Ray Kroc - Biography, Achievements and Quotes

Raymond Albert "Ray" Kroc was an American businessman. He joined McDonald's in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. Kroc was included in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, and amassed a fortune during his lifetime. He owned the San Diego Padres baseball team from 1974 until his death in 1984. Similar to another fast-food giant, KFC founder Harland Sanders, Kroc's success came late in life when he was past his 50th birthday.

Kroc was born to parents of Czech origin in Oak Park, near Chicago, on October 5, 1902. His father originated from the village Břasy near Plzeň, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He grew up and spent most of his life in Oak Park, Illinois. During the First World War he lied about his age and became a Red Cross ambulance driver at 15. During the war, Kroc served in the same regiment as Walt Disney. Between the end of the war and the early 1950s he tried his hand at a number of trades including paper cup salesman, pianist, jazz musician, band member and radio DJ at Oak Park radio station WGES. At one time, Ray worked for room and board at one of Ray Dambaugh's restaurants in the midwest to learn the restaurant business.

Achievement and Superb Facts about Ray Kroc

• Kroc’s father took him to phrenologist at the age of 4. Phrenologist a person who determines fate based on the shape of someone’s skull . The Phrenologist told young Ray Kroc that he would someday work in food service.
• In 1917, Ray Kroc was a reckless 15-year-old who lied about his age to join the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. 
• He was sent to Connecticut for training, but on the last day of his training the war ended. As a teen he had to find work so at first he worked as a piano player for a radio station at night and then, in 1922, he worked as a salesman for the Lily Tulip Cup Co. selling paper cups by day.
• Ray Kroc came across Earl Prince during the course of selling paper cups. Earl Prince had invented a five-spindle multimixer and was buying Lily cups by the truckload.
• Captivated by the new invention and the output of the machine, Kroc obtained exclusive marketing rights from Earl Prince. For the next 17 years he traversed the length and the breadth of country selling the mixer.
• On his travels across the country he learned, he realized that one of his largest customers was at San Bernardino, California. A restaurant owned by two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald, who had ordered eight mixers. 
• Kroc first set his eyes on the restaurant in 1954 and was enthralled by the effectiveness of the operation. It was a hamburger restaurant. The brothers had produced a very limited menu all at the lowest possible prices.
• That was when Kroc dreamt for opening up the Chains of McDonalds restaurant all over the U.S. He was struck with an idea of starting a franchise in collaboration with the McDonald brothers. The following day he pitched the idea of opening several restaurants to the brothers. 
• The owners were not interested in expanding further. Ray Kroc convinced the brothers to make him their exclusive agent. In 1954 he opened his own McDonald’s drive-in in Des Plaines, Illinois. He officially established the McDonald’s Corporation.
• It was an uphill struggle for the 52 year old Ray Kroc. He was suffering from diabetes and arthritis. His gall bladder and thyroid gland had already been surgically removed. But his mind, body and soul had just one desire to succeed. Ray Kroc managed to convince the brothers to sell the company to him in 1961 which he purchased for $2.7 million.
• In 1956 Ray Kroc set up the Franchise Realty Corporation, which bought land and leased it out to franchisees. After 1961, Ray Kroc began signing up franchisees at an intense pace. The revenues generated from those franchisees made it easier for Kroc to raise capital in the financial markets.
• By 1963 more than 1 billion hamburgers had been sold, they displayed this milestone on a neon sign in front of each restaurant. In the same year, the 500th Mc Donald’s restaurant opened and the famous clown, Ronald Mc Donald, made his debut.
• The original mascot of McDonald’s was a man with a chef’s hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was “Speedee.” Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald by 1967.
• Ray Kroc created an advertising campaign that focused on the company’s mascot – Ronald McDonald. He soon became popular amongst children throughout the country.
• Ray was born in 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois. Ironically, decades later, he would return to this neighborhood to establish the famous McDonald’s Hamburger University, the worldwide management training center, in nearby Oak Brook.
• At the age of 15, this brash young man lied about his age to join the Red Cross as an ambulance driver, working with another future entrepreneur, Walt Disney. Upon completion of his training in Connecticut, he never left for Europe because the war ended. He then moved on to become a piano player before realizing there was little chance for a career tickling the ivories. In 1922, he became a salesman for the Lily Tulip Cup Co. by day as he continued to play piano at night for a local radio station.
• The first shop opened in 1955 in Chicago as the organization became the McDonald's Corporation. Six years later Ray bought out the founding brothers. By 1965 there were more than 700 sites in existence across the United States.
• It wasn't long before McDonald's also caught on in several other countries. By 2003, the corporation held over 31,000 sites in 119 countries. Forty seven million people were being served every day and sales were at a hefty $17 billion.
• Although Kroc did not create the concept of the chain restaurant, he saw a niche and developed the plan to transform burgers, fries and shakes into a huge empire. Kroc was a stickler for consistency and cleanliness in all of his establishments. In addition, he did everything he could to keep costs down so that even low income people could afford a meal out at McDonald's.
• In the late-1960's McDonald's created its famed special sauce for its Big Mac. By 2004, cost cutting measures had changed the sauce to a pale imitation of itself. 
• The then new CEO and his associates weren't happy when they found out, but when they went looking for the original recipe, they discovered that no one had it. The company had lost its famous recipe. It took contacting the original California supplier who had helped develop the sauce to get the recipe back. Luckily they had kept a copy.
• Ray Kroc has an obsession for cleanliness in his restaurants and he is known for being extremely particular about every corner of his restaurants. He expects that every employee do his best at every moment during his work.
• Ray Kroc was the man most responsible for spreading McDonald's restaurants all over the world. In 1954 he convinced the McDonald brothers to let him franchise McDonald's restaurants. In 1961, Kroc bought the corporation.
• As young men, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney knew each other and both severed in the same World War I ambulance corps. Disney would find fame only a few short years after his time in the war, while Kroc would toil on until the 1950's before he found great success.
• It's uncertain if they were friends, but when Kroc was first trying to start his McDonald's franchising empire, he wrote to Disney about "a lot of pleasant memories" he had and then pleaded his case for opening up a McDonald's in Disneyland. Disney was intrigued by the idea, but things fell apart shortly afterward. 
• It’s uncertain what Disney's side of the story was, but Kroc claimed Disney wanted to gouge the customers and he simply could not stand for that. As he grew older he would maintain a grudge against the company.
• Kroc was an intensely competitive businessman, who once said of his competitors "If they were drowning to death, I would put a hose in their mouth." In the late-1960s, as Disney was declining and McDonald’s was growing. Kroc decided to try and give Disney a run for its money. 
• He put forth plans to build an amusement park called "Western World" and presented them to McDonald's board of directors. They didn't like the idea, but Kroc soldiered on and even got so far as find a location for the park, just northeast of Los Angeles. However, McDonald's other executes fought the idea. Eventually their calls were heard, and plans for the park were ditched.
• You'd think McDonald's would want to preserve its first restaurant, for historical reasons at least. That unfortunately wasn't so. In 1961, Ray Kroc, who had spent the past 6 years opening up McDonald's restaurants around the county, bought the company from the McDonald's brothers.
• Six months after the deal, "The Big M" went out of business. To pay them back the high terms of the deal, Kroc opened up a McDonald's right across the street from "The Big M".
• Kroc also had the insight to standardize cooking and serving procedures so that all processes were efficient and easily learned even by new employees. As teen employees came and went, this was important to the operation, so that customers would continue to receive the food they expected in a timely manner.
• Kroc established a welcoming franchisee arrangement so that he could increase his presence. He used the method of charging a 1.9 percent commission on franchisee's sales rather than charging a large startup fee.
• As McDonald's became the biggest restaurant company in the world, savvy salesman Kroc continued to live by his motto of providing customers what they wanted. Kroc was chairman of McDonald's Corporation, from 1968 until he passed away in 1984.
• In the course of selling paper cups, he encountered Earl Prince, who had invented a five-spindle multimixer milkshake machine and was buying Lily cups by the truckload. Fascinated by the speed and efficiency of the machine, Kroc obtained exclusive marketing rights from Prince. Determined to succeed, he crisscrossed the country peddling the mixer for the next 17 years.
• By 1963, more than 1 billion hamburgers had been sold, a statistic that was displayed on a neon sign in front of each restaurant. That same year, the 500th McDonald’s restaurant opened and the famous clown, Ronald McDonald, made his debut. He soon became known to children throughout the country, and kids were critical in determining where the family ate. According to John Mariani in his remarkable book America Eats Out, “Within six years of airing his first national TV ad in 1965, the Ronald McDonald clown character was familiar to 96% of American children, far more than knew the name of the President of the United States.”
• In 1974, Ray Kroc became a hero for reasons completely unrelated to business. He purchased the San Diego Padres baseball team and prevented them from moving to Washington, D.C.
• Today McDonald’s is serving 47 million people a day through the efforts of 1.5 million employees in 31,000 locations in 119 countries on 6 continents! Can you imagine that kind of growth from one single location similar to the one pictured here?
• Ray Kroc passed away from a heart ailment in January 1984, at the age of 82, just ten months before McDonald’s sold hamburger number 50 billion. Later that same year, The San Diego Padres went to the World Series.
• Kroc was included in the TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential builders and titans of industry. For more information, read Grinding It Out:The Making of McDonald’s.
•  In 1974, Ray Kroc he purchased the San Diego Padres baseball team and prevented them from moving to Washington, D.C.But he didnt do much well in this field.
• In 1977, Ray Kroc became the Senior Chairman of McDonalds Corporation.
• His wealth, however, did not go to his head and he stayed actively involved in McDonalds until his death on January 14, 1984. At the time of his death there were some 7,500 Mc Donald’s restaurants worldwide; with more than 25,000 restaurants in the early 21st century, Mc Donald’s was the world’s largest food-service retailer.
• McDonald’s had sold 65 billion hamburgers by 1987, the year before it opened its ten thousandth store.

Superb Quotes by Ray Kroc

• We're not in the hamburger business. We're in show business.
• McDonald's is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl's face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.
• I didn’t invent the hamburger. I just took it more seriously than anyone else...We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.
• All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.
• Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.
• Dear Walt, I feel somewhat presumptuous addressing you in this way. Yet I am sure you would not want me to address you any other way... I have very recently taken over the national franchise of the McDonald's system. I would like to inquire if there may be an opportunity for a McDonald's in your Disneyland Development.
• The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.
• The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
• It’s easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.
• Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.
• If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.
• If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.
• I don't believe in saturation. We're thinking and talking worldwide.
• I considered myself a connoisseur of kitchens. I prided myself on being able to tell which operations would appeal to the public and which would fail.
• McDonald's is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl's face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.
• I believe in God, family, and McDonald's. And in the office, that order is reversed.
• I didn’t invent the hamburger. I just took it more seriously than anyone else...We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.
• Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary for me.
• If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest.
• If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean.
• It's a matter of having principles.  It's easy to have principles when you're rich.  The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.
• Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself.
• Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.
• We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it.