Reflections of an Entrepreneur

SYNOPSIS At age 11, Randy developed an unquenchable thirst to become an entrepreneur. He had never heard of an entrepreneur; couldn't spell the word or pronounce it, had no idea what one was, didn't know what one did and had no thoughts about how to become one. Nevertheless, he managed to get a job as the shoeshine boy at the local barbershop on Saturday afternoons But his ultimate lifetime goal was to have a newspaper route for one of the three Indianapolis, Indiana newspapers. To get that job he needed to be 13 years old. He located the drawer where his mother kept the family's important papers and did a yeoman's job altering the date of birth on his birth certificate. He presented himself at the office of the Indianapolis News with the proof of his age and landed a job delivering papers to 87 of the publication's subscribers. Not only did he develop the skill to toss a rolled up paper onto the customer's porch with laser like accuracy while pedaling top speed down the street, but he learned early in his quest for success, that his profit was in the pockets of his customers who were evading payment for the papers he had so conscientiously delivered during the preceding week. By age 22 he had climbed the ladder of success with jobs picking beans on a local farm, working in a grocery store, the meat department of a supermarket, and a factory. With each job he learned a little something about how to conduct business and himself and of equal importance, the rewards of hard work. Having opted to earn money and gain work experience over college, he was married and had his first child by then. Armed with his work experiences, he packed up the family and moved to California. After a series of fits and starts, he parlayed his work ethic, ingenuity willingness to take risks and just plain dumb luck, into a chain of very successful restaurant operations. He reflects upon his journey from shoeshine boy to successful entrepreneur.