Word: howard
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Among the army of burger flippers at work across America in the 1960s was a French chef putting his training to use at Howard Johnson's on Queens Boulevard in New York City. I worked for HoJo's from the summer of 1960 to the spring of 1970, doing my American apprenticeship, learning about mass production and marketing. The company had been started in 1925 in Massachusetts by Howard Deering Johnson, and by the mid-1960s its sales exceeded that of Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's combined. There would be more than 1,000 Howard Johnson restaurants...
...Howard Johnson Co. went to pieces, Ray Kroc's obsession with Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value--the unwavering mission of McDonald's--was gathering momentum. Kroc was adroit and perceptive in identifying popular trends. He sensed that America was a nation of people who ate out, as opposed to the Old World tradition of eating at home. Yet he also knew that people here wanted something different. Instead of a structured, ritualistic restaurant with codes and routine, he gave them a simple, casual and identifiable restaurant with friendly service, low prices, no waiting and no reservations. The system eulogized...
Like many of America's great entrepreneurs, Kroc was not a creator--convenience food already existed in many forms, from Howard Johnson's to White Castle--but he had the cunning ability to grasp a concept with all its complexities and implement it in the best possible way. And that's as American as a cheeseburger...
...fetishes of Howard Hughes (1905-76) have entered folklore, to the point that Hughes is remembered less for having been an industrialist-aviator-Hollywood-producer than for having been a saver of urine (his own), a recluse terrified of dust, a man who, with the right audience (Mormon bodyguards), couldn't see Ice Station Zebra often enough. Yet for every celebrity eccentric, a dozen more labored in obscurity. Who remembers Brian Hughes? This 1920s box-manufacturing tycoon liked nothing better than to patrol the sidewalk outside Tiffany in New York City, an envelope tucked beneath his arm. When the moment...
...sheer reclusiveness, Hughes (Howard, not Brian G.) had a worthy rival in candymaker Forrest Mars Sr. Virtually every detail of Mars' life--including his birthday--is kept a closely guarded corporate secret within Mars Inc., a secretive company. He has reportedly given but one interview in his entire career and that to a candy-industry trade paper in 1966. Yet even Mars' and Hughes' penchant for anonymity pales before that of Basil Zaharoff (1849-1936), a munitions king aptly called the "Mystery Man of Europe." Zaharoff systematically stole or destroyed all records of his youth and early manhood, making snooping...