm. On Thursday, after the close of the market, he would take the train home to LaSalle. Wayne spent Friday and Saturday at his desk in the bank and then, after taking his wife to church on Sunday, would visit the Hummer Insurance Company and return to the bank. Commenting on his weekend schedule, Wayne said in 1977, "I'd rather go down to the bank than play golf." [19] Throughout his career, Wayne considered himself primarily a commercial banker. "I'm no broker," he stated in an interview with the Chicago Daily News. "I'm just a small-town banker." [20] A few months prior to his death in September 1980, Wayne was honored in LaSalle for his 73 years in banking.

Nowhere was this more visible than in sales. As vice president for sales Edward Jordan put it, "Wes Loomis initiated an important upgrading of the sales force and salesmen/saleswomen compensation doubled three years after he took over. Of course, their quotas also doubled, and only the best survived." Wes Loomis was the right man, in the right place, at the right time. He seized his opportunity and made the most of it. In doing so, he created the opportunity for hundreds of other persons to achieve success in their own right.

Born in Kansas City on July 29, 1913, Wes Loomis grew up in a business environment. His paternal grandfather was an old-fashioned American entrepreneur who established various businesses including a petroleum distribution company which pioneered the concept of the tankcar. His maternal grandfather was the legendary Theodore Gary who built the famed Gary Telephone System. That system included both telephone exchanges and a telephone equipment manufacturing business known as the Automatic Electric. It eventually became a key part of the General Telephone System.

Job Titles:

• Chairman of Caterpillar

William Blackie, a Scottish-born accountant who presided over Caterpillar Inc. as chairman and chief executive during booming years of growth for the manufacturer of tractors and other earth-moving equipment, died on Thursday in San Rafael, Calif., where he lived after retiring from Caterpillar. He was 90. William "Bill" Blackie was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1906. After studying accounting, business law and economics, he spent five years as a chartered accountant's apprentice before becoming an accountant himself in 1930. In that same year he came to the United States and was employed by an accounting firm of national prominence before joining Caterpillar in 1939 as controller. He was elected a vice president in 1944, an executive vice president in 1954, a director in 1958, and president in 1962. He became our fifth chairman of the board in 1966. One of Blackie's most significant legacies was the transformation of Caterpillar into a truly multinational corporation. Hear in his own words how prior to World War II, Caterpillar equipment was exported from Peoria, Illinois, to our customers across the globe. It was Blackie's idea that Caterpillar should now "…sell, manufacture, and employ in several different countries." But such a monumental shift in operations didn't occur simply for its own sake. Blackie's reasoning for this evolution was highly strategic. He said, "Caterpillar didn't do it for the purpose of becoming multinational. It did it to first secure markets which it already held but to be in position to defend against competition and expand those markets which would be difficult to do it from the United States. Being a multinational company provided Caterpillar with the ability to globally compete." By 1970, sales outside of the U.S. were greater than those inside the U.S. for the first time in company history. In addition to being a dedicated leader and a keen strategist, Blackie was also a mentor to employees and a true citizen of the world. He often talked about what it meant to be a Caterpillar employee, not just in the U.S. but across the globe, once saying that, no matter where we are, "We want people who, as a natural code of personal conduct, like to pursue excellence in all they do. The success of Caterpillar is based on the work and ability of its people. That is what we call Caterpillar People."

Job Titles:

• Beatrice Foods Co

William G. Karnes was born in Chicago on March 24, 1911. His father, who was a real estate broker in Chicago and Flossmoor, taught Karnes "The things that made for success in life-good character, determination, and stick-to-itiveness" (complete biography p. 15). After graduating from Thornton Township High School, Karnes received a degree in finance and banking from the University of Illinois. He then attended law school at Northwestern University, graduating in 1933. Because of Karnes' devotion to his work and Beatrice Foods, the only close relationship he had was with his wife, Virginia Kelly. Karnes said that his relationship with Virginia was essential to his success and often stated, "I couldn't have done it without her support" (complete biography p. 15). Virginia was also very successful, becoming a life trustee at Rush Presbyterian Hospital and the first woman president of the President's Council at Purdue University. After graduating from law school, Karnes decided to turn down a job offer with an old, established Chicago firm. Instead he took a job, at $110 a month, as a law clerk with Beatrice, where he knew that top executives were chosen from "the ranks of operating men" (complete biography p. 15). The policy of promotion from within the company was later "cited by Karnes as of great importance" (complete biography p. 27).

Job Titles:

• Territory Manager for a Ford - Ferguson

William Hewitt served as chief executive officer of Deere and Company between 1955 and 1982. It was during his years of leadership that the company took the farm equipment industry lead away from International Harvester. That accomplishment was the overriding corporate goal set by Hewitt at the time he was elected company president and CEO. Background Hewitt was born and raised in California. He attended the University of California at Berkeley where he majored in economics. Among the classmates with whom he associated socially were Robert McNamara (later a top Ford Motor Company executive and U.S. Secretary of Defense), Robert Haas, Jr. (later chairman of Levi Strauss), William Goodwin (later chief urologist at U.C.L.A.) and Stanley Johnson (later a prominent trial lawyer in San Francisco). After graduation Hewitt, McNamara and Haas enrolled in the Harvard Business School. Hewitt ran out of money at the end of one year and had to return to California. There he worked took a job in accounting with the Standard Oil Company of California. He left that job to work as an advertising copywriter for a men's clothing chain. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Hewitt joined the United States Navy. He served on the battleship California and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. His cabin mate was Gabriel Hauge, later chairman of Manufacturers Hanover Bank. After the war Hewitt became a territory manager for a Ford-Ferguson farm equipment distributor. While representing Ford he met and began to court Patricia Wiman, daughter of the president of Deere and Company. The courtship ended in marriage and a job offer from Deere and Company. Hewitt accepted the job offer and became a territory manager for the San Francisco branch of Deere. Within a relatively short time he was promoted to branch manager in San Francisco. Although his marriage to a member of the Deere family clearly helped Hewitt's advancement, he also exhibited outstanding management skills. A Fortune magazine editor who interviewed branch personnel concluded with the following assessment of Hewitt, " He conducted himself with grace … a good listener … did not throw his weight around …disarmingly cordial and acutely sensitive to others … a good leader " (Broehl, p. 606). In 1950 Hewitt was elected a member of the board of directors of Deere and Company. Four years later his father-in-law, Charles Wiman, became terminally ill. In 1954 Hewitt was named to the newly created post of executive vice president. On May 12, 1955 Wiman died. Hewitt was elected president of Deere and Company two weeks later. One of the major changes at Deere and Company during Hewitt's first decade was the change from two cylinder tractors to three, four and six cylinder tractors. That change had been initiated by Wiman but it was not until 1960 that the company was able to introduce the first of the "New Generation" of tractors. Hewitt strongly supported Wiman's initiative because customer demand was clearly shifting toward tractors with greater horsepower. William Hewitt achieved most of his objectives during his first decade as chief executive officer. By 1965 Deere and Company had become the market share and profit leader in its industry. It had modernized its management structure. It had created a new public image of a successful corporation dedicated to quality, style and outstanding financial performance. And it had made a serious, if not yet profitable, commitment to manufacturing abroad.

Job Titles:

• CEO

William Pollard succeeded Wessner as CEO in 1983. Under him the company executed a major strategic change which enabled it to continue its growth and profitability to 1988. Pollard continued to serve as CEO in 1990.

Job Titles:

• President

Somber events forged the beginnings of John Deere & Company. In 1808 William Deere, John's father, was lost at sea leaving his widow with four sons, two daughters, and some heavy debts (7). These hard circumstances must have had an impact on the character and drive of John Deere. They certainly limited his education. Between 1825 and 1829 John, trained as a blacksmith, worked for several different Vermont businesses in his trade (12). In 1829 John opened his first blacksmith shop which failed (13). Deere moved to Royalton, worked for someone else for awhile; moved again to Hancock and opened a new smithy which also mired him in debt (27). The prospect was financial ruin and debtor's disgrace in 1835. The John Deere company was not exempt from these economic uncontrollables. In particular, the company owed large sums of money to the steel suppliers Singer, Hartman in Pittsburgh and Naylor & Co. in England. While the debts would not have been of serious concern in a good economy, the situation became threatening enough for the Deere company lawyer to recommend a change in business organization. Effective July 1, 1857 John Deere became John Deere & Company with four partners: John, Charles, Luke Hemenway and David Bugbee. The partnership had a capital stock of $32,000 with each partner sharing equally. Bugbee apparently plowed $6,178 of capital into the company, for which he received a mortgage (126). More financial stratagems accompanied these developments, perhaps the most significant of which was that Charles Deere purchased a quarter of the plow shop for $10,000 and John and Charles jointly sold the real estate on which the factory was built to the new partnership for $35,000 for a series of notes coming due at different times over the next five years. Broehl (1984) suggests two primary reasons for these maneuvers: First, the agreements put some of the assets in the personal names of the Deere family and moved more assets out of the partnership and into family hands over a period of time, protecting them against personal bankruptcy in the event the business failed. Second, and Broehl views this as the most important, the agreements appear to remove John Deere from principal manager of the company and put Charles in that role Yet John Deere became President when the company incorporated in 1868, and remained so until his death in 1886. A public relations brochure printed and distributed by John Deere & Company, Inc. in 1963 and available at the Chicago Historical Society implied that John was the chief executive of the company until his death. Although the exact date that Charles took over the company is ultimately unresolvable, it is important to lay the facts out and to try, because whoever ran the company between 1857 and 1864 is the executive that deserves the credit for the recovery, and probably the survival, of John Deere & Company.