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Billions Served. McDonald's Heiress Joan Kroc Took Her Philanthropy and Super-Sized It

Published: March 13, 2004

Author: David Montgomery

It would begin with the mysterious blonde’s presence in the audience, or in the seat beside you on the airplane, or on the telephone calling from somewhere. Asking questions. Inquiring after the fate of the world, or a sick hummingbird.

Then suddenly would come the knock at the door, the unexpected envelope — the $500,000 camouflaged as a holiday card for public radio, the $1 million delivered to the hotel room for AIDS research, the $15 million in anonymous checks of $2,000 apiece distributed like candy to flood victims . . .

And so one of the great American fortunes was being spent down, one surprise at a time, a seemingly whimsical redistribution of treasure.

If you had more than $2.3 billion, how would you get rid of it?

On a spring day two years ago, when making surprise gifts of staggering sums was still pure fun for the Big Mac billionaire — before she felt the deadline pressure of terminal cancer — Joan Kroc stood briefly before a crowd of Salvation Army officers and San Diego dignitaries.

At 73, her hair was perfectly coifed and golden, as she had vowed it always would remain golden, one way or another. Her voice was a fresh gust from the Minnesota heartland that she had never completely left in spirit.

“I’m sure this is something that Ray would have liked me to do,” she said, invoking her late husband, the brash milkshake-machine salesman who built the empire called McDonald’s. He died in 1984. “And I’m sure he’s looking down — ah, I hope he’s looking down ,” Joan Kroc added, causing the audience to guffaw.

“I am a maverick salvationist,” she said.

The occasion was the June 2002 opening of the Salvation Army’s $90 million Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in east San Diego. Kroc herself was not a churchgoer, though she believed in God, nor was occupying such a spotlight her custom.

The former teenage mother and cocktail club pianist was as surprised as any of her girlfriends in St. Paul, Minn., or Rapid City, S.D., that she had become one of the wealthiest women in America. The maverick salvationist proved to be a maverick philanthropist, too. She gave away money the way the non-rich fantasize it should be done: no fanfare or foundations, no red tape or robber baron formality. Just the unexpected personal proffer of $1 million to prevent nuclear war, $3 million for a homeless shelter, $100 tips to the immigrants at the drive-through inquiring if she’d like fries with that . . . All the better if the lady in the blue Mercedes got away with her Filet-O-Fish (and a burger for her King Charles spaniel) without being identified.

The style echoed nothing in the history of giving so much as that 1950s television show “The Millionaire,” with the shadowy benefactor and his astounded beneficiaries. In her early days of wealth she set up a foundation, like most fabulously rich philanthropists. But she shut it down — too much paperwork.

She never read pitches from fundraisers: If you asked Kroc, you did not receive.

She got her ideas serendipitously. The name of her yacht and her jet was the same as her giving style: Impromptu.

Like “the Millionaire,” St. Joan of the Arches, as her friends called her, might have remained in the shadows, not well known beyond San Diego. But her will — she died in October, about three and a half months after being diagnosed with brain cancer — revealed she had just slipped $2 billion under some more doors, including another $1.5 billion to the Salvation Army, the largest gift ever to any charity; and $200 million to National Public Radio. In death, she emerged into the light of the annals of American philanthropy.

• p. There she was in the audience.

“I noticed in the front row about five seats off center was this rather handsome blond lady,” recalls the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, former president of the University of Notre Dame. It was April 1987, and he was in San Diego lecturing about how to educate students to be peacemakers in the nuclear age.

“She was paying rapt attention. After the talk she got up right away and came up to the podium and said, ‘Father Ted, I really appreciate what you’re trying to do to prevent nuclear war, and I really believe in that and I’m going to help you.’ Having said that out of the blue, she turned around and walked away.”

Hesburgh asked his hosts who the woman was. “Joan Kroc,” they said, to which he replied, “Who’s that?”

Hesburgh heard nothing for six months. Then Kroc called and asked for a tour of Notre Dame, where he had started a peace studies program but lacked funding. A few weeks later Kroc called and said she’d pick up the tab, $6 million.

“It was just like that — simple,” Hesburgh says. “She was very modest about it. No fuss, no feathers.”

Over the years, Kroc gave another $14 million, then left $50 million in her will. She also gave $30 million, plus $50 million in her will, to found a peace institute at the University of San Diego.

Peace and nuclear disarmament were among the first causes Kroc bankrolled after her husband died. “I fear that President Reagan shares with the Moral Majority the belief that Armageddon is near,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. " . . . I just think it’s time to quit this b.s. People are frightened and they just feel powerless, and I’m trying to tell them that they’re not."

A few years later, Jimmy Carter was starting up the international work of his Carter Center, and Kroc invited the former president to lunch.

“She said, ’I’m going to give you 100,000,’ " Carter recalls, "and I was feeling very pleased to get $100,000, but then she finished the sentence by saying, ’ shares of McDonald’s stock.’ "

Carter could hardly wait for lunch to end to check the value. “I had barely got separated from her when I dashed to a newsstand, bought a copy of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and looked up McDonald’s stock. It was $36 a share” — a gift of $3.6 million.

Peace and disarmament weren’t the only causes that caught Kroc’s fancy.

One day she read in the Los Angeles Times about Mathilde Krim, founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

“It’s still a little mysterious,” Krim recalls. “The next morning I received at my hotel a little envelope, and it contained a million dollars. And I almost fell over.”

Once a sick hummingbird landed in Kroc’s yard. A member of her staff brought it to the San Diego Zoo, where it was nursed back to health. Kroc gave $100,000 for the zoo’s hummingbird enclosure. Then she gave $3.3 million for a big-cat habitat. When the zoo needed to pick up a clouded leopard from Ohio, the cat flew first class on Impromptu.

“She loved surprising people and seeing the reaction,” says Dick Starmann, a former McDonald’s communications director who became her friend and philanthropic adviser. Her delight “was almost impish, in a very nice way.” Before making a gift, she’d say, “Boy, we’re going to knock their socks off!”

But she had a no-nonsense edge. She withdrew an offer of Western art when a group in Rapid City missed her deadline to open a museum. Sometimes in a business meeting she would sense she was being patronized or schmoozed. "When she walked out of the room, she’d say, ‘They thought they were dealing with a dumb blonde,’ " says Starmann. “And she’d wink.”

In April 1997 Kroc watched televised reports of the flood that inundated Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn. She offered $2,000 of immediate assistance for each affected household as families awaited government and insurance money. Local officials were sworn to secrecy and publicly referred to the donor as the “Angel.”

At the height of the crisis, Pat Owens, then mayor of Grand Forks, didn’t have a change of clothes and had gone on television wearing jeans two sizes too small. Later, when Kroc made a secret visit on Impromptu, Owens asked why she had decided to be so generous.

Kroc replied: "Well, I was watching this little mayor on television in her tight jeans, and I said, ’I’m going to help this little fox,’ " according to Owens. “Her generosity put a jump-start on the recovery.”

Kroc’s name eventually leaked, but she continued to refuse recognition. East Grand Forks intended to place a monument thanking her in front of the new city hall a few years ago, but on the day of the unveiling, Kroc insisted officials remove her name from the inscription and thank all the “angels” who helped in ways large and small.

She “was a common woman who had been brought up in Minnesota with common values and who appreciated common people,” says East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss.

Once Kroc was flying to Minneapolis via Chicago to be with her father, who was dying in a hospice. The woman sitting beside her was Doris Howell, a San Diego doctor traveling to a medical conference.

The two women talked all the way to Chicago. Howell dreamed of launching the first hospice program in her city. Kroc ended up giving $18.5 million to start the San Diego Hospice, plus $20 million in her will. She used to drop by unannounced with flowers for patients and families. Once she got a letter from a dying psychiatrist.

“It is 3 a.m. at the San Diego Hospice,” Alan Bergsma wrote, “and I am personally, eternally grateful to you. This began as one of the worst, miserable, wretched days of my life — nausea, vomiting, severe pain — as sick as I have been in 12 years of cancer. . . . Now I am in my first day at Hospice. It is a delightful, caring place beyond what I ever expected.”

Bergsma died seven days later.

*Laying the Foundation

This is not the way most billionaires give away money.

“Let us erect a foundation, a trust,” declared John D. Rockefeller a century ago, “and engage directors who will make it a life work to manage . . . this business of benevolence properly and effectively.”

Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and others in the golden age of American philanthropy set the pattern with large foundations to exist forever, donating as little as the 5 percent annual minimum required by the tax code. (Most of the rest of their fortunes went to found big institutions — universities, research institutes, medical schools.)

Rockefeller had given the equivalent of $2.9 billion in current dollars to the Rockefeller Foundation by 1929; it’s still worth about $3 billion, distributing about $160 million a year and $12 billion since the beginning. Carnegie’s foundation — Carnegie Corp. — began with the equivalent of $2.2 billion in 1911. It’s worth $1.8 billion now, donating about $80 million a year and $1.6 billion since its creation.

They have been outstripped by the top foundations today, including the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation, worth $27 billion; Lilly Endowment, $11 billion; Ford Foundation, $11 billion; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $8 billion; W.K. Kellogg Foundation, $6 billion, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Creating a foundation that will survive you means that more money can be given away over time. Rockefeller executives speak of “generational neutrality”: As dire as the world’s needs may seem now, they’ll probably be as serious in generations to come, so better to spread giving over the long term.

On the other hand, a foundation eats up some of the fortune in administrative costs and puts off until tomorrow much of the good it could do today.

After Kroc’s bequests to charity and an undisclosed sum to her family (which includes her daughter, granddaughters and great-grandchildren), the proceeds from McDonald’s will be gone.

“It gets the capital assets into the hands of a nonprofit doing the work,” says James Allen Smith, professor of philanthropy at Georgetown University. “It probably means that the good will be done sooner, rather than have it deferred and doled out at 5 percent a year.”

“She’s basically saying, ‘Look, rather than creating a foundation to guard my assets and spend them wisely, I’m going to give them to the organizations that have proven themselves to me over the years,’” says Paul C. Light, a scholar of nonprofits at New York University. “That’s a wonderful, gracious gift of confidence to those organizations that is quite rare today.”

Kroc also broke with tradition by giving so much — $1.5 billion — to a social service organization like the Salvation Army. The biggest gifts traditionally have gone to universities, museums and the like.

But there are precedents. Her whimsical spirit recalls Paul Mellon endowing not only great museums but underwriting obscure books and beautiful parks for the public who, he said, needed nothing so much as “a good five-cent reverie.”

As a woman donating her husband’s fortune with independent vision, Kroc echoes Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, said to be the richest woman in America a century ago with $63 million. The widow of tightfisted financier Russell Sage supported women’s rights, relief agencies, hospitals and universities and created a foundation dedicated to social reform research.

In specifying that the Salvation Army use her $1.5 billion to build 25 or 30 centers for recreation and arts, Kroc also sounds a little like Carnegie, whose thousands of libraries also were conceived to provide access to opportunity. And Carnegie, of course, was a peacenik, too, creating the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Another advantage of a foundation is that the staff may bring a more professional — and less impromptu — approach to the business of giving. Still, Kroc’s impromptu style frequently masked a more studied approach.

For years, Kroc had been warming up to the Salvation Army with gifts of increasing size. The Army’s religious side was less important than her sense that the Army used money effectively, according to her associates. She decided to do something in San Diego’s neglected neighborhoods and asked Army officers to plan a community center. She would check in and urge them to dream bigger. One day the local top officer, Col. Don Sather, got off the phone and stopped by a colleague’s office looking ashen. “She wants to add an ice rink,” he said. If the center was successful, she wanted to try the concept nationwide, her associates say, but the Army didn’t know that.

The $200 million bequest to National Public Radio also followed careful consideration. Though Kroc was a regular listener, she quizzed NPR President Kevin Klose at length. She sent Starmann to pore over NPR’s books.

She surprised Klose with a holiday card in 2002 containing $500,000 for NPR ; then, seven weeks before she died, she told him they were “going to do great things together.”

He had no more idea what that meant than did the Salvation Army.

The two biggest gifts Joan Kroc ever gave — to the Army and NPR — were stunners, but they were not impromptu.

*Equipping the Army

One day last month at the center in east San Diego, Haley VanBaale, 6, paints her version of a familiar masterpiece. The center’s fine arts instructor has taught techniques of line and color. Haley’s public school doesn’t have a regular art program.

“I mean, they’re doing a Chagall!” says her mother, Penny VanBaale.

On the ice rink, Brett Ryan, 13, glides at top speed, practicing spins, lutzes and single axels. He started skating on a lark after the center opened. One of his older brothers wanted to learn to skate but never could because the nearest rink was too far away. Brett’s progress has been exceptional, says instructor Wanda Guntert. He already has placed well in competitions. Will he continue all the way to the Olympic trials?

“Depends if I get a double axel,” says the boy, smiling and panting.

Instead of secondhand clothes and soup lines, the complex of beige stucco and green glass has the amenities of a fancy boarding school: 12-acre campus, three swimming pools, skateboard park, athletic field, rock-climbing wall, gym, library, computer room, theater, music and art classrooms, plus a church. About 1,700 people visit daily; a third of the families receive scholarships off the $35 monthly fee.

It’s a smorgasbord of opportunities Kroc did not enjoy growing up during the Depression in St. Paul. She wanted children, especially, to unlock talents they might never have had the chance to discover.

Ice skating was one thing you could do in St. Paul. One winter a girl named Joan Mansfield won a city skating competition. The experience taught her the thrill of achievement through hard work. So did studying the piano, which would pay off more than she could imagine.

Her father was a railroad telegraph operator, her mother an accomplished violinist who made sure her daughter got piano lessons. At 17 Joan married a young Navy veteran, Rollie Smith, and the following year they had a daughter, Linda.

She kept up her piano playing. One night in 1957, when she was in her late twenties and working in a restaurant piano bar, Ray Kroc walked in to talk business. Kroc had been building his burger chain for just a few years, and Joan’s boss was interested in a franchise. Kroc, a piano player himself, noticed the woman at the keyboard.

“I was stunned by her blond beauty,” he recalled in his 1977 autobiography. “Yes, she was married. Since I was married, too, the spark that ignited when our eyes met had to be ignored, but I would never forget it.”

He was about 25 years older than Joan, but the spark was mutual. “When Ray and I met, we both knew that someday we wanted to get married. It was unspoken, but it was there,” Joan Kroc told author John F. Love for his 1986 book, “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches.”

She agonized about getting a divorce, but her mother was against it and her teenage daughter said, according to Love, “If you marry him, forget that you have a daughter.” Ray divorced his wife anyway, and instead married John Wayne’s script assistant.

Coincidentally, Joan’s husband saw a future in McDonald’s. He and Joan moved to Rapid City to open a restaurant. At a McDonald’s convention 11 years after Ray and Joan met, they reconnected. They played songs on a hotel piano and talked all night. They each got divorces and within six months were married. (Joan Kroc remained on good terms with her ex-husband, who remarried and died a few weeks before she did.)

Immediately Joan Kroc was vaulted into new social circles, but she’d still take the McDonald’s jet back to Rapid City and pick up her girlfriends for weekend adventures. “Her personality never really changed,” says Barbara Eilers, who owned a fur shop in Rapid City.

The Krocs were formidable personalities who sometimes clashed, often over politics. Ray was conservative, Joan liberal. “All you wanted to do in that situation was stay out of the line of fire,” says Starmann, her adviser.

They had separate foundations to give money away, and sometimes their gifts were at odds with each other. Ray gave $250,000 for Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election. Joan later gave $1 million to the Democratic Party. Ray supported trade schools and disdained liberal arts colleges. Joan, who never went to college, established peace studies programs.

But that piano bar spark continued to flash. “You can tell people that are happy with each other,” Starmann said.

They both gave heavily to children’s charities. And when he died, he trusted her to do as she pleased with his fortune.

One of her choices was the Salvation Army center, which she said Ray, an old bell-ringer himself, would have appreciated.

During the first concert in the facility’s theater, Kroc took a seat at the $125,000 grand piano and played as Tony Bennett sang “Our Love Is Here to Stay.”

And when the rink was completed, Kroc was one of the first to put on skates and glide across the perfect ice.

*Giving Till the End

Kroc’s neighborhood McDonald’s was six miles from her $14 million house.

The house was on seven manicured hilltop acres in Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego. It had marble floors and was hung with paintings by Renoir, Remington and Norman Rockwell. Beside one of the telephones was a hand-made music box from a resident near East Grand Forks.

To reach the McDonald’s, she drove past thoroughbred horse farms and turned left at polo fields, until she reached a typical suburban San Diego shopping center done up in stucco with palms in the parking lot.

“She came in twice a week,” says supervisor Steve Naegele.

She’d take her great-grandchildren out to the play area.

“The Christmas before last she came in and passed out $100 bills to our crew,” Naegele says.

Or she’d pull into the drive-through lane in her blue Mercedes and leave a $100 tip. She liked the Filet-O-Fish, or, on Sunday mornings, a Sausage Biscuit and Diet Coke.

“And a hamburger for her dog,” says assistant manager Greg Wise.

“One time we had to park her,” confesses Naegele, meaning the drive-through food wasn’t ready and — gulp! — the big boss’s widow had to wait in a parking space.

“She said, ’It’s okay, honey. I understand.’ "

On social occasions she often was escorted by Phil Bifulk, a retired Minneapolis business executive whom she had known growing up and met again later in life. As much time as they spent together, he still lived in Minneapolis.

“She’s been a dear sweetheart of mine for 14 years, and we kept a low profile. I’ll respect her privacy,” Bifulk said, declining to be interviewed. Kroc’s daughter, Linda Kliber, also declined.

She kept her cancer diagnosis a secret from all but a close circle. “She didn’t want pity,” says her friend Maureen O’Connor, former mayor of San Diego and widow of the founder of Jack in the Box. "I said, ‘Joan, you’ve lived 29 lives and we’re going for the 30th.’ She said, ‘I know that, honey. I’ve had a wonderful life. I’d just like a few more years to see my great-grandchildren grow up.’ "

She began planning her last rush of giving, one more round of surprises.

“She said to me last summer before she passed away, ’Aren’t they going to be surprised!’ " recalls Starmann.

She personally invited the speakers for her memorial service, including Hesburgh and Carter.

The ceremony was held outside the University of San Diego peace institute, in a cliff-top garden overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In the program was printed one of her favorite quotes, by Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

A granddaughter read from a letter Kroc had sent a few years before, on the young woman’s 21st birthday.

“I want you to believe that a life of service is a happy one to lead,” she wrote in part. "Serve others joyously and your reward will be great; carry with you the message of charity and brotherly love. . . .

“Amount to something! Vow to be more than a parlor ornament. Vow to be something that will place your name among the annals of the givers.”

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.

2004 The Washington Post Company

TopicID: 4321

How Ray Kroc Became an American Villain

Considered a 20th-century hero by his contemporaries, the story of the McDonald’s mogul gets a 21st-century spin in The Founder .

“I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns,” Ray Kroc wrote in Grinding It Out , his 1977 autobiography and a seminal document on 20th-century American capitalism. “But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.”

Kroc would go on to famously mastermind the franchising system, turning McDonald’s from a San Bernardino sapling into an American roadside staple and, eventually, the world’s most-recognizable brand. The Golden Arches now glimmer in thousands of cities in 100 countries on six continents and Kroc’s mantras, triumphs, and war stories are of legend in American business schools and boardrooms. More than 30 years after his death in 1984, Kroc’s exploits are still faithfully repackaged by sales gurus on LinkedIn , self-declared leadership experts , and aspirant marketeers. Though time has dulled his fame, by most contemporaneous accounts, Kroc was a hero. Esquire named Kroc to a list of 50 people who contributed to American life in the 20th century, placing him in a category of visionaries, alongside the likes of Abraham Maslow, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1998, TIME listed Kroc one of the 100 most important people of the entire 20th century in an entry written by the famed chef Jacques Pépin.

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What Kroc understood was that McDonald’s reflected quintessential American qualities—affordability, efficiency, familiarity, and a lack of pretension—that would enable it to become a public institution. And so it did, forging an industry and inspiring hundreds of knockoffs along the way. One company estimate from the mid-1990s boasted that one out of every eight Americans had worked for McDonald’s at some point in his or her life. Beyond mere employment, the company has launched the careers of countless franchisees, including some women and minorities, whom Kroc helped turn from small-time entrepreneurs into millionaires. Today, the company claims that more than 80 percent of its franchises “are owned and operated by independent local business men and women.” Indeed, some of McDonald’s best and most enduring ideas, such as the Egg McMuffin and the Big Mac , were developed by franchisees themselves. “I would say that we're a company where more people have come up through the ranks and become successful than maybe any other company in maybe the world,” one McDonald’s owner-operator told me in 2014 . Ray Kroc was not only held up as the embodiment of the American Dream, but a purveyor of it as well.

To some, the contours of this American Dream now sound as quaint and outdated as the styrofoam McDonald’s clam shell containers that sit on display in the National Museum of American History . Wages stagnated, income inequality exploded, and those shifts at McDonald’s, once rhapsodized as the first jobs for enterprising teenagers, became low-wage, part-time realities for adults. (The average age of an American fast-food worker is now 29.) For some, McDonald’s and its fast-food ilk no longer emblematize innovation or ingenuity, or the meat-and-potatoes charm of ascendent America. Instead, fast food has become an easy (and, at times, overly simplistic) symbol for a United States that’s out of shape, financially enfeebled , and ailed by a broken food system. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine a swell of national pride at the image of thousands of Muscovites lining up in Pushkin Square—as they did 27 years ago this week—to inaugurate the very first McDonald’s in an unraveling Soviet Union.

It’s not surprising then that Kroc’s feats are less joyously chronicled in The Founder , an unflattering biopic about the 52-year-old future burger baron at the start of his long-delayed ascent. The film begins with Kroc (Michael Keaton) riding around the Midwest fruitlessly trying to sell multimixer milkshake machines, as if haunted by a voice whispering “ coffee’s for closers .” After catching wind of the unusual success of a California hamburger stand, Kroc seeks out Dick and Mac McDonald (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) at their modest operation near the western end of Route 66. It’s here that the vision that so many bestow upon Kroc’s legacy asserts itself. In San Bernardino, Kroc encounters an outfit that’s revolutionary in its appeal and efficiency—a family-friendly joint with no carhops, no dishware or utensils, and an assembly-line kitchen that dispenses a few items quickly and cheaply. Kroc cajoles the brothers into letting him franchise their restaurants nationally and, using control of franchise real estate as a cudgel, later muscles them out of their own business for $2.7 million.

Simmering grievances against the fast-food industry don’t entirely explain why the story of Ray Kroc merits relevance in 2017. The Founder also bears some strong resemblances to recent industry-themed movies— Steve Jobs , The Social Network —that have not only sought to chronicle the histories of hugely influential companies and gesture at their far-reaching impacts, but also gawk doubtfully at the manias of their creators. As a title, The Founder is a provocation: After all, the McDonald brothers created McDonald’s and, like the Winklevii of an earlier era, their roles have been mostly written out of the history.

Another potential and potent reason for its newsworthiness has to do with an additional theme that connects Kroc to the present day: the arrival of a hectoring, fast-food-loving salesman into the highest seat of power. “However decent the director’s original intentions, The Founder emerges as the first Trumpist film of the new era,” wrote The New Yorker ’s Anthony Lane in his review. Another entry from Flavorpill is entitled “ I Dare You to Watch ‘The Founder’ Without Thinking About Trump .” That The Founder’ s release date switched twice before it was finally slated for wide release on Inauguration Day only fuels this theory.

For its part, The Founder could also be accused of dropping a few breadcrumbs that might generate connections between Kroc and Trump. Early in the film, Kroc ends a long day on the road in a motel room where he sits with a tumbler of Early Times whiskey and listens to an audio recording of a fictional book called “The Power of the Positive” by a fictional author named Dr. Clarence Floyd Nelson. The book is a very unsubtle homage to “The Power Of Positive Thinking,” a self-help manifesto that spent several years on bestseller lists following its release in 1952 and, as Gwenda Blair at Politico noted last year , was a fixture in the Trump household. The book’s author, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, even officiated Trump’s wedding to his first wife Ivana.

And though Kroc could be both self-aware and self-lacerating, it’s easy to imagine that the two thrice-married billionaires would certainly share affinities, including political philosophies. “It’s true that it would be hard to start a business like McDonald’s today, with all the interference you’d get from the government and the unions,” Kroc told People in 1975 . More than 40 years later, these remarks don’t drift far from the tenor of comments made by Trump on the campaign trail or statements given by Andy Puzder , Trump’s nominee to the lead the Department of Labor, who currently serves as the CEO of Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s burger chains.

Kroc’s tale of individual triumph is tightly wrapped within a context of collective destiny. Millions yearn for Kroc’s America even as many others despise what it has wrought. McDonald’s may not be a perfect token for a divided country, the shredded faith in its institutions, how it’s changed, or what truth its can-do ethos still offers, but it’s not a bad place to stop for lunch along the way.

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This 142-Foot Superyacht Comes With a 3-Story Atrium Worthy of a Luxe Hotel

The multi-story space has never been seen on a yacht of this size, according to burger boat co., rachel cormack.

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This wild new 62-foot yacht has not one but two party decks.

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The name of Burger Boat Co.’s new 142 Atrium says it all really: The superyacht spans—you guessed it—142 feet and features an extraordinary atrium. That doesn’t mean the vessel is at all boring or predictable, though.

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The atrium, which looks as lavish as the foyer of a five-star hotel, sets the tone for the rest of the interior. The lower deck offers accommodation for up to 12 guests, with a full-beam owner’s suite and five guest staterooms. Burger says all rooms come with en suites, ocean views, and an abundance of natural light.

Another highlight is what the team calls the “Infinity Deck.” The open platform is essentially a fresh take on a beach club that aims to better connect guests with the surrounding sea by adding steps directly into the water. It flows onto an interior spa and gym. Up top, meanwhile, seafarers can enjoy a sky lounge, a Jacuzzi, and plenty of plush seating.

As to be expected, owners can personalize their 142 Atrium, working closely with Burger and Marshall to create a yacht that matches their exact requirements.

“This yacht embodies the best of design and craftsmanship, and I’m thrilled to see our vision come to life,” Marshall said in a statement.

The newcomer is also equipped with the latest technology to ensure a smooth and efficient cruising experience. (You can contact the yard to find out the propulsion options.) Burger has plenty of engineering experience, too, ranking as the oldest and perhaps most respected custom yacht maker in the states. The brand was launched in 1863, and then later reborn in the 1990s. The high-tech shipyard in Wisconsin, which now comprises seven large building halls, has delivered 40 new yachts in the past 30-odd years. The latest design has clearly capitalized on the team’s know-how.

We’re looking forward to the delivery of the first 142 Atrium, too.

Click here to see all the photos of the 142 Atrium.

Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the…

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How McDonald’s Beat Its Early Competition and Became an Icon of Fast Food

By: Christopher Klein

Updated: September 27, 2023 | Original: May 15, 2015

New Hampshire brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the very first McDonald's on April 15, 1955, in San Bernardino, California. Their tiny drive-in bore little resemblance to today’s ubiquitous “golden arches,” but it would eventually come to epitomize the fast-food industry, thanks to a pioneering system for food prep. 

The Food That Built America

Watch every season of the hit show The Food That Built America . Available to stream now.

The first McDonald's started slow but caught on fast

The first McDonald's—located at the corner of 14th and North E Streets, just off Route 66—started out serving up barbecue slow-cooked for hours in a pit stocked with hickory chips imported from Arkansas. With no indoor seating and just a handful of stools at its exterior counters, the establishment employed female carhops to serve most customers who pulled into its parking lot. The brothers’ business quickly caught on. Sales soon topped $200,000 a year.

After World War II , drive-in competition in San Bernardino grew, and the McDonald brothers discovered something surprising about their barbecue restaurant: 80 percent of their sales came from hamburgers. “The more we hammered away at the barbecue business, the more hamburgers we sold,” said Richard McDonald, according to John F. Love’s book McDonald’s: Behind the Arches .

McDonald's grew thanks to its 'Speedee Service System'

The brothers closed their doors for three months and overhauled their business as a self-service restaurant where customers placed their orders at the windows. They fired their 20 carhops and ditched their silverware and plates for paper wrappings and cups so that they no longer needed a dishwasher. According to Love, they simplified their menu to just nine items—hamburgers, cheeseburgers, three soft drink flavors in one 12-ounce size, milk, coffee, potato chips and pie.

“Our whole concept was based on speed, lower prices and volume,” Richard McDonald said. Taking a cue from Henry Ford’s assembly-line production of automobiles, the McDonald brothers developed the “Speedee Service System” and mechanized the kitchen of their roadside burger shack. Each of its 12-person crew specialized in specific tasks, and much of the food was preassembled. This allowed McDonald’s to prepare its food quickly—and even ahead of time—when an order was placed. All hamburgers were served with ketchup, mustard, onions and two pickles, and any customers who wanted food prepared their way would have to wait. 

“You make a point of offering a choice and you’re dead,” Richard McDonald told The Chicago Tribune in 1985. “The speed’s gone.”

According to Love, the first customer at the newly reopened McDonald’s was a 9-year-old girl ordering a bag of hamburgers. The retooled restaurant struggled at first, though, and fired carhops heckled the brothers. Once McDonald’s replaced potato chips with french fries and introduced triple-thick milkshakes, however, the business began to take off with families and businessmen drawn by the cheap, 15-cent hamburgers and a low-cost menu.

McDonald's begins to franchise 

With labor costs slashed and revenue growing to $350,000 a year by the early 1950s, the McDonald brothers saw their profits double. They had already established a handful of franchises in California and Arizona by the time a milkshake mixer salesman named Ray Kroc visited San Bernardino in 1954. Kroc couldn’t understand why the McDonalds could possibly need eight of his Multi-Mixers, capable of making 48 milkshakes at once, for just one location until he set eyes on the operation.

Seeing the potential in the business, the salesman quickly became the buyer. Kroc bought the rights to franchise the brothers’ restaurants across the country, and in 1955 he opened his first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois.

The relationship between Kroc and the McDonald brothers quickly grew very contentious as the aggressive salesman and the conservative Yankees had different philosophies about how to run their business. Kroc chafed at the requirement that he receive a registered letter from the Mcdonald's to make any changes to the retail concept—something the brothers were reluctant to grant. “It was almost as though they were hoping I would fail,” Kroc wrote in his 1977 autobiography, Grinding It Out .

Ray Kroc becomes the owner of the company 

In 1961, Kroc purchased the company from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million. While the name of the chain may have been McDonald’s, the face of the restaurant quickly became Kroc’s. Plaques with his likeness were mounted on the walls of many franchises with a description of how “his vision, persistence and leadership have guided McDonald’s from one location in Des Plaines, Illinois to the world’s community restaurant.”

The brothers who lent their name to the business and pioneered the fast-food concept faded into the background. After selling the business, the founders kept their original San Bernardino restaurant, to the annoyance of Kroc, which they renamed “Big M,” with the golden arches on the marquee sharpened to form a giant letter “M.” To gain his revenge, Kroc opened a McDonald’s around the block that eventually drove the brothers out of business.

The original McDonald’s was torn down in the 1970s and later replaced by a nondescript building that housed the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera. In 1998, it became the headquarters of a regional fast-food chain, Juan Pollo Chicken, which operates a small unofficial museum with McDonald’s artifacts inside.

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• Baileys Harbor

Sunrise from Toft Point State Natural Area

It’s about 6:00 am in early August and from our condo balcony I can see the sky is turning from black to purple and the stars are beginning to fade. I shake my wife and my son and say “come on, it’s time to go if we are going to make the sunrise.” Reluctantly they get up and throw on some jeans and sweatshirts. I grab some granola bars and head to the lobby for a couple cups of coffee to go.

Cana Island from Toft Point State Natural Area

We jump into the car and head to the end of ridges road and then take a left on the gravel road and follow it to the end where there is a loop and pull off and park on the west side of the road. There is a small trail head here were we hike through a short overgrown area that open up into a patio of large rocks, shrubs and flowers. From here Moonlight Bay and the Cana Island Lighthouse start to become visible in the early morning light.

There are some nice flat rock on the shore and we unroll a couple towels set out the granola bars and find a place to set the coffee where it won’t spill. It’s now 6:20 am am and the purple sky is changing to blue and the last stars begin to fade away. In the distance I can see a charter fishing boat motoring out to catch their limit of Salmon and an occasional flock of birds flying Southwest.

Then it happens, the Lake Michigan waves begin to burn red/white as the rising sun glows through the breaking waves before it rises above the horizon. My wife, son and I sit quietly watching as the top of the sun  begins to climb above water line. Waves are breaking on the rock beach every couple seconds and the seagulls can be heard in the distance and in about 90 seconds the sun is up shining radiantly.

Before heading back to the condo we explore a couple rock formations, trying not to get wet. After about 20 minutes we gather our belongings and head back to the path that leads us to our car. We will return here later in the week for a longer hike along the rocks but we will ride our bikes next time. We only take the car when we want to make the sunrise. Biking Ridges Road offers several opportunities to pull off to the side and go for hike and explore the rocky water front around Toft Point and Baileys Harbor.. Check out the some history on the area and 2-3 mile hike that you can do from Baileys Harbor Yacht Club Resort.

Additional Resources:

• Tofts Park Information
• Sunrise / Sunset Times
• Cana Island Lighthouse

Quiet Season in Door County

A few of our favorite Quiet Season days:

The Door County peninsula is home to acres of state parks and nature preserves. The resort is adjacent to both Tofts Point and The Ridges Sanctuary .  Meander the wooded trails, perfect for snowshoeing or cross country skiing, take the kids (even the big ones!) sledding, or ride a snowmobile down one of the specially designated trails. The Ridges sponsor guided snowshoe walks in addition to their winter nature walks. Peninsula State Park  is just one of the state parks in Door County that sponsor winter recreation. They offer separate trails for classic cross country, skate skiing, snowmobiling, and snowshoeing. Bring your camera and capture the memories. Look for special events, like the Candlelight Skis that are traditionally scheduled at the state parks during January and February. Enlist one of the local guides to take you ice fishing .

Door County Trolley is known for their wonderful tours of Door County all year round. In November, you can hop on a  Premier Wine Tour for a “cellar door” tasting tour of four award-winning wineries and a gourmet lunch. That is sure to stave off the winter blahs!  From December through March, embrace the season with a  Winter Wonderland Trolley Tour & Sleigh Ride , which combines the wine tasting with a sleigh ride and a fireside lunch.

If you prefer a horse to the sleigh, we still have an adventure for you. Make an appointment for a weekend ride with Kurtz Corral in Sturgeon Bay. They are open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from November through May. See their stable here… and don’t forget a carrot!

Door County’s restaurants provide many excellent choices for a magical New Years Eve, but what about New Years Day? A local favorite is the Jacksonport Polar Bear Club . Will you brave the frozen waters of Lake Michigan or stand by with a hot drink and a smile?  New Years Day parades are another wonderful tradition and you don’t always have to be on the sidelines!

The Fish Creek Winter Games are a family-friendly festival in Clark Park.  It features food, music, raffles, and games under a large heated tent. The games are always inventive and guaranteed fun, so check out what they have planned for this year. Most of the action occurs on Saturday, but don’t miss Sunday’s Fruit Loop Fun Run!

When you’re ready, our staff at the Front Desk would love to help you with information about dining . It’s our pleasure to help you find the perfect place for breakfast, track down a delicious lunch for your active family, or plan a romantic dinner for two.

The History of Baileys Harbor Yacht Club Resort

Submitted By: Karen Tews

Jacob G. Schmitz, and his wife Sophie (Bischoff), were the first owners of the current property in the early 1900’s. Jac was a deputy sheriff of Milwaukee County and Sophie was a nurse. Together they owned and operated Jac’s Beer Garden and Restaurant in Milwaukee, serving working local people. When Jac was advised to visit the Baileys Harbor area, they immediately fell in love with the beautiful landscape and sunsets and purchased a building near the lake to use as their summer home. There was nothing in the area, but the Underdunks home and the US Life Saving Station, and its crew who lived nearby.

Jac, Sophie and daughter Irene, felt this was truly God’s country and shared their home with many family members and friends. When Sophie died in 1925, Jac and Irene moved here permanently. Jac, with his younger brother George, purchased several homes from the Life Saving Station , and Bill Tishler Sr. was contracted to construct a main building consisting of a bar, dining room, kitchen & office. The dream of a resort became a reality when “Schmitz Gazebos” officially opened in 1935. Jac Schmitz was a kind, thoughtful person who brought the poor of the Milwaukee churches and schools here for a free vacation. Each time he drove this car up, he brought loaves of rye bread, long sticks of summer sausage and watermelon for the people he knew in Door County. His outgoing personality and keen business sense made the resort an instant success. He and Clarence Mann were also responsible for having a road cut through the woods from town, now known as Ridges Road.

Jac died in 1940 at the age of 60. George and Irene kept Schmitz Gazebos running smoothly. The area operating as the Life Saving Station merged with the US Coast Guard…a few sailors even trained at this site prior to being assigned to ships in the Atlantic Ocean during WWII. When the Coast Guard Station closed in 1950, George and Irene purchased the remaining houses and built 12 more cottages so the resort could provide lodging for 45 people. There was a putting green, shuffleboard court, and areas to play badminton, croquet and horseshoes. Schmitz Gazebos was an official AAA resort with George as the genial host who made sure their “Recommended by Duncan Hines” title was maintained! Irene made sure each room was immaculate, and helped pack boxed lunches for those making excursions around the peninsula. Baldy Bridenhagen, former sheriff for Door County, was one of the bartenders along with other locals who helped make Schmitz Gazebos such a success for 37 years.

Old Yacht Club

George Schmitz died in 1965 and Irene sold the property. Albert Wild, an international attorney from Chicago and Baileys Harbor, purchased the 60-acre tract of land and began construction of 14,500 sq. foot main building in 1969. Wild was an ardent Door County enthusiast and it was his intent to keep the project as natural as possible. Whenever feasible, stone and building materials indigenous to Door County were used. Most of the craftsman working on the project were local. Wild also obtained DNR permission to construct piers for yachts wishing to dock at the new Baileys Harbor Yacht Club, and dock they did. “The African Queen”, McDonalds founder Ray Kroc’s “Big Burger” – 65 and 85 footers who would come to the Yacht Club because it was the most beautiful harbor and the finest facility on the Michigan side.

Guests entering the foyer of the Club were drawn to the slate fireplace in the lobby. The cocktail lounge with its sunken bar adjoined a glass-walled patio area overlooking the waters of Baileys Harbor. Formal dinner attire was required.

 One of the most distinctive features of the facility was the wrought-iron circular staircase modeled after the one in the old lifesaving station that stood on the original site. The staircase was 65 feet high with an observation area at the top offering spectacular view of the bay and nearby Ridges Sanctuary. When the facility opened in 1970, it was recognized as one of Lake Michigan’s most elegant resorts and through the years had earned a reputation for its fine dining, docks and lavish lodging. It was the site of numerous county benefit events including the popular Pirate’s Cove fundraisers for United Way of Door County.

BHYC Marina

In the late 70’s, amenities and new housekeeping cottages were added when the new owners, Joe Smolenski, and his brothers, took over the Club’s operation and created better docking facilities for charter and sports fisherman, complete with dock master. New advertising added hustle and bustle, and condos were built, including Ray Kroc’s helicopter pad. They changed the configuration and use of the dining rooms as well, and a Sunday Brunch was added which was so successful that the wait to enter was sometimes as much as an hour and a half.

The torch was soon passed to a new owner, Maureen Kelly in 1982. She infused new life into the Club with her personality and made each person feel they were her special friend. There was dancing and the greatest entertainment parties on the peninsula. She sought to make county residents feel welcome at the resort and opened the facility for benefits such as the auction for the Wisconsin Children’s Program of Northern Ireland, and hosted the popular “Irish Fest” weekend over Labor Day each year. The music group Blarney wrote a song “Sailing into Bailey’s Harbor” especially for their appearances at the event. Maureen remodeled the bar, and the best free entertainment – the “locals”, would get together and try to out sing each other to everyone’s delight. She also significantly expanded the marina with construction of new 24 to 40 foot floating piers, and new lodging was built (named Christina after Maureen’s daughter). Maureen’s dream was shattered however when sewer construction on Ridges Road and the inaccessibility of the Club, along with other problems, moved the ownership into the hands of the Bank.

In 1989, Blue Sky Harbor, Ltd., a Wisconsin partnership, became the new owner. They added The Admiralty Room for formal dining fare and service while the Bosun’s Mate dining room was designed for light dinners and casual dining.

On February 16, 1993, two devastating fires destroyed the Yacht Club – a total loss. Plans to rebuild were never approved.

Yacht Club Fire

The Baileys Harbor Yacht Club Resort, as we know it today, was built in several phases after the main building, lobby, swimming pool and first 22 units were completed.

My great uncle, Jac Schmitz, would be pleased that so many people are still enjoying the beauty and magic of his vision from over a century ago.

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An American visionary who was behind the aggressive, successful franchising of McDonald's restaurants, developed of the McDonald's Corporation franchising program.

“ Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out.” – Ray Kroc  

Raymond Albert “Ray” Kroc  ( Oct 5, 1902  - January 14, 1984) 

Fast food enthusiasts around the world take for granted what was once just a vision in the mind of franchise pioneer, Ray Kroc. Although Kroc was not the founder of McDonald’s restaurants nor the creator of  franchising  as a business growth strategy, he was the visionary behind the aggressive, successful franchising of McDonald's restaurants, and was the developer of the McDonald's Corporation franchising program.  

Ray married his first wife, Ethel Fleming, in 1922 (divorced 1961) when he was barely 20 years old. His only child, Marilyn, was born in 1924. Having a young family to support, he worked at various jobs – often at the same time--- throughout the 1920s and Great Depression era. Possessed with a tireless work ethic, the gift of gab, a keen intellect, and a strong desire to succeed, Ray was a natural salesperson; selling everything from real estate to paper cups.

From 1938-1954, Kroc owned the Prince Castle Sales company which had exclusive rights to sell Multimixer machines that blended multiple milkshakes at the same time. It was through his mixer sales in 1954 that he met brothers Richard “Dick” and Maurice “Mac” McDonald in their small but wildly successful San Bernadino, Calif., McDonald’s restaurant, which they had opened in 1940.

Ray witnessed first-hand their booming hamburger, milkshake, and French fry take-out business. Kroc was impressed with their innovative, efficient food prep and delivery system which, combined with their limited menu items, enabled them to focus on quality, consistency, and quick service. Their system, which they called the  Speedee Service System , delivered hot, fresh food orders and thick cold milkshakes in an astonishingly short 20 seconds from the time a customer placed their order.

The McDonalds were looking for a new franchising agent, and Ray immediately saw an opportunity.

At age 55, Ray partnered with Dick and Mac to continue the franchising of their restaurant, and formed McDonald’s System, Inc., a predecessor of the McDonald’s Corporation. Kroc franchised the first  McDonald's  restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill., on April 15, 1955.   

In 1961, at age 62, when Ray’s vision for rapidly growing the company was no longer compatible with the more laid back McDonald’s brothers, he bought them out for $2.7 million dollars. Kroc risked his life savings and went into significant debt in order to fulfill his vision to aggressively, and strategically grow the number of McDonald’s locations on a national--- and eventually a global--level.

Having amassed great wealth, Ray started the Kroc Foundation in 1965 and was its sole benefactor. The foundation supported research on diabetes (which killed his daughter Marilyn in 1973), arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.With a singular focus on quickly growing the number of McDonald’s restaurants, Ray worked around the clock, 24/7 (which he called “grinding it out”). He continued to take big financial risks in order to achieve his goal of rapid growth for McDonald’s stores throughout the USA and internationally. This, along with other factors, took a toll on his personal life as evidenced by his two failed marriages. Ray married his third wife, Joan Mansfield, in 1969.

Kroc died of heart failure in San Diego, Calif., on January 14, 1984 at age 81. At that time, McDonald's Corporation had 7,500 restaurants across nearly 36 countries, was valued at about $8 billion dollars, and had sold its 50 billionth hamburger. At the time of Kroc’s death, his personal estate was estimated at $500 million. Less than 20 years later in 2002, Ray Kroc’s personal estate was worth more than $2.3 billion dollars. Prior to her death on October 12, 2003, his widow Joan had the vast responsibility of giving away that staggering amount of money to hundreds of charitable organizations and causes.  

Today, McDonald’s Corporation is worth more than $104 billion dollars and is the world’s leading fast food retailer. According to the McDonald's Corporation website (as of January 2018), McDonald's has locations in 101 countries. Over 80% of the more than 36,000 restaurants around the world are franchised (owned and operated by local businesspersons) and serve about 69 million people every day.

Early Years

As America was entering World War I, against his parents’ wishes, Ray dropped out of high school at age 15. Like several young men of that era, he lied about his age in order to enlist in the war effort. He signed up as a Red Cross ambulance driver, training in Connecticut. The Armistice was signed November 11, 1918 just before Ray was to get on a boat for France.

Kroc married his first wife, Ethel Fleming, in 1922 (divorced 1961) when he was barely 20 years old. His only child, Marilyn, was born in 1924. Having a young family to support, combined with his tireless work ethic, Ray worked at various jobs---often at the same time-- throughout the 1920s and Great Depression era, including selling real estate in Florida, and playing piano in orchestras and bands during live radio program broadcasts.

Ray’s gift for gab, candid, no nonsense approach, and self-assuredness suited him well for sales. For most of the 1920s and 1930s, Kroc was a successful salesperson for the Lily Cup (aka Lily Tulip) Company, selling paper cups and containers to restaurants, stores, hotels, and businesses nationwide. Due to the American flu epidemic of 1918, paper cups were initially popular as a way of avoiding infection. With Prohibition, America became a nation of ice cream consumers, with bars and lounges in hotels selling ice cream and milkshakes since they could not legally sell alcohol. This further expanded the demand for paper cups and paper-based containers.

It was during a sales call to the founders of one of his paper cup clients, the Prince Castle Company, that ultimately led to Ray crossing paths with the McDonald brothers in California. Prince Castle made Multimixer machines, a six-spindled, 30 lb. metal contraption that could efficiently blend up to six milkshakes at a time. Ray saw enormous potential in selling these machines to restaurants who also bought paper cups. In 1938, Ray paid $68,000 to have the exclusive right to sell Multimixers and to use the name Prince Castle, a move that increased his total debt to $100,000. He formed a new corporation called Prince Castle Sales to distribute the powerhouse machines.

In one year alone, Kroc and his team sold about 8,000 Multimixers to neighborhood drugstores with soda fountain counter service, and businesses like Dairy Queen, Tastee-Freeze, Willard Marriott of A & W Root Beer, and to a hamburger joint in San Bernadino, Calif., called McDonald’s.

In 1954, Ray noticed his west coast Prince Castle Sales representative, William Jamison, was frequently ordering Mixmasters for a small roadside restaurant in San Bernadino, Calif., called McDonald’s. Curious as to why one hamburger joint needed multiple Mixmasters, Ray flew out to see the business for himself and witnessed first-hand the constant stream of customers. Business was brisk and booming at McDonald’s.  

At this time, the McDonald brothers were receiving franchise inquiries even though expanding their locations was not their focus nor driving interest. They had a franchising agent currently battling health issues, but he had succeeded in building and selling nine McDonald’s stores, with about another 20 deals in the works. 

Ray was in the right place, at the right time. Kroc loved the McDonald’s streamlined Speedee Service System and saw the potential to put a McDonald’s store in every state in the nation, and eventually across the world. 

Franchising

In 1954, at the age of 52, Ray Kroc encountered the opportunity of a lifetime.

With their franchising agent battling ill health, Kroc negotiated a contract with the McDonald brothers to become their agent. The contract stated that Ray would keep any $950 franchise fee he collected. New franchisees would turn over 1.9% of their gross sales. Of that, 1.4% would be for Ray to sustain and expand the business. The remaining ½% would go to Dick and Mac McDonald as a royalty for use of their name and idea.

Kroc franchised the first  McDonald's  restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill., on April 15, 1955, thus launching the McDonald’s franchise system. In 1955, Ray founded a new corporation called McDonald’s Systems, Inc. (predecessor of the McDonald’s Corporation) in Chicago, Ill.

In 1956, one of the first employees Kroc hired for his newly formed McDonald's Corp. was Fred L. Turner. Although he started as a grill operator, Fred wrote the company’s first training manual in 1958, went on to be the founder of McDonald’s  Hamburger University  training program in 1961, co-founder of Ronald McDonald Charities, and progressed to become McDonald’s president, CEO, and chairman.

In 1961, at age 62 and recently divorced from his first wife, Ethel, Ray’s vision for rapidly growing the company was no longer compatible with the McDonald brothers. He bought them out for $2.7 million dollars. Kroc risked his life savings and once again went into significant debt in order to fulfill his vision to aggressively, and strategically grow the number of McDonald’s locations on a national level.

With a singular focus on quickly growing the number of McDonald’s restaurants, Ray worked around the clock, 24/7 (which he called “grinding it out”), and continued to take big business risks, often remortgaging his home and other personal assets as collateral. Ray achieved his vision for rapid growth.

While the name on the stores said “McDonald’s”, the face of the restaurant brand quickly became Ray Kroc’s, with many stores displaying wall plaques with Kroc’s likeness. 

By 1959, McDonald’s had opened its 100 th  store; by 1960 there were more than 200. In 1963, with more than 110 new McDonald’s stores being built across the country, Ray married his second wife, Jane Green; they divorced in 1968. Kroc credits colleague Harry J. Sonneborn as the genius behind the business strategy that was key in driving big profits for McDonald’s Corporation: having the corporation own the land and the building of each store, and leasing them to the franchisee; thus making money from rental income, as well as the franchise royalties. To that end, in 1956, Kroc set up the Franchise Realty Corporation to buy up land tracts and serve as landlord to McDonald’s franchisees.

In 1965, McDonald's Corporation went public. Common shares were offered at $22.50 per share. By the end of the first day's trading, the price had risen to $30. In 1967, the first McDonald’s restaurants outside of the continental USA opened in Puerto Rico and Canada.

In 1968, McDonald's opened its 1,000th restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill., the same city where Ray Kroc had opened his first store when he first became the franchising agent for McDonald’s.

Ray married his third wife, Joan Mansfield, in 1969.

By 1970, there was a McDonald’s in every USA state, and, in 1971, the first McDonald’s in Japan opened. 

In 1980, McDonald's Corporation became one of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.1976 was a benchmark year for McDonald’s Corporation: they surpassed $1 billion in total revenue for the first time, less than 22 years into the company’s history. For perspective, consider that IBM did not achieve $1 billion sales mark until its 46 th  year.

Developing the McDonald's Franchising Program

Kroc made a number of innovative changes in the food-service franchise model. Key among them was the strategy of selling only single-store franchises instead of selling larger, territorial franchises that were common in the industry at the time. Above all else, and in keeping with contractual obligations with the McDonald brothers, Kroc wanted uniformity in service and quality among all of the McDonald’s locations. Without the ability to influence franchisees, Kroc knew that it would be difficult to achieve uniformity. By granting a franchisee the right to only one store location at a time, Ray retained for the franchise a measure of control over the franchisee -- at least for those franchisees desiring to own rights to an additional store.  

The McDonald’s operating system also required franchisees to follow Ray’s core business principles known as  QSC and V : Quality, Service, Consistency and Value. Those basics built McDonald’s restaurant success. Every employee from line cooks to managers were required to embrace and adhere to the QSC and V practice. Kroc maintained the assembly line " Speedee Service System " for food preparation that the McDonald brothers had developed in 1948. Ray’s strict guidelines regarding preparation, portion sizes, cooking methods and packaging ensured that McDonald’s food would look and taste the same across franchises, regardless of location. These innovations contributed to the success of the McDonald’s brand on a global scale. 

Founder of the Kroc Foundation (1965-1985)

Ray Kroc founded the Kroc Foundation in 1965 and was the sole benefactor. The Foundation was dedicated to supporting medical research on chronic diseases, including diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis. His only child, Marilyn Janet Barg (Kroc) was born in 1924 and died in 1973, suffering from diabetes.

In 1969, his brother Robert Louis Kroc, became president of the Kroc Foundation. The Foundation sponsored conferences, which resulted in a number of publications, and bestowed nearly 1,600 research grants to various institutions, both here in the USA, and in foreign countries.

Although the Foundation dissolved in April 1985, one year after Ray’s death, the impact of the research work it had funded at institutions around the world continues to this day.

Owner of the San Diego Padres Baseball Team (1974-1984)

Kroc’s purchase of the Padres on Jan. 25, 1974, directly saved the declining team from collapse and relocation away from San Diego.

In 1973, the team’s situation was dire. The founding owner had run out of money to support the team, the Padres win/loss record was an embarrassing 60-102, and box office attendance was dismal. The Padres were scheduled to move to Washington, D.C., at the end of the 1973 season.

Kroc, a lifelong avid baseball fan, bought the team for $12 million, thus saving them from relocating and endearing himself to local fans. Sadly, Kroc died two months before the Padres won their first World Series Championship in 1984. The team wore a memorial RAK patch on their uniform in the 1985 season in tribute to Kroc. Ray’s widow Joan Kroc owned the team through 1990 before selling it. 

Websites/Blogs/Online Articles

Wikipedia.com -  Ray Kroc

Biography.com - Ray Kroc

PBS.org series - Who Made America: Ray Kroc

Time.com:  How a Late-Blooming Entrepreneur Made McDonald’s the World’s Largest Burger Chain    

Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics

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BURGER 142' ATRIUM

Burger Boat Company is pleased to introduce the stunning Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht, a new collaboration with world-renowned Yacht Designer Evan K. Marshall.

The Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht is the culmination of Burger’s history of dedication, innovation, and unwavering commitment to craft, blending timeless elegance with modern features. Evan Marshall and his team bring their expertise to this collaboration, ensuring that every detail of the vessel exudes opulence and sophistication, all while providing her owner and guests an exceptional feeling of being close to the sea.

The inspiration behind the design of the Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht was to establish an extraordinary centerpiece within the yacht's interior. With the Atrium, Marshall has successfully crafted a multi-story grand entrance that has never been seen on a yacht of this size. This distinctive feature will captivate the owner and their guests as they navigate from the lower Guest Stateroom area to the Sky Lounge, creating a one-of-a-kind focal point at the center of the Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht.

The Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht boasts spacious and well-appointed accommodations for up to twelve, including a full-beam master suite and five en-suite guest staterooms, all providing abundant natural light and extraordinary views.

Specifications

*Preliminary

• Length Overall - 142'-00"
• Length at Waterline - 127'-04"
• Beam (max) - 29'-04"
• Draft - 7'-06" (Approximately)
• Construction - Aluminum
• Fuel Capacity - Approximately 10,000 US Gallons
• Fresh Water Capacity - Approximately 1,350 US Gallons
• Interior Designer - Evan K. Marshall
• Exterior Stylist - Evan K. Marshall
• Gross Tonnage - Approximately 475 GT ITC
• Classification - ABS/MCA

Dimensions, weight, performance, and capacities are approximate. Please consult Burger Boat Company for complete details.

We are excited to collaborate with Evan K. Marshall on this project. The Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht sets new standards in the industry, and we look forward to delivering an exceptional experience to our clients. Jim Ruffolo, Burger’s President & CEO

The yachting industry is set to be captivated by the recent collaboration between Burger Boat Company and the legendary yacht designer Evan K Marshall, who is recognized worldwide for exceptional creations. Together, they are proud to unveil the magnificent Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht, a vessel that combines impeccable design and cutting-edge technology in a stunning 142-foot masterpiece.

As beach clubs have gained popularity and demand, Burger and Evan K Marshall have ingeniously reimagined this trend. Taking further steps toward blending the yacht with its surroundings, the team’s approach created an Infinity Deck that combines an open platform that seamlessly connects to the sea for relaxation and water sports. It also directly links to an interior space dedicated to spa and exercise activities. Cutting-edge technology ensures a smooth and efficient cruising experience. From the navigation systems to the onboard entertainment, every aspect has been carefully designed for convenience, enjoyment, and reliability.

Clients have the opportunity to personalize their Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht, working closely with the Burger team and Evan K. Marshall to create a yacht that matches their unique preferences and lifestyles.

Evan K. Marshall, speaking about the collaboration, said, "Working with Burger Boat Company on the Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht has been an extraordinary experience. This yacht embodies the best of design and craftsmanship, and I'm thrilled to see our vision come to life."

The Burger 142 Atrium Motor Yacht is poised to become a coveted asset for yacht enthusiasts seeking an exceptional combination of luxury, craftsmanship, reliability, and performance. It is a testament to the enduring commitment to excellence by Burger Boat Company and the legacy of Evan K. Marshall.

How a Late-Blooming Entrepreneur Made McDonald’s the World’s Largest Burger Chain

I t’s perhaps the most American of American-dream tales: The son of Czech immigrants, without so much as a high school diploma, recognizes the vast commercial potential of the humble hamburger and becomes one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.

There are a few plot twists, of course, including the fact that it took Ray Kroc more than half a century to dream his American dream. He was 52 when, on this day, April 15, 60 years ago, he opened his first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Ill. The red-and-white tiled restaurant, with the golden arches that would become the chain’s trademark, sold $366.12 worth of burgers, fries, and shakes on its inaugural day, per the McDonald’s company website . (Today, the chain serves 69 million customers each day at 36,000 locations in more than 100 countries — and reported $27 billion in revenues for 2014.) By the time of Kroc’s death in 1984, his family fortune was worth at least $500 million, per the New York Times .

Before taking the step that would ultimately lead him to the helm of the world’s largest fast-food chain, Kroc paid his dues as a salesman — for 34 years. Half of that time was spent selling paper cups to fast food retailers like Howard Johnson’s and Dairy Queen, and the other half selling “Multi Mixers,” which could mix five milkshakes simultaneously. It was in this capacity that he met Dick and Mac McDonald, two brothers who ran a small chain of hamburger joints in California. They had bought eight of the mixers, and as Kroc once told the Times , “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 [milkshakes] at one time.”

He was so impressed with their operation that, despite what he described as “the opposition of family, friends, and business associates,” he opened the first franchise of what he called “the McDonald’s System.” In 1961, when Kroc’s ambitious vision no longer jelled with the McDonald brothers’ goals, he bought the company from them. He was so sure of his strategy that, at the age of 62, he gambled his life savings and then some — and won.

His years of selling paper cups and milkshake machines played a key role in his success, according to the French chef Jacques Pepin, who called Kroc “the ultimate salesman” in a 1998 profile for a TIME special issue about the 20th century’s greatest “builders and titans.”

“Kroc gave people what they wanted or, maybe, what he wanted,” Pepin wrote. “As he said, ‘The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.’ ”

McDonald’s has withstood countless controversies over the years, the latest of which is its part as a target of nationwide protest slated for today to pressure the fast-food industry to raise employee wages, but it remains the world’s largest hamburger chain . Likewise, its founder remains a larger-than-life figure in the business world. Kroc, who may be the subject of an upcoming biopic (in which Michael Keaton is reportedly in talks to play the lead), put it this way in the Times : “I guess to be an entrepreneur you have to have a large ego, enormous pride, and an ability to inspire others to follow your lead.”

Read the 1998 profile here, in the TIME Vault : Burger Meister Ray Kroc

Early Photos of McDonald's

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Ray Kroc was an American entrepreneur best known for expanding McDonald’s from a local chain to the world’s most profitable restaurant franchise operation.

(1902-1984)

Who Was Ray Kroc?

Ray Kroc spent most of the first decades of his professional career selling paper cups and milkshake machines. After discovering a popular California hamburger restaurant owned by Dick and Mac McDonald, he went into business with the brothers and launched the McDonald's franchise in 1955. Kroc purchased the company outright in 1961, and his strict operational guidelines helped transform McDonald's into the world’s largest restaurant franchise before his death in 1984, at the age of 81.

Early Life and Career

Raymond Albert Kroc was born to parents of Czech origin in Oak Park, Illinois, on October 5, 1902. As a child, he took piano lessons and displayed his developing business instincts through such ventures as opening a lemonade stand and working at a soda fountain.

After the war, Kroc explored a number of career options, working as a pianist, musical director and real estate salesman. Eventually, he found stability as a salesman for the Lily-Tulip Cup Company, rising to the rank of Midwestern sales manager.

Kroc's business dealings connected him with ice cream shop owner Earl Prince, who invented a machine capable of generating five milkshake batches at the same time. By the 1940s, Kroc had left Lily-Tulip to focus on selling these "multi-mixers" to soda fountains around the country.

McDonald’s Empire

In 1954, Kroc visited a restaurant owned by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California, that reportedly had the need for several of his multi-mixers. He was impressed by the simple efficiency of the operation, which rapidly catered to its customers by focusing on a simple menu of burgers, french fries and shakes.

Grasping the potential for a chain of restaurants, Kroc offered to work as a franchising agent for a cut of the profits. In 1955, he founded McDonald's System, Inc. (later McDonald’s Corporation), and opened its first new restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.

By 1959, McDonald's had opened restaurant No. 100, but Kroc still wasn't reaping significant profits. Following the advice of Harry J. Sonneborn, who became McDonald’s Corp.'s first president, Kroc set up a system in which the company purchased and leased land to new franchises. Sonneborn also helped secure a $2.7 million loan that enabled Kroc to purchase the company outright from the McDonald brothers in 1961.

Under Kroc’s ownership, McDonald’s retained some of its original character while incorporating new elements. Kroc kept the assembly-line approach to hamburger preparation that the McDonald brothers pioneered in the 1940s while taking care to streamline operations across every restaurant. Franchise owners, chosen for their ambition and drive, went through a training course at “Hamburger University” in Elk Grove, Illinois. There, they earned certificates in “hamburgerology with a minor in french fries.” Kroc focused his efforts on growing suburban areas, capturing new markets with familiar food and low prices.

While some criticized the nutritional content of McDonald’s food, its treatment of teenage workers and Kroc's reputation for ruthless business dealings, the model he engineered proved extremely profitable. Kroc’s strict guidelines regarding preparation, portion sizes, cooking methods and packaging ensured that McDonald’s food would look and taste the same across franchises. These innovations contributed to the success of the McDonald’s brand on a global scale.

In 1977, Kroc reassigned himself to the role of senior chairman, a position he held for the rest of his life. When he died of heart failure at Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego, California, on January 14, 1984, McDonald's had 7,500 restaurants across nearly 3 dozen countries and was worth $8 billion.

Family Life and Other Endeavors

Kroc was married to his first wife, Ethel Fleming, from 1922 to 1961. He then was married to Jane Dobbins Green from 1963 to 1968, and finally to Joan Mansfield Smith from 1969 until his death.

Along with overseeing McDonald's, Kroc became the owner of a Major League Baseball team when he purchased the San Diego Padres in 1974. Three years later, he published his autobiography, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's .

In 2016, more than three decades after his death, Kroc's story made it to the big screen in the movie The Founder, starring Michael Keaton as the massively successful businessman.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1902
• Birth date: October 5, 1902
• Birth State: Illinois
• Birth City: Chicago
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Ray Kroc was an American entrepreneur best known for expanding McDonald’s from a local chain to the world’s most profitable restaurant franchise operation.
• Astrological Sign: Libra
• Death Year: 1984
• Death date: January 14, 1984
• Death State: California
• Death City: San Diego
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Ray Kroc Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/ray-kroc
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 16, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
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News | Ray Kroc saved the Padres

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The 52 is U-T San Diego’s selection of our city’s 52 most influential sports figures

Time magazine posthumously honored that Kroc as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.

To baseball fans in San Diego, however, Kroc is more importantly beloved as the man who saved the Padres.

Kroc’s purchase of the Padres on Jan. 25, 1974, directly saved the moribund franchise from collapse and relocation.

The Padres situation was dire in 1973. Facing problems elsewhere in his financial empire, founding owner C. Arnholdt Smith had run out of money. And the Padres were a disaster on the field (60-102) and at the box office (averaging just over 7,550 fans a game).

The Padres were scheduled to move to Washington, D.C., after the 1973 season. In fact, the National League earlier rejected a plan to move the Padres to the nation’s capital in the middle of the season.

Sports 52 – AugustJust before Kroc became interested in the Padres, City Attorney John Witt successfully executed a delaying action by winning a court ruling that any new owner would be responsible to pay the rent and income due the city at San Diego Stadium through the 1989 end of the club’s lease.

That ruling drove off the Washington, D.C., interests.

But late in 1973, the National League was planning to operate the Padres in 1974 while looking for new owners and a different location when Kroc read of the Padres’ plight while vacationing on his private yacht off the coast of Florida.

After reading several newspaper reports, Kroc — a life-long baseball fan who several years earlier been rebuffed in an effort to buy his hometown Chicago Cubs — turned to his wife Joan and said: “I think I want to buy the San Diego Padres.” Her response: “Why would you want to buy a monastery?”

Kroc soon flew to San Diego and negotiated the purchase in a single lunch meeting with Smith.

Kroc: “How much?”

Smith: “$12 million.”

Kroc: “Deal.”

Smith later said that he believed if he had asked for double, Kroc still would have said: “Deal”

Kroc wasted little time in endearing himself to Padres fans.

On Opening Night of the 1974 season, Kroc scheduled time to address Padres fans during the eighth inning over San Diego Stadium’s public address system. Just before he took the microphone, the Padres Matty Alou was doubled off first on a foul pop-out because he forgot how many were out. The Padres were trailing 9-2 at the time.

Seconds after starting to speak, an incensed Kroc abruptly veered from the script and said: “Fans, I suffer with you. I’ve never seen such stupid ballplaying in my life.”

As the crowd erupted into cheers, a streaker took off running across the outfield grass. “Get that streaker out of here,” Kroc screamed into the open microphone. “Throw him in jail.”

The Padres had a passionate owner who cared. Although the Padres again went 60-102, attendance climbed 75.8 percent in 1974 as the Padres drew more than a million for the first time in their existence.

A decade later, the Padres won their first National League pennant. Sadly, Ray Kroc was not there to enjoy the moment. The man who saved the Padres died just over two months before the Padres opened the 1984 season. The Padres won RAK patches throughout the 1984 season.

Ray Kroc file

Born: Oct. 5, 1902; Oak Park, Ill.

Died: Jan. 14, 1984; San Diego

San Diego impact Owned the Padres from Jan. 25, 1974, through his death. His widow Joan Kroc continued as owner of the Padres through 1990. As owner, Ray Kroc stopped talk about the Padres leaving San Diego. In the season following his death, the Padres won their first National League championship.

Achievements: Although McDonald’s was founded by a pair of brothers in San Bernardino, it was Kroc who developed the franchise program that turned the hamburger chain into the world’s leading food operation. Kroc was 52 when he started working with the McDonalds in 1954. In addition to owning the Padres, Kroc created a foundation that became a leader in medical research.

Did you know? Kroc lied about his age and joined the Red Cross at the age of 15 and drove an ambulance during World War I.

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The ranch that Big Macs built

At McDonald’s owner Ray Kroc’s ranch, there were parties, food experiments, and—strangely—health conferences

When McDonald’s debuted on the over-the-counter stock market on April 21, 1965, history was made, and so were fortunes. This first fast-food IPO gilded the pedestrian business of hamburgers and fries with a patina of legitimacy. Shares soared from the debut price of $22.50 to $30 in the first day of trading.

Chief among the beneficiaries was majority stockholder Ray Kroc, 63, who instantly found his stake in the company—shares he’d once joked were worth less than a subway token—valued at a cool $33 million.

The McDonald’s corporation had teetered on the brink of bankruptcy for years as Kroc and his minions built it out, propagating facsimiles of the original San Bernardino, California, hamburger stand across the rapidly developing suburbs of America. The former salesman of multi-spindled milkshake machines and paper cups had long subsisted without a salary, and what little he did possess had been depleted when he’d divorced his first wife in 1961. (That same year he’d bought out the brothers who’d masterminded the assembly line food preparation system that was the envy of the quick-serve industry. Dick and Mac McDonald had asked for $2.7 million to walk away—one million for each brother and $700,000 to pay for taxes.)

A recent migrant to California from the Chicago area, the newly minted multimillionaire Kroc found himself vacationing not long after the IPO at the exclusive, 10,000-acre Alisal Ranch in Solvang on the Central Coast of California. At his side was his glamorous, blonde second wife, Jane, who’d once served as secretary to that most famous cowboy, John Wayne. Many celebrities frequented this converted cattle ranch, among them the dashing actor Clark Gable (who’d married his fourth wife, socialite Lady Sylvia Ashley, on the property) and movie star Doris Day.

This glorious enclave north of Santa Barbara, later immortalized in the 2004 movie Sideways , had not yet morphed into wine country, but was, in the 1960s and 1970s, home to dairies and horse farms and cattle ranches. Locals meandered the flaxen rolling hills on horseback. Long ago, prospectors had scoured the land for gold here.

When Kroc spotted an ad for a 206-acre, undeveloped slice of this paradise on the winding, 14-mile Happy Canyon Road, he didn’t balk at the $600,000 asking price. (Twenty years later, Michael Jackson would pay a reported $28 million for a nearby ranch of 2,700 acres that became infamous as Neverland.) Sight unseen, Kroc commanded his attorneys back in Chicago to complete the transaction for this secluded property.

Kroc envisioned that this oasis, north of the old stagecoach route on Highway 154 and three miles from the entrance to Los Padres National Forest, would serve several purposes: As a vacation spot for hardworking McDonald’s executives, as a research and development facility, and as headquarters for his newly formed foundation, which his advisors counseled him would offset some of the tax bill on the windfall. It would also be a suitable place for parties he’d host with the missus.

He decreed this new purchase should be called "The J & R Double Arch Ranch" and commissioned a local architect, Glenn Marchbanks Jr., to not only build out the land, but even to design a cattle brand. It featured the now-famous golden arches from the McDonald’s logo flanked by the letters J and R. The herd never materialized.

Marchbanks created several structures on this beautiful expanse: Helicopter pads; a pool; volleyball, skeet shooting, and tennis courts; and experimental kitchens. The fastidious Kroc insisted everything be deluxe. Stables were carpeted, and an air conditioned barn, featuring plush touches like piped-in music, was said to be one of the most elaborate in the country.

The centerpiece of Marchbanks’s design was a 17,000-square-foot lodge. It featured 15 bedrooms, a dining room that could seat up to 100 guests, and a 3,000-square-foot living room. Interior designer Jamie Ballard stuffed it full with French provincial antiques, Italian cabinets, and a custom 28-foot sofa covered in French-made faux fur. The parties commenced.

In the fall of 1968, a spread in Architectural Digest allowed those who would never receive an invitation to step onto the elegantly appointed property with a 14-page spread headlined "An experience in modern ranch-style living":

The house has more comforts and conveniences than most city dwellings and at the same time offers the invigorating atmosphere of the outdoors and sporting life. No effort was spared in making it a mecca for relaxation and entertainment.

To that end, food was available day and night from an elegant self-serve kitchen. But the showpiece of the creature comforts at the J & R Double Arch Ranch was a 10-foot-long, automated, self-serve bar, replete with icemaker and 12 spigots that allowed guests 24/7 access to the liquor of their desire. In the sitting room of the master suite, Ray and Jane Kroc were able to serve themselves privately from another, more modest bar.

Around the time the magazine piece appeared on the stands, though, the namesake "J" at the ranch was displaced, conveniently, by a woman with the same initial. Kroc gave Jane her walking papers and ran off with longtime paramour Joan Mansfield Smith, 26 years his junior and the wife of a McDonald’s franchisee in Rapid City, South Dakota. As soon as they obtained quickie divorces in Las Vegas, the couple married at the ranch in March of 1969, taking their vows as they stood on a gigantic, bright white polar bear rug in front of the stately stone fireplace that had been constructed from 120 tons of native stone gathered from the grounds.

Over the next few years, a private, round residence, far afield from the property’s other structures, was constructed for the new missus. The hilltop on which it sat boasted 360-degree panoramic views and a central fire pit. Locals wagged that it resembled a hamburger, but if that was true, this was a burger made from ground sirloin. Flourishes included a bathroom paneled in onyx in which hung a Cezanne.

The newlyweds didn’t live at the ranch full-time, but maintained a two-story penthouse condominium on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, as well as a condo at the Port of Americas in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Kroc’s brother Bob, a research scientist with a Ph.D. in zoology who’d worked for pharmaceutical company Warner Lambert, moved to the ranch with his wife Alice in order to run the Kroc Foundation. The hamburger king gave his sibling carte blanche in crafting its mission and Dr. Kroc chose to focus on medical science, sponsoring conferences and funding peer-reviewed research projects that tackled the problems of diabetes and arthritis, which afflicted Ray, and, later, multiple sclerosis, from which their sister suffered.

Exterior panel doors at the entrance to the lodge, by artist George Mullin, reflected the nature of the foundation’s work, with hand-carved abstractions of cells, chromosomes, and the tree of life.

Scientists arrived to dissect such weighty matters, indecipherable to laypeople, as "Comparative Pathophysiology of Circulatory Disturbances" in 1971 and "Prophylaxis and Therapy of Gallstones" in 1973. And there was the "1974 Conference on Purine Metabolism and Gout."

As Bob explained in the foundation’s first annual report, "The atmosphere and remoteness of the Ranch are conducive to maximal communications among the participants who lodge together, eat together and relax together." Most conferences were capped at 20 attendees, and sessions lasted just five hours a day, he wrote: "This gives opportunity for casual talks which provide as much information exchange as the scheduled sessions."

High-tech touches made these gatherings all the more fruitful: Chalkboards that slid out from a wall on tracks, screens that dropped into place, microphones that popped up from the floor, and others that dangled from the light fixtures.

As Bob Kroc was convening great minds in science at the ranch, the company whose proceeds were indirectly funding the foundation was coming under increasing fire for the nutritional quality of its food. (Esteemed food critic Mimi Sheraton declared in New York magazine in 1974 that if she were marooned on a desert island with nothing to eat but McDonald’s, the first thing she’d do would be to drown herself.) Dr. Kroc, though, drew a line between the foundation and the corporation. On behalf of Ray, Bob deflected a steady stream of written requests from various groups and individuals asking for sponsorship from McDonald’s with terse letters informing them that this philanthropic effort was a personal charity and unaffiliated with the company.

Little is known today about the research work conducted by McDonald’s in the J & R Double Arch Ranch test kitchens, given the secretive nature of the corporation. Still, Dr. Kroc kept meticulous records on the grants made and conferences funded by the foundation—as well as inventory records of the booze used in the self-serve bar.

Starting in 1976, that bar provided an ironic backdrop for a group created by the third Mrs. Kroc. The couple had recently relocated to La Jolla, California, in order to be closer to the San Diego Padres, which they had bought a few years before. Now the ranch was just a short hop away from home. Joan wrote to her brother-in-law that she was reserving the lodge in order to gather 20 "alcohologists" from around the country. "The theme," she said, "will be alcohol abuse, the problems of recognition and how to change some of the prevailing attitudes about alcoholism." It wasn’t until years later that she revealed her interest in the subject had to do with her husband’s problems with alcohol, though the name she gave the group she created gave a clue: Operation Cork—Kroc spelled backwards. At the ranch, she held meetings with top doctors from Dartmouth’s medical school and even brought kids in for training in addiction awareness. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics, which still exists today, grew out of a gathering of experts on the grounds.

A Major League Baseball conference on the impact of addiction on the sport was convened there in November 1980. Joan had commissioned a number of dramatic films to address the subject of addiction and her latest, Dugout , had its premiere at this meeting. It starred fallen baseball great Bo Belinsky, offhandedly encountering some Little League players digging into beer after a loss.

In the years after Ray died in 1984, Joan built herself her own mansion north of La Jolla in Rancho Santa Fe and found herself no longer using the ranch in Santa Ynez. She attempted to donate the property to Ronald McDonald House Charities for use as a camp. Heiress Huguette Clark, immortalized in the book Empty Mansions , had in 1963 gifted her nearby ranch, Rancho Alegre, to the Boy Scouts; not wanting another stream of kids coming around the bend, neighbors blocked Kroc’s gift.

In 1989, Joan Kroc listed the property for sale for $14 million, intending to donate the proceeds to the charity. She quipped to a Los Angeles Times reporter, "I hope it’s sold to some crazy rock ‘n roll stars who keep the neighbors up all night."

Then she set about donating the ranch’s collection of 38 pieces of Western art to a nascent museum back in her former haunt of Rapid City, South Dakota. (Ultimately, the nearby Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation received the gift instead.)

Finally, a buyer for the ranch emerged whose life’s work couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed to Ray Kroc’s. Health mogul Gerald Kessler of Nature’s Plus vitamins purchased the J & R Double Arch Ranch in 1990 and renamed it the Circle K Ranch. It served as home to his Human Potential Foundation, which, according to tax returns, aimed to "research herbs and wildlife bio-diversity with an aim toward preserving and fostering a healthy eco-system." Quite the opposite of selling Big Macs! Kessler reportedly had the McDonald’s research kitchens turned into a gym. He died in 2015, and his widow and his children from a previous marriage continue to dispute ownership of the property. But if you drive down Happy Canyon Road today, a remnant of the Kroc days is still visible on a signpost: A small, metal set of golden arches.

Editor: Adrian Glick Kudler

Writer Lisa Napoli's book Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald's Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away was released this week. It was inspired by a sculpture in Santa Monica of a nuclear mushroom cloud by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial illustrator Paul Conrad, which turned out to have been anonymously funded by the late Joan Kroc. Napoli's first book, Radio Shangri-La , is about how she helped start a radio station at the dawn of democratic rule in the Kingdom of Bhutan.

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How Ray Kroc’s values inspired success

By James daSilva 05/26/16

This post is part of the series “Workplace Morale,” a weeklong effort co-hosted by SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership and the folks at  Switch & Shift .  Keep track of the series here  and check out our daily e-mail newsletter, SmartBrief on Leadership. Don’t subscribe?  Sign up .

McDonald’s was not a can’t-miss proposition.

The company started as a drive-in burger joint with a loosely affiliated network of franchisees before Ray Kroc obtained national franchising rights in the 1950s. The company faced entrenched and upstart competitors,  families who were not used to regularly eating meals outside the home, and was going against the grain in how it granted franchise rights and managed them.

Kroc’s McDonald’s succeeded because of shrewd decision-making and hard work, but also because of luck, favorable timing and the short-sightedness of incumbents and would-be competitors. All of that success stemmed from the culture Kroc put into place: a decentralized, risk-taking, personality-driven hub of constant innovation and improvement on top of a foundation of clear, inviolable values.

That foundation was critical in steadying McDonald’s in times of turmoil. After becoming a public company in the mid-1960s, potentially crippling challenges for McDonald’s included a rift between Kroc and then-CEO Harry Sonneborn, rapid expansion amid risky leveraging during a time of economic worry, the rapid rise (and then fall) of a now-defunct brand called Burger Chef, and unrest among communities and franchisees.

All this time, however, the company continued to grow rapidly, and by 1980, it hadn’t yet fully explored sectors it has since come to dominate — drive-through service, breakfast food, the McNugget, McDonald’s PlayPlaces and international growth.

How did the company overcome these challenges, and how did it explore new ideas while not losing focus on quality, service, growth or its core tenets? Without high morale, none of this would have been possible. This morale was influenced by Kroc’s personality, which isn’t replicable, but the policies and philosophies his company practiced offer lessons we can apply to our companies.

Quality, service, cleanliness and value

Quick, dedicated customer service. Simple menus with high-quality food that’s the same whether you’re in New England, California or anywhere in between. Clean stores, efficient operations. Dedicated suppliers and franchisees who show loyalty and receive it in return. These were some of the values Ray Kroc insisted upon at McDonald’s.

The culture started at the top. Kroc, as related in John Love’s seminal insider’s look at the company , liked to hire people who didn’t think just like him — he once said, “If a corporation has two executives who think alike, one of them is unnecessary.” What was non-negotiable was hard work and a dedication to the values of McDonald’s. He was a stickler for protocol and neatness and order but would hire smart people even when their personalities clashed. “If his managers were committed to building his McDonald’s, they were on his side — no matter how much their personalities differed from his,” Love wrote.

There were few silos in the McDonald’s of Kroc’s time, and innovation was not top-down. Early on, future CEO and Chairman Fred Turner introduced suppliers to the strict standards of quality and consistency for McDonald’s, even though he was no professional food technologist. Two life insurance salesmen stopped by McDonald’s headquarters one day; they were hired and later became treasurer and CFO, respectively. The chief accountant in the 1970s pioneered the licensing and financing of Ronald McDonald PlayLands — an idea that came from a regional manager who had come to that job after being a franchisee. Ronald McDonald was a D.C.-area hit before going national, and the Big Mac came from the tinkering of a Pittsburgh-area franchisee.

What do all those examples have in common? People knew and acted on their own when they saw problems they could fix. That’s not luck — that’s culture.

Giving a fair shake

Most fast-food franchises in the 1950s and ’60s were generally sold by territory with exclusivity, with the corporation interested in easy cash and not in local operation. In other words, if I contracted for a franchise with Generic Burger Company, I might pay $50,000 and I’d have exclusive right to operate Generic Burger Company outlets in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. The corporation could further earn money through various fees and by making me buy supplies from its warehouses, often at an inflated price. However, the corporation would have little control over how many units I opened or I operated my restaurants — the menu, cleanliness, appearance and design, etc. Loyalty was short-lived for both sides.

Kroc inverted this model — cheap fee to gain a franchise and relatively cheap ongoing fees, but it was generally only one store, and it was subject to the standards of the McDonald’s System. Suppliers would be arranged by McDonald’s, but the company negotiated to gain discounts on behalf of the franchisees, not to get discounts and then gouge franchises. Poorly operated franchises would not get a second unit and had no guarantee of a contract renewal.

Each side needed the other to succeed. Each side needed to give and have autonomy backed by trust. In the late 1970s, when many franchises became restless and unhappy, the company didn’t bury or ignore the problem — it revamped the structure and power of its regional managers, creating a franchisee advisory board, appointing an ombudsman to arbitrate disputes between operators and/or the company. This was on top of the long-standing practice of  franchisees controlling most marketing and advertising efforts through independent councils. By giving additional voices, forums and power to franchises, McDonald’s improved morale and saved itself legal battles.

Training and guidelines

As mentioned, McDonald’s gave tremendous leeway to its people to act as they saw fit, to experiment, to be daring. The standards of quality, service and cleanliness were non-negotiable, but those boundaries left considerable space in which to be creative.

Those standards were also easy to learn, remember and implement because of Hamburger University, a thorough training problem McDonald’s created for its store managers in 1961. Hamburgers were a serious business for McDonald’s, and instilling pride in providing a great product and service was essential.

Rewarding initiative

Suppliers who discovered a better way to do things were rewarded, not scolded or ignored. Franchisees who suggested a product received ample opportunity to make it work. And even if a product failed to catch on, there was no penalty. Try again.

Bigger companies had trouble being this nimble. In 1973, Heinz famously shorted McDonald’s during a tomato shortage, which led to it losing the then-90% share of McDonald’s ketchup business; four decades later, Heinz is still paying for this decision .

On the other hand — three entrepreneurs spent years working to convince McDonald’s to adopt frozen hamburgers. They eventually put a quarter-million each into a company called Equity Meat Co. and went to work developing a reliable, high-quality frozen hamburger. The experimentation and development process took the better part of a year, with no guarantee that McDonald’s would buy. Even after Equity Meat cracked the code and won over most of McDonald’s operators, there was another hurdle — McDonald’s wanted the company, as with all its suppliers, to share this breakthrough with the other four major meat suppliers. Equity Meat took this risk, shared the secret, and McDonald’s didn’t betray that trust. In 1990, Equity Meat, renamed Keystone Foods and no longer a fledgling startup, had more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in sales, with McDonald’s as its sole customer.

What McDonald’s in the Ray Kroc era did, simply, is keep its word to demand constant improvement while rewarding risk-taking and success. Honesty, clear expectations and follow-through: Those are three steps most of us can take today to improve workplace morale.

James daSilva is a senior editor at SmartBrief and manages SmartBlog on Leadership. He edits SmartBrief’s newsletters on leadership and entrepreneurship, among others. Before joining SmartBrief, he was copy desk chief at a daily newspaper in New York. You can find him on Twitter discussing leadership and management issues @SBLeaders.

What did ray kroc take his risks at?

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What are ray kroc's traits?

Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, was known for his persistence, determination, and willingness to take risks. He was also innovative, visionary, and had a strong work ethic.

What did Ray Kroc risk?

he risks being a loser on the social ladder and losing all of his money and buisness

What business background did Ray Kroc have?

What business background did ray kroc have

What franchise was Ray Kroc known for?

Ray Kroc was known for McDonald's.

Was Ray Kroc married?

I think that ray Kroc was married because he hads 4 kids

What was Ray Kroc's parent's names?

Jullie Kroc and Oliver Kroc

What was ray kroc's parents' names?

When was ray kroc born.

Ray Kroc was born on October 5, 1902.

What is Ray Kroc's birthday?

What company did ray a kroc take over and expand into what it is today, who was the subject of the biography grinding it out, what is ray kroc's full name.

Raymond Kroc

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