Rex David "Dave" Thomas was an American businessperson and philanthropist.
Thomas was the founder and chief executive officer of Wendy's, a
fast-food restaurant chain specializing in hamburgers. He is also known for
appearing in more than 800 commercial advertisements for the chain from 1989
to 2002, more than any other company founder in television history.
Early life Dave Thomas was born on July 2, 1932 in
Atlantic City, New Jersey to a young unmarried woman he never knew. He was
adopted at 6 weeks by Rex and Auleva Thomas, and as an adult became a
well-known advocate for adoption, founding the Dave Thomas Foundation for
Adoption. After his adoptive mother's death when he was 5, his father moved
around the country seeking work. Thomas spent some of his early childhood near
Kalamazoo, Michigan with his grandmother, Minnie Sinclair, who he
credited with teaching him the importance of service and treating
others well and with respect, lessons that helped him in his future business
life. At 12, Thomas got his first job at Regas
Restaurant, a fine dining restaurant in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, then lost
it in a dispute with his boss; decades later, Regas Restaurant installed a
large autographed poster-photo of Thomas just inside their entrance until the
business closed down December 31, 2010. He vowed never to lose another job.
Moving with his father, by 15 he was working in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the
Hobby House Restaurant owned by the Clauss family. When his father prepared
to move again, Dave decided to stay in Fort Wayne, dropping out of high school
to work full-time at the restaurant. Thomas, who considered ending his
schooling the greatest mistake of his life, did not graduate from high school
until 1993, when he obtained a GED. He subsequently became an education
advocate and founded the Dave Thomas Education Center in Coconut Creek,
Florida, which offers GED classes to young adults.
U.S. Army At the outbreak of the Korean War in
1950, rather than waiting for the draft, he volunteered for the U.S. Army to have
some choice in assignments. Having food production and service experience,
Thomas requested the Cook's and Baker's School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was
sent overseas to Germany as a mess sergeant and was responsible for the
daily meals of 2000 soldiers, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. After his
discharge in 1953, Thomas returned to Fort Wayne and the Hobby House.
Fast food career = Kentucky Fried Chicken=
In the mid-1950s, Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland Sanders came to
Fort Wayne to find restaurateurs with established businesses in order to try
to sell KFC franchises to them. At first, Thomas, who was the head cook
at a restaurant, and the Clausses declined Sanders' offer, but the Colonel
persisted and the Clauss family franchised their restaurant with KFC and
later also owned many other KFC franchises in the Midwest. During this
time, Thomas worked with Sanders on many projects to make KFC more profitable and
to give it brand recognition. Among other things Thomas suggested to Sanders
that were implemented: KFC's signature chicken bucket, reduce the number of
items on the menu, focus on a signature dish. Thomas also suggested Sanders make
commercials that he appear in himself. Thomas was sent by the Clauss family in
the mid-1960s to help turn around four failing KFC stores they owned in
Columbus, Ohio. By 1968 Thomas had increased sales in
the four fried chicken restaurants so much that he sold his share in them back
to Sanders for more than $1.5 million. This experience would prove invaluable
to Thomas when he began Wendy's about a year later.
= Wendy's= Thomas opened his first Wendy's in
Columbus, Ohio, November 15, 1969. Thomas named the restaurant after his
eight-year-old daughter Melinda Lou, whose nickname was "Wendy", stemming
from the child's inability to say her own name at a young age. According to
Bio TV, Dave claims himself that people nicknamed his daughter "Wenda. Not
Wendy, but Wenda. 'I'm going to call it Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers'."
In 1982, Thomas resigned from his day-to-day operations at Wendy's.
However, by 1985, several company business decisions, including an awkward
new breakfast menu and loss in brand awareness due to fizzled marketing
efforts, caused the company's new president to urge Thomas back into a
more active role with Wendy's. Thomas began to visit franchises and espouse
his hardworking, so-called "mop-bucket attitude." In 1989, he took on a
significant role as the TV spokesperson in a series of commercials for the
brand. Thomas was not a natural actor, and initially, his performances were
criticized as stiff and ineffective by advertising critics.
By 1990, after efforts by Wendy's agency, Backer Spielvolgel Bates, to get
humor into the campaign, a decision was made to portray Thomas in a more
self-deprecating and folksy manner, which proved much more popular with test
audiences. Consumer brand awareness of Wendy's eventually regained levels it
had not achieved since octogenarian Clara Peller's wildly popular "Where's
the beef?" campaign of 1984. With his natural self-effacing style and
his relaxed manner, Thomas quickly became a household name. A company
survey during the 1990s, a decade during which Thomas starred in every Wendy's
commercial that aired, found that 90% of Americans knew who Thomas was. After
more than 800 commercials, it was clear that Thomas played a major role in
Wendy's status as the country's third most popular burger restaurant.
In 1994, Thomas made a cameo appearance as himself in Bionic Ever After?, a
reunion TV movie based upon The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.
Personal life Dave Thomas had four children besides
Melinda: three daughters, Pam, Lori and Molly, and a son, Kenny. Though Kenny
died in 2013, Dave's daughters still continue to own and run multiple Wendy's
locations. Honors and memberships
Thomas, realizing that his success as a high school dropout might convince other
teenagers to quit school, became a student at Coconut Creek High School. He
earned a GED in 1993. Thomas was inducted into the Junior Achievement
U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1999. Thomas was an honorary Kentucky colonel,
as was former boss Colonel Sanders. Thomas was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Death
Thomas had been battling Carcinoid Cancer since the 1990s, the disease had
metastasized to his liver. He died on January 8, 2002 at his home in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida at the age of 69. Thomas was buried in Union Cemetery in
Columbus, Ohio. At the time of his death, there were more than 6,000
Wendy's restaurants operating in North America.
References External links
Wendy's tribute to Dave Thomas The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
Wendys.com "Dave Thomas Biography". Retrieved June
1, 2005