Famous Entrepreneurs

Henry John Kaiser was born on 9th May 1882 and is known as the father of modern American Shipbuilding. He was an industrialist who set up the Kaiser Shipyard and created Kaiser Aluminium and Kaiser Steel which led to him becoming a millionaire. He was the leader of Kaiser-Frazer and Kaiser Motors, and set up the Kaiser Family Foundation (a charitable organisation) and Kaiser Permanente (healthcare for people that worked for him).

Kaiser was born in Sprout Brook in New York. Early on he worked as an apprentice photographer, and by the time he had reached twenty he was running the company he originally worked for himself. He moved to the state of Washington using his earnings where he set up a construction company for government contracts. He moved to the West Coast in 1906 and founded a company that paved roads in 1914. This company was one of the first to use heavy construction machinery. In 1927 the company grew significantly after getting a $20 million contract to build roads in Cuba. In 1931 the company was a main contractor in the building of Hoover Dam, the Bonneville Dam and the Grand Coulee Dam on the Colorado River, the Bonneville River and the Columbia River. He then went on to establish shipyards in Seattle and Tacoma despite never having built a ship before. These shipyards used mass production techniques like welding over rivets. The Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California built Liberty ships during World War Two and it was here that Kaiser Permanente was set up. They used methods that allowed them to produce a cargo ship every 45 days, and these ships were the known as Liberty ships. Later the shipyard was able to build a ship in 4 days, making him world famous. More Kaiser Shipyards were then established in Vancouver and in Oregon.

In 1945 along with Joseph Frazer who was an automobile executive, Kaiser set up a new automobile company known as “Kaiser Motors”. In 1955 the company left the American market and moved onto Brazil and Argentina. He also bough Willys-Overland, a company that made Jeeps. He changed its name originally to Willys Motors, and then to Kaiser-Jeep in 1963. This company was sold to American Motors Corporation in 1970.

In 1946 Kaiser Aluminium was created and in 1948 Kaiser Family Foundation was set up. This was a private charitable organisation that was centred around dealing with key healthcare issues in the United States by providing facts and analysis.

Kaiser passed away on 24th August 1967.

Henry Robinson Luce also known as “Father Time” made his billions through publishing in America. He was born on 3rd April 1898 in Penglai City in China and was educated in numerous different Chinese boarding schools and English boarding schools such as the China Inland Mission Chefoo School which he attended at the age of ten. When he was fourteen he went to Europe by himself and a year later he went to America where he attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.

After he had completed school he began working as the editor-in-chief for the Hotchkiss Literary Monthly. He then went to Yale College which is where he met his lifelong work partner Briton Hadden. They worked together for the Yale Daily News, Hadden working as the chairman while he worked as the managing editor. He graduated in 1920 and was voted as “most brilliant” in his class. He then decided to do a year at Oxford University studying history and at the same time worked for the Chicago Daily News as a cub reporter. During this year he was apart from Hadden but they reunited again in 1921 where they worked together at The Baltimore News.

In 1922, at the age of 23, they both left their jobs and went on to form Time Inc. later that year. They aimed to raise $100,000 but only managed to get together $86,000, however this was enough for them to release the original issue of Time on 3rd March 1923. The idea of Time magazine was supposed to have first come to the pair during their time at Yale. They worked together on the magazine alternating the labels secretary-treasurer and president each year, while Hadden serving as editor –in-chief permanently and he worked as the business manager. In 1929 Hadden died unexpectedly so Luce filled his position.

In February 1930 Luce created Fortune, a business magazine. In 1936 he founded Life magazine, in 1952 he started House and Home and in 1954 he launched Sports Illustrated. Time Inc. grew to become the biggest and most highly esteemed magazine publisher on the globe. Luce stayed serving as editor-in-chief for all his magazines and newspapers up until 1964. He had two children with Lila Hotz, his first wife. In 1935 he married his second wife Clare Boothe Luce.

He died on February 28th 1967 with the majority of his money being left to the Henry Luce Foundation.

Herb D Kelleher was born on 12th March 1931 and became a millionaire by co-foundering and working as the chairman and CEO of the company Southwest Airlines. He was born in Haddon Heights in New Jersey and went to Haddon Heights High School. He got a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and achieved a Juris Doctor from New York University.

Kelleher and his wife Joan Negley moved to Texas with the aim of setting up a law firm or a business. Southwest Airlines was set up in 1971, and it is said that along with the Texas businessman Rollin King who was one of his business clients, Kelleher came up with the idea for the company on a cocktail napkin in a restaurant. The idea of the company was to serve three cities in Texas: Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The company is now based in Love Field in Dallas, Texas. Southwest became so successful because it was different from other similar businesses and because of this it faced many legal challenges from its competitors. Southwest was so successful at the time because it could offer its clients lower fares because it did not use the “hub and spoke” scheduling system that other airlines used. Instead it used lots of short fast flights into secondary airports of major markets which cost less and are most efficient. Furthermore the company only used one type of aeroplane- the Boeing 737. In 2007 it was the biggest airline on the globe according to amount of passengers carried per year, and was the 6th biggest airline by revenue. It has around 3500 flights in operation every day.

It was important to Kelleher that his workers took their job seriously- there has never been a death on any of their flights; however he liked his workers to enjoy themselves. There are often stories of his workers singing in the in-flight announcements. Kelleher’s colourful personality has led to the company being listed many times as one of the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in the annual poll of the magazine Fortune. He has also been named as the best CEO in the United States by Fortune.

On 21st May 2008 he stepped down as the chairman of Southwest Airlines however it has been said that he will remain there for another four years as a full time employee. Gary C. Kelly is now the Chairman of the Board of Directors and was the company’s former CEO.

John Willard Marriott was born on 17th September and was an American businessman who became a billionaire through founding the Marriott Corporation which was a hospitality company. This company grew to become the biggest hospitality, hotel chain and food services company in the world.

Marriott was born at Marriott Settlement near Ogden in Utah and was bought up on a farm owned by his father. From an early age he was given a lot of responsibility and he was raised as a devout Mormon. When he was 19 he carried out missionary work of the church for two years in New England. While passing through Washington D.C in the sweltering heat he noticed how fast a push cart peddler managed to sell his ice cream and soda. After he graduated from the University of Utah in 1926 he decided to return to Washington D.C and start up a business there.

In 1927 he got the franchise rights for A&W Root Beer for Washington D.C and Richmond in Virginia. With his business partner Hugh Colton he then set up a nine-stool root beer stand in Washington which opened on 20th May 1927. As it became colder Mexican food was added to the menu and the stand was renamed “The Hot Shoppe”. In 1928 he opened the first drive-in near the Mississippi and this business was incorporated into Hot Shoppes Inc. in 1929. The business expanded in the Second World War to incorporate the management of food services in government buildings like the U.S. Treasury.

In 1953 the company went public and in 1957 the business expanded into hotels. It was during this year that the first Marriott hotel was opened- the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, Virginia.

In 1967 the business became Marriott Inc., and the Big Boy family restaurant company was incorporated. In 1968 the Roy Rogers Family Restaurant company was also added to the chain. The company expanded over the years going on to provide in-flight food service and food service for schools and colleges. They also now own two theme parks.

The Marriott Corporation became Marriott International in 1993.

Marriott died on 13th August 1985 and by this time his company operated 1400 restaurants and had 143 hotels and resorts, and had earned around $4.5 billion in revenue each year. The company had 154,600 employees and had even extended into a line of cruise ships.

James Jerome Hill made his millions through his railroad empire. He was the chief executive officer of a railway network that stretched from the Upper Midwest to the northern Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. His empire has headed by the Great Northern Railway.

He was born on September 16th 1838 in Wellington County in Upper Canada (Ontario). During his childhood be became blinded in one eye during an accident with a bow and arrow. He was schooled for free at Rockwood Academy for nine years until the death of his father forced him to leave. He then worked as a clerk in Kentucky which led to him moving permanently to Minnesota at the age of 18. Here he worked as a bookkeeper for a steamboat company using the skills he acquired during his time working as a clerk. He began to learn about the transportation business during 1860 when he began working for a wholesale grocer. During this time he handled freight transfers and began to work for himself.

This work experience led to Hill going into the steamboat business in 1870 and the coal business in 1867. In 1872 he had a local monopoly and by 1874 it had increased by five times. He also entering banking and got on the board of directors for a number of banks. Along with this he bought several bankrupt businesses, built them up again and sold them on, frequently making massive profit. Wherever he saw opportunity he took it.

His key to success was the hard work he put in. Furthermore he was extremely competitive and was a particularly skilled man and leader. He entered the railway business in 1877 buying the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific Railroad with Norman Kittson, Donald Smith, George Stephen and John S. Kennedy after spending a long period of time doing research into whether making profit was feasible. He expanded it and in May 1879, formed the St. Paul Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company. In 1885 the net worth of the company was $25,000,000 and during this time he formally became president of the company.

From 1883-1889 Hill built railroads in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Montana. He aspired to make a transcontinental railroad and in 1893 the Great Northern Railway was built running from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington.

Even during the depression his company stayed strong making a net profit of around $10 million due to his strong leadership skills and decision making.

When he died in 1916, he was worth over $53 million. He was married to Mary Theresa Mehegan in 1867 and they had ten children.

Leo Goodwin became a millionaire by founding the Government Employee Insurance Company (GEICO), which is a private American auto insurance company that initially provided insurance for federal government employees and their families, and then later went on to provide auto insurance for the general public. He founded GEICO in 1936 during The Great Depression, a time of serious economic depression which makes this achievement very notable.

Leo was born in Lowndes in Missouri in 1886 and was the son of a doctor. He trained to be an accountant and then first went into insurance in San Antonio in Texas. His values in business included being honest and reliable, working hard and learning from any mistakes you make. He set up GEICO in 1936 in Washington DC and at the end of the year the business had 12 members of staff and 3700 policies. He decided the best way of expanding the business was to reduce general business costs, and to targeting select consumer groups. This is when the company first began to provide insurance for federal government employees as he thought that federal employees would be more financially stable and would involve less risk than providing policies for than the general public. His wife Lillian Goodwin also worked 12 hour days for many years for no money to help the business. It was 1940 when the company first started making a profit, and now GEICO is worth around $7.3 billion. In 2007 GEICO had over 9 million policy holders and provided coverage for over 10 million motor vehicles.

Leo retired in 1958, and in 1964 David Lloyd Kreeger became president of GEICO, and went on to become the senior vice president, chairman and then chief executive officer up until 1979. David Kreeger assisted in making the company a key insurance enterprise by forming a group of investors that bought into the company.

During the 1970s the company started to insure the general public. They save money on business costs by dealing with consumers on the phone and via the web, rather than employing lots of insurance salespeople, continuing Leo’s work ethic. GEICO is currently the third biggest direct writer of private auto insurance in America.

Leo died at the age of 84, in 1971. He had a son called Leo Goodwin Junior who also became involved in the company. He passed away on January 15, 1978 from cancer in Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Joyce Clyde Hall was born on August 29th 1891 in David City in Nebraska. He disliked the name Joyce so usually adapted the name “J.C”. His father was a minister and from the age of 8 started working small sales jobs to help out with the family income. In 1905 along with his brothers, he decided to spend $150 on postcards which he sold to the salespeople that sold books to the shop in which he was working. In 1908 he set up the Norfolk Post Card Company in Norfolk, Nebraska, and he later went on to found The Hallmark Card Company which led to him becoming a millionaire.

When he was 18 years old, with a couple of shoe boxes full of postcards, Hall moved to Kansas City in Missouri in 1910, the time at which the Hallmark Cards Company was founded. By 1913 along with his brothers he was running a store that sold postcards and greetings cards. In 1915 the store got burned, but later this store went on to become the current Halls department store in Kansas City.

After the store got burned down Hall went on to buy an engraving business. After this he started to print his own cards that were marketed with the brand name of Hallmark. His business was better than it had ever been and was successful even during the period of the Great Depression, a time of serious economic hardship. His business was going so well that not one worker had to be laid off during this period.

It was in 1928 in which the company began using the name Hallmark. They named their company after the hallmark symbol that goldsmiths used in London in the past. They began printing this name on the back of all the cards they produced. In 1931 William E. Coutts Company Ltd, a major Canadian card making company became affiliated with Hall Brothers.

In 1954 the name Halls Brothers was changed to Hallmark, and in 1958 the William E Coutts Company Ltd was taken over by Hallmark, and until the 1990s the Canadian section of the Hallmarks Company was called “Coutts Hallmark”.

The Hallmark cards company is currently still based in Kansas City, and is the biggest manufacturer of greetings cards in America. In fact it is estimated that around 50% of all greetings card that are sent in America are manufactured by the Hallmark Company.

Hall retired in 1966 and died in Kansas City in 1982.

Louis Burt Mayer (originally named Lazar Meir) and become a billionaire through American film production. He was born in Minsk in Russia in 1884; however no one knows the exact date. A mayor chose his birth date to be 4th July when he became an American citizen, to honour the country.

Along with his family he moved to Saint John in Brunswick, Canada when he was young. He went to school here and in 1904 when he was 19 he moved to Boston and got married. Here he worked in the scrap metal business. When business was slow he took on various odd jobs to support his family.

In 1907 the “Gem Theatre” which he had renovated was reopened as the “Orpheum” which was his first movie theatre. The first film he showed there was a religious film to help the reputation of the building in the community as it had once been a burlesque house. After a few years had passed he owned the five Haverhill theatres and went into business with Nathan H. Gordon which was the start of the Gordon-Mayer partnership, who went on to manage the biggest chain of theatres in New England.

Together in Boston they organised their own film distribution agency in 1914. In 1915 they paid $25,000 for the exclusive rights to show the film “The Birth of a Nation” in New England and managed to get $100,000 in net profit. In 1916 in New York City, Metro Pictures Corporation was created along with Richard A. Rowland which was a talent booking agency. Two years on Mayer moved to Los Angeles and formed his own production company which was called Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. In 1918 he produced the film “Virtuous Wives”. After this he set up the Mayer-Schulberg studio along with B.P Schulberg.

In 1924 Metro Pictures and Mayer Pictures were merged with Goldwyn Pictures by Marcus Loew, and the company was known as MGM. Mayer was “Vice-President in Charge of Production” and in essentially managed the company for the 27 years to follow.

In 1936 he became head of studio production as well as being the studio chief. He made the company the most successful motion picture studio on the globe over the years he worked there, producing crowd pleasing films with many highly paid stars in them.

In 1951 he was fired as the company began to drop in success due to the introduction of television and because what the public wanted was shifting. On 29th October 1957 he died of leukaemia.

Gloria Marie Steinem was born in Toledo in Ohio on 25th March 1934 and is a millionaire, a feminist, a journalist and a social and political activist.

Steinem went to Waite High School in Toledo and Western High School in Washington D.C. She went to Smith College and in 1960 was got a job at Warren Publishing where she was the initial employee of the magazine Help!.

In 1962 she wrote her first “serious” article for Esquire magazine about how women have to decide between having a husband and having a career. In 1963 she wrote an article about how women in Playboy were treated which was later made into the 1985 film “A Bunny’s Tale”. In 1968 she was hired by New York magazine and in 1969 she first started to became a prominent figure in society. She was the founding editor and publisher of the Ms. Magazine which started in 1972 as a unique publication of New York Magazine. Ms was the most influential publication of second-wave feminism and Steinem continued to be a writer for it up until 1987 when it got sold. In 1991 the magazine was revived and she served as a consulting editor. She now is a member of the advisory board for the magazine.

In the 1970s she became a leading politician and was one of the key figures in second-wave feminism during the 1960s and 1970s. She founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 with other feminist leaders such as Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer, Myrlie Evers, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug. In 1974 she co-founded the Coalition of Labour Union Women. She also co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance along with Brenda Feigan and Catherine Samuals and chaired the board from 1971 to 1978. In June 1997 the Women’s Action Alliance was dissolved by a vote of the Board of Directors. In 1992 she co-founded Choice USA which provides support to the younger generation and she also co-founded the Women’s Media Centre. She is now an important member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

On 3rd September 2000 when she was 66 she married David Bale who is the father of actor Christian Bale. On 30th December 2003 he died of brain lymphoma at the age of 62.

Her list of works include The Thousand Indias (1957), The Beach Book (1963), Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Marilyn: Norma Jean (1986), Revolution from Within (1992), Moving beyond Words (1993) and Doing Sixty & Seventy (2006).

Madam C. J. Walker was born on 23rd December 1867 and became a millionaire by producing and marketing hair and beauty products for black women through the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company which she founded. She is the first woman millionaire who reached this fortune solely through her own accomplishments.

She was born in Delta in Louisiana as Sarah Breedlove. She became the wife of a man called Moses McWilliams at the age of 14 and was windowed by the age of 20. After his death she went to live in St. Louis in Missouri where her brothers were and she started working as a laundress. During her time in St. Louis she became a member of St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church and this assisted her in improving her interpersonal, speaking and organisational skills.

Her hair started to fall out which gave her the inspiration for a range of hair care products. Most Americans during the 1900s washed their hair monthly because they had no indoor plumbing, electricity or central heating. She therefore had scalp disease and bad dandruff which was why she was losing her hair.

She started working for Annie Malone in 1905 who was also an African-American woman who was making hair products. She also went to a pharmacist who helped her to create her own hair care products by analysing Malone’s formula.

She got married to Charles Joseph Walker in 1906 who was a St. Louis postman which is when she first started using the name “Madam C. J. Walker”. She founded her company which cosmetics and sold hair care products and then in 1910 divorced Walker, moving her company to Indianapolis.

In 1917 her business had become the largest in America to be owned by an African-American. She used her wealth to help others by providing work, particularly for other black people. She had many black women working as her agents that earned commission. Her agents were earning on average $4 more than unskilled white labourers. Marjorie Joyner who was an agent of hers lead the next generation of black beauty entrepreneurs.

Walker left two-thirds of her estate to charities and educational institutions such as the Tuskegee Institute, the NAACP and Bethune-Cookman College. Her gift of $5000 to the NAACP was the biggest gift the organisation her ever received. She died on 25th May 1919 at the age of 51 in Irvington on Hudson, New York.