biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1902–84)
|
| biography:
| Restaurateur, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. A high school drop-out, he was an under-age ambulance driver for the Red Cross during World War 1, a jazz pianist, a real-estate broker during the Florida land boom (1920s), and a salesman for the Lily Tulip Cup Co. In 1941 he formed a company to sell Mult-A-Mixers, which could make five milkshakes at once. In 1954 he visited the San Bernadino, CA restaurant of Mac and Dick McDonald, who had bought eight Mult-A-Mixers. Impressed by their volume of business and their assembly-style hamburger operation, he proposed a franchise. He sold his Mult-A-Mixer company and by 1960 had 228 McDonald's restaurants with profits of $37 million. He controlled all facets of franchising, even establishing Hamburger University in Elk Grove, IL and requiring that all franchise owners attend to learn how to prepare the food. He was chairman of the board of McDonald's Corp (1968–77) and senior chairman (1977–84). In 1974 he bought the San Diego Padres and established the Kroc Foundation for charitable giving. |
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