We remember the great entrepreneurs who died this year, from the founders of K2 skis and Lands' End, to the woman who invented tortilla chips and Richard Branson's mentor.
Thomas Arthur, 84, stadium concessionaire, in St. Louis. Although not a ballplayer, Arthur ranks right up there with Sandy Koufax and Fernando Valenzuela in Los Angeles Dodger lore, thanks to his invention, the Dodger Dog. Though Arthur Food Services originally billed the dog as a "foot-long" frank, it actually measures 10 inches--though fans have never seemed to mind the false advertising. According to a survey of Major League concessionaires in 2004, more hot dogs were consumed at Dodger Stadium (about 1.61 million) than at any other ballpark.
Robert Brooks, 69, chairman of Hooters of America, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Brooks turned a humble Florida bar into a chain with 435 locations in 46 states and 21 countries. Famous for its spicy wings and scantily clad waitresses, Hooters had its critics, but Brooks was unapologetic. "Good food, cold beer, and pretty girls never go out of style," he said in an interview in 2003. In recent years, Brooks tried to start a Hooters airline (it dropped commercial routes in 2006) and donated more than $5 million to Clemson University, his alma mater.
Rebecca Webb Carranza, 98, tortilla chip pioneer, in Phoenix. Carranza took machine-rolled rejects from her family's El Zarape Tortilla Factory in Los Angeles, cut the misshapen disks into wedges, and fried them for friends and family. Her Tort Chips proved so popular that she began selling them in the 1940s for 10 cents a bag. Chip sales soon became the main driver of the company's revenue. When competing products started popping up in the supermarkets, the Carranzas' business struggled to compete, until it shut down in 1967. In the '90s, the industry honored Carranza with lifetime achievement awards, and her death in February produced a round of newspaper obituaries hailing her ingenuity. "It's a shame that most of her fame has come after her death," says Carranza's son Mario. "But she knew she had a big impact on the culture."
Gary C. Comer, 78, founder of Lands' End, in Chicago. His was one of the first catalog companies to offer customers round-the-clock toll-free phone service and one of the earliest to go online. No small feat of customer service considering that, at last count, the Dodgeville, Wisconsin, company fields 100,000 calls a day during the holidays and more than 200,000 e-mails every year. Comer stepped down as president in 1990 but remained the majority shareholder until the company was sold to Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD) in 2002 for $1.9 billion. In later years, Comer and his wife, Frances, donated more than $84 million to the University of Chicago children's hospital.
James Conway Sr., 78, co-founder of Mister Softee, in Ocean City, New Jersey. Conway, a Wharton graduate, and his brother William launched the company's first ice cream truck on St. Patrick's Day in 1956 in Philadelphia. Unlike other ice cream trucks, which served prepackaged fare, Mister Softee brought fresh soft-serve ice cream to street corners. Today the franchised business is made up of more than 600 of the customized trucks, rolling through neighborhoods in 15 states and pumping out that signature jingle.
Adrienne E. Davis, 71, advocate for minority business owners, in Milwaukee. In response to race riots in 1967, Davis founded the Central City Cooperative, a lending initiative, to encourage business ownership among African Americans in Milwaukee. That group produced the Sight Center, a network of eye-care providers, owned by members of the local African American community. Later, she started and ran another company, ADI, an office interior decorating firm. "She was a fighter," says Dester Martin, the head of Milwaukee's African American Chamber of Commerce. "In fact, at our last meet and greet, there she was in front of the governor requesting contracts for minorities from the state of Wisconsin."
J.B. Fuqua, 87, real estate and broadcast entrepreneur, in Atlanta. As a poor teenager growing up on his grandparents' Virginia tobacco farm, Fuqua wrote to Duke University requesting books on finance and banking, which an official sent to him, free of charge. At age 21, after a stint as a radio operator on a merchant marine ship, he convinced three businessmen to lend him money to start a radio station. Fuqua went on to build an Atlanta-based conglomerate that included radio and TV stations and industrial products companies. The business had an estimated $2 billion in revenue at its peak in 1979. Fuqua also served in the Georgia legislature and was Lyndon Johnson's friend and hunting companion. In 1980, Fuqua thanked Duke for its early generosity by donating $10 million to establish the highly regarded Fuqua School of Business.
Robert K. Hoffman, 59, co-founder of National Lampoon (AMEX:NLN) magazine, in Dallas. Along with two Harvard classmates, Hoffman turned a campus humor magazine into a national publication famous for its no-holds-barred comedy. The magazine spun off a series of records, a radio show, and movies, among them Animal House. After selling his interest, Hoffman partnered with his father to form the nation's fifth-largest bottler of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO). A renowned art collector, Hoffman donated 224 pieces worth more than $150 million to the Dallas Museum of Art last year.
Doris Jones, 92, ballet school founder, in Washington, D.C. Jones started Washington's Jones-Haywood School of Ballet in 1941 to provide African American children with the chance to learn classical dance, something that wasn't available to her in her youth. As she put it, "I never want that door shut again in the face of any black youngster." Jones taught thousands of students, like Chita Rivera, who went on to have great success.
Bill Kirschner, 87, ski manufacturer, in Seattle. Working in his father's shed on Vashon Island, Washington, Kirschner developed a process of coating wood with fiberglass to make better skis. His family tested prototypes on nearby slopes. The first K2s hit the market in 1964 and within a decade the signature red, white, and blue skis were being worn by champion skiers. Kirschner sold the company in 1970, but he led a group of investors that bought it back six years later; he served as chairman until his retirement in 1982. Until the end of his life, he remained a constant tinkerer, working even recently on an idea to improve bicycle gears.
