Pretty inspiring story.
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/obituar...742194,00.html
King of deals Kemmons Wilson dies
By Bill Dries
[email protected]
February 13, 2003
Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn and one of the most innovative minds in American business, died Wednesday evening at his Memphis home. He was 90.
The story of how Wilson's 1951 family vacation from Memphis to Washington became the genesis for the nation's first motel chain became an American business legend, and his motels changed American culture and the family vacation forever.
Said Helmut Vogel of Scottsdale, Ariz., the manager of the first Holiday Inn: Wilson was "a dynamo and the honesty and sincerity he had I have not found in many other people."
Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton said Wednesday that Wilson was "one of the most respected business leaders in the world."
"He expanded the hospitality industry with innovation," Herenton said. "Kemmons had a zeal for work and his energy level was boundless. Even in his 80s, he was still making business deals. We mourn his passing."
Although the cause of death had not been determined, relatives said Wilson had surgery in December. Wilson's family was with him when he died at 5:45 p.m. Funeral services will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at Christ United Methodist Church, where he was a member for 46 years. . Forest Hill Funeral home has charge.
"He lived a full life and died very fulfilled," said son Spence L. Wilson. "He is just where he wished to be, with our mother, his beloved Dorothy."
Wilson was the antithesis of the overly cautious corporate CEO who relies on voluminous marketing studies and focus groups.
He rarely traveled with a spokesman or public relations person to arrange interviews. A telephone call to his office was often answered by Wilson. He rarely had messages delivered; he would come himself.
"Only work half a day," was how he began his answer when he was asked what was the secret of his success. "It doesn't matter which half you work - the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours."
The folksy advice masked an innovative mind and unique personality. Holiday Inns was the best known of numerous business ideas of Wilson's.
Wilson's life was a constant exercise in faith and hard work. He was born Charles Kemmons Wilson in Osceola, Ark. His father died when Wilson was 9 months old. The family moved to Memphis where Ruby 'Doll' Wilson, his mother, got a job as a dental assistant.
During the Great Depression, she lost her job and Wilson quit high school to go to work.
With a $50 loan from a friend, he bought a popcorn machine and set it up in a movie theater lobby. By 1933, he had made $1,700 from the popcorn business and bought a house for himself and his mother.
He then mortgaged the house to buy the local Wurlitzer jukebox franchise.
In a 1989 interview, Wilson said the mortgage loan convinced him: "The building business has got to be big business."
The real estate he then proceeded to buy, along with the chain of popcorn machines and the jukebox franchise, made him a millionaire before the family vacation that gave him the idea for a chain of motels where children could stay free.
Wilson's wife, who died two years ago, recalled the family trip in a 1989 interview.
"With five children, it was costing us $10 extra everywhere we stayed. He would look at me and say, 'You know, most people can't afford to travel with a family. I'm going home and start a chain,' " Dorothy Wilson said.
He built the first four Holiday Inns in Shelby County before moving to turn his company into a national and then international corporation.
His business empire grew out of a handshake deal in 1954 with the late Wallace E. Johnson - a homebuilder with a national reputation and lots of success in the post World War II housing boom.
Johnson's contacts and ability to raise money fueled the motel chain's meteoric growth. At its peak, a new Holiday Inn was opening somewhere in the world every 2-1/2 days.
Wilson's mother decorated the first 50 Holiday Inns.
He didn't stop with a motel chain that had a standardized set of features families could count on finding. Wilson designed the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Holiday Inn sign with his experience in movie theaters as a guide.
"I knew the value of a marquee. I said I want a sign at least 50 feet tall and have a marquee on it," Wilson said in 1989.
The U.S. Patent Bureau turned down Wilson's first attempts to register the sign and the Holiday Inn name because something that intangible had never been registered before. Wilson persisted and got the patent protection.
The name Holiday Inn was taken from a Bing Crosby film. A draftsman scrawled the name across the top of a set of plans for the motel. It was a mix of serendipity and shrewd ness that Wilson never took for granted.
"The fun was in the doing," he said after recalling the origins of his motel chain. "Money is the most unimportant thing in the world if you have enough to live."
Wilson's sometimes unorthodox approach to business found a comfortable home in Memphis, a city whose other homegrown business legends include Clarence Saunders, the founder of what became the modern supermarket - Piggly Wiggly.
Wilson slept five hours a night when Holiday Inn was at its peak. He confessed that occasionally he might doze off during meetings and dinners. He would also order dessert first when he ate out to save time while the main course was being cooked.
Wilson also carried a tape measure with him to measure motel rooms, just as he did when he was formulating the idea of a family-friendly motel chain with the unheard-of idea of free air-conditioning and television.
Wilson was the model of corporate citizenship that would be repeated in later years by other Memphis business innovators like FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith.
His philanthropy included donations, usually with little fanfare, to Christian Brothers University, Rhodes College, Junior Achievement Inc., Memphis Union Mission and numerous other institutions.
Known worldwide for his business acumen, Wilson was surprisingly accessible in the city he called home. He freely offered his business advice to competitors and even to people who approached him on the street.
Pace Cooper, president of a company that owns 22 hotels in nine states, said Wednesday, "There was no greater friend in the hotel industry than Mr. Wilson."
County Commissioner Michael Hooks said Memphis benefited from Wilson's residence as well.
"Kemmons certainly made a great contribution to this town," Hooks said. "The Wilson name and hotels put Memphis on the map."
To make the point, Wilson built the Holiday City headquarters on 60 acres on Lamar near Memphis International Airport. At a time when there were no international flights originating from the airport, Holiday City's semi-circle driveway was lined with flagpoles flying the banners of numerous countries whose Holiday Inns were managed from Memphis.
After suffering a heart attack in 1979, Wilson retired from the chain he started. During his retirement vacation, he bought 357 acres of land near Orlando, Fla., and built a time-share resort that reinvented that industry.
By 1984, he was back with another chain of motels he named Wilson World. Like Holiday Inn, the chain catered to a specific group of customers: business people.
Wilson built the $15 million Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management at the University of Memphis. When it opened in April with an 82-suite Holiday Inn, Wilson announced, "This is my final deal."
- Bill Dries: 529-2643
Staff reporters Ron Higgins and Yolanda Jones contributed to this story.