R. David Thomas

Dave Thomas preferred to call Wendy's hamburgers quick food. When Thomas wrote his autobiography, the term fast food was the term that was more widely used. But those words had already taken on somewhat negative connotations.

Thomas possessed high standards and huge ambition. Circumstances of his childhood would not have been considered favorable for future success. He beat the unfavorable odds. He was adopted while a baby, and never finished formal education. He never met his father; that man may not have even been aware of Dave's conception.

His real first name was Rex. The real first name of the daughter who the famous food chain was named after is Melinda. Had her real name been used to refer to the restaurant chain, we would probably be going to Melinda's, or maybe Melinda Lou's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. At an early age, Melinda's brother and two sisters could not pronounce her real name. So they called her Wendy. The name stuck. All five children who were eventually part of the Thomas household, as well as dad Dave and mom Loraine Thomas, called her Wendy.

Hamburgers were not what initially made Dave Thomas wealthy. That status came through management of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Columbus, Ohio. After Dave became a millionaire by managing Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, a swimming pool in the shape of a chicken was installed in their backyard by Mrs. Thomas.

Dave's close friendship with Colonel Harland Sanders, the man who started Kentucky Fried Chicken at a Corbin, Kentucky gas station, began to break down during the latter part of Sanders' life. Thomas tells in his autobiography of how Sanders detested smoking. When Dave was still a smoker, he was driving and smoking a cigarette with Sanders next to him in the passenger's seat. Sanders angrily removed the car's ashtray and threw it out the window.

This book is hard to put down. It's loaded with good advice for productive living. The book was published back in 1991, but you still can find it online. One of the most practical pieces of advice from Dave Thomas concerns how he went about making important decisions. He wasn't big on marketing research. When he decided to use the name Wendy's for his chain of restaurants, it was on gut instinct. He said that if he had relied on research as to whether to use that name, the first Wendy's would have never been built.

If you want the book, search out the title “Dave's Way: A New Approach to Old Fashioned Success. The biography was published in 1991 by R. David Thomas.… (mehr)