Kemmons Wilson

"Still Inn Business"
Agenda
www.agendamemphis.com
www.towery.com
The Magazine of Memphis Success
November 1999
By Sunni Thompson

Sitting in the lobby of Kemmons Wilson Companies headquarters, it is easy to forget for a moment where you are. The people walking in and out of the doors are somewhat casually dressed, and all are relaxed and friendly. The receptionist chats lightly over the chiming of a grandfather clock in a corner of the office. Then Dottie Bonds, Wilson's personal secretary, enters the room and reassures you that he has not forgotten the appointment. "I just called our airport, and they told me that his plane is running late," Dottie says, while handing you a copy of the Time magazine that features Wilson on the cover. "He checked to make sure that you were still there."

Time magazine. Our airport. His plane.

Reality suddenly hits you in the face-the man you are about to speak with is not only a millionaire several times over, but is the founder of an American icon: the Holiday Inn. He has been interviewed by Merv Griffin and featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. His life story, in fact, is one we have all heard before. It resonates of Americana and sings of the power of free enterprise. Whether it was written by Horatio Alger or brought to life by Andrew Carnegie, it is a story whose themes we know by heart-a story that is told to children at bedtime, and is the subject of countless fairy tales.

THE MAN YOU ARE ABOUT TO SPEAK WITH IS NOT ONLY A MILLIONAIRE SEVERAL TIMES OVER, BUT IS THE founder OF AN AMERICAN ICON

So when you are ushered into Wilson's office by the attentive Dottie, you expect fanfare and ticker tape. Instead, a man rises from behind a cluttered desk, reaches for your hand, and apologizes for being late. He then settles back into his chair and begins the story that he has told so many times before, with a smile that tells you he's loved every minute of it.

Once upon a time (as these stories always begin: it is the only appropriate way), there was a small boy named Kemmons Wilson who was born in Osceola, Arkansas, on January 5, 1913. His father died when he was nine months old, leaving his mother, 18-year-old Doll Wilson, single and penniless. So Doll packed up her infant son, and moved to Memphis with the intention of joining the workforce. It was not long before young Kemmons also discovered the rewards of capitalism. From selling war bonds during World War I to peddling the Saturday Evening Post door-to-door, Wilson, it seemed, was born to make money.

However, several possibly dream-crushing setbacks were to befall him. At the age of 14, Wilson was struck by a car while crossing Union Avenue. At first, doctors told him he would never walk again. But the irrepressible spirit of the teenager came through, and Wilson conquered seemingly insurmountable odds.

In making his recovery-and it would not be the only time he would make the naysayers eat their words. Then, several years later, in the midst of the Great Depression, Doll Wilson lost her job. Faced with abject poverty, Kemmons dropped out of high school to become the sole breadwinner for the small family. He vowed never to be poor again.

"I GUESS ONE OF THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF MY LIFE WAS WHEN I GOT THAT 400th hotel BUILT."

Wilson's first attempt at self-employment came at age 17. Following his already savvy entrepreneurial instincts, he noticed a need for snacks at the local movie theater and decided the answer was popcorn. He bought a $50 popcorn machine for nothing down and $1 a week-a business strategy he would put to good use in later investments. Before long, however, the theater manager confiscated the machine. "I lost my popcorn machine because it got to where I was making more money than the theater manager," Wilson reminisces. "I went home that night and told my mother that I was going to build my own theater, and no one was going to take it away. She told me to just go out and do it. So I built 11 theaters."

Wilson has never taken a challenge lightly. Being stripped of his lucrative popcorn business only fueled his intense desire for success. Wilson's innate ability to find a need and fill it allowed him to prevail at almost every venture, from popcorn to real estate. He quickly moved from popcorn machines to pinball machines to jukeboxes, and in between, he found time to marry his sweetheart Dorothy Lee. Wilson soon discovered, however, that his skills were best suited for the home building industry, where he earned his first million. Through home building, he would also gain the experience he needed to handle what was coming next.

It was the summer of 1951 that changed the future of the American road. Wilson, taking his growing family on a trip to Washington, D.C., became extremely frustrated with the available accommodations. Choices were limited and quality was poor. Wilson says, "There were no [hotel] chains and no interstate highways, so everywhere we went, they charged about $8 a room and $2 a piece extra for each child. I told my wife that wasn't right. It didn't cost any more to have those children in the room with the parents. I told her I was going to build a chain that would have no charge for children."

Wilson was determined to follow through with his promise. "We were gone about two weeks, and when we got back, I had measured all the rooms and bathrooms where we stayed, and I knew what I wanted in a hotel. Dorothy asked me how many we were going to build, and I said, 'I don't know-400,' pulling it out of the air. She laughed and said it was impossible, and I said, 'I'll show you.' I did show her. I guess one of the happiest days of my life was when I got that 400th hotel built and she had to apologize to me."

After building the first Holiday Inn on Summer Avenue in 152, Wilson realized that he would need a tremendous amount of capital to reach his promise of 400 hotels. He borrowed all the money he could on his own, and successfully built three more Holiday Inns in Memphis-but that was still 396 short of his original goal. So Wilson, along with his partner, Wallace Johnson, pioneered a new business venture concept-the franchise. Realizing they could never finance the idea by themselves, Wilson and Johnson knew they had to pull from a much larger pool. Wilson had chosen his partner well: Johnson was a director of the National Association of Homebuilders. The pair utilized Johnson's connections in an effort to sell home builders licenses to build Holiday Inns. They initially sold franchises for $500, with a flat fee of 5 cents per night, per occupied room. After depleting Johnson's resources, the pair approached anyone with capital. By distributing the licenses throughout the country, the promise of 400 hotels was met and exceeded in record time, and the fledgling chain spread far and wide. At its pinnacle in the 1970's, a new Holiday Inn was built every three days, and a new room every 20 minutes.

Asked the secret of his success, Wilson credits his mother, Doll Wilson: "My mother told me every day that I could do anything I wanted to do."

"I FEEL LIKE THE University of Memphis IS MY SCHOOL," SAYS WILSON. "I JUST FELT LIKE I COULD HELP."

Wilson has long since sold his amazing idea. (In 1979, Wilson retired from Holiday Inns, Inc., and in 1989, Bass PLC purchased the company, eventually moving the headquarters to Atlanta.) But to this day, he still owns several Holiday Inn franchises. "I built some for myself like anybody else. I sold myself on the idea, and it was so successful for everyone else, that I decided I wanted to build too, and of course, they were happy to sell me a couple of franchises."

Today, Wilson is chairman of the Kemmons Wilson Companies, devoting much of his time to his new brainchild, Krazy Knuts (candy-coated roasted corn). His three sons work for the company, as well-Spence, the oldest, as president and CEO, and Bob and Kem as vice presidents. Wilson's two daughters, Betty and Carole, also live in Memphis, dividing their time between raising children and running the Wilson Foundation. Wilson and his wife still live in the same house they lived in before Holiday Inn. And Wilson, forced to drop out of high school at 17, has received five honorary degrees from schools ranging from Rhodes College to the University of Alabama. He also received a diploma in return for an inspirational message to the graduating class of Central High School. Not one to accept undue credit, Wilson pointedly states, "I finally got a high school diploma, but I got it for free. I didn't work for it."

Earlier this year, the man with little formal education made a $15 million contribution to the University of Memphis. The donation, reportedly the largest in the school's history, will fund the creation of the Wilson School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. "I didn't get to go to college," laments Wilson, "and I didn't get to finish high school until my friend gave me a diploma. I feel like the University of Memphis is my school. I just felt like I could help."

Wilson built the first Holiday Inn on Summer Avenue in 1952.

Wilson first became intrigued with the idea of establishing a hotel management school after becoming a board member of the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. He studied Hilton's school, learned about the purpose and mission, and thought, "I want to do that for Memphis."

Wilson's donation will build a four-story, all-suite hotel on the university's campus near the intersection of Deloach Street and Central Avenue. It will be a student-run-a hands-on education where budding innkeepers and restaurateurs will learn the finer points of customer satisfaction. Wilson knows firsthand the difficulties of running a hotel: "I would say that the worst thing about running a hotel is getting trained help, and we're going to be training them. That's the point of the school. The students will run the hotel, and that's where they'll learn."

Much of the school's curriculum will be drawn from preexisting courses at the university's school of business. O'Neal Smitherman, executive assistant to the president for projects and planning at the University of Memphis, says, "One of the things we found as we began to review hotel-hospitality-type programs is that there were a number of different models. Some stood on their own, and others were run in conjunction with the business school program. We thought the latter were especially effective programs."

Smitherman also concurs with Wilson's belief in the acute need for highly trained staff. He says, "Something else we found was that the people in the hotel industry wanted employees who had solid business training, especially a background in accounting and bookkeeping, as well as in management. And those are courses that are already being taught through the business management school. So what we wanted to do was utilize as many of the business resources in place as we could, but then add specialized hospitality management training."

The new school has already been approved by the Tennessee Board of Regents and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, and construction is scheduled to be finished in time for the 2000-2001 school year. While recruiting has not begun, Smitherman and the administration of the university anticipate a freshman class of 18 in the school's first year, gradually increasing to 100 by the fifth year. The hotel and restaurant school will draw business and management professors from the business school, with additional instructors from the hotel industry.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for the Memphis area," Smitherman declares. "There are some good hotel/hospitality management schools out there, but this is the place where Holiday Inn began, and it is appropriate that Memphis should be the location for a school like this. It also is one of those hubs in terms of hotel/hospitality management, with Tunica down the street, and with the Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi region."

" MY NOT GOING TO COLLEGE WAS A MATTER OF NECESSITY AND NOT OF PREFERENCE, AND I HAVE SEEN TO IT THAT MY CHILDREN GOT THE BEST educational OPPORTUNITIES.

In his commencement address to the 1968 graduating class of the University of Alabama, Wilson foreshadowed his intentions of teaching others: "My not going to college was a matter of necessity and not of preference, and I have seen to it that my children got the best educational opportunities. Not going to college made me conscious of the value of college and of education. You have learned a great deal that I will never know, but I've learned some things in the arena of business activity that maybe you haven't learned, and I would like to pass some along to any who cares to listen."

Maybe the mission statement of this new school (or the moral of this story) could be the closing remarks Wilson made at that commencement address: "In this country you don't have to settle for being average…you can dare to be better."

And in the end (as these stories always end; it is the only appropriate way), everyone lives happily ever after.