Ray Kroc 1902-1984
Ray Kroc died in 1984, just a few short months before McDonald’s sold its 50 billionth hamburger. One of the most well known success stories in American business history, Kroc developed a sophisticated operating system that essentially put hamburgers on an assembly line. He perfected processes and imposed such discipline on the production of his products that french fries purchased in any one of his restaurants would be indistinguishable from those purchased in another. Often copied but never surpassed, McDonald’s is the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants, serving more than 54 million customers daily.

Harland Sanders 1890-1980
More than a good cook, Harland Sanders was an instinctive businessman who saw the possibilities for franchising his fast-food chicken restaurants at a time in his life when he almost thought of retiring. The now-global franchise of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) began as Sanders’ Café, a modest gas station kitchen in Kentucky. After a fire, he rebuilt with a restaurant and hotel that were popular with travelers—until a new interstate highway diverted traffic away from the spot. Sanders, then in his 50s, hung up his apron and prepared for retirement. Convinced there was a larger market for his secret-recipe chicken, he set about selling it to restaurant owners door-to-door. What makes KFC’s story unique is how the successful fast-food chain made the quick leap from homegrown restaurant to international franchise. Sanders, named an honorary Kentucky colonel, sold his interest in the U.S. company in 1964 when he was 74. With his trademark white hair and goatee, double-breasted suit and black string tie, he remained an internationally recognized image for the fast-food chicken chain and served as spokesman into his late 80s. At 87, he testified against mandatory retirement before the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Juan Trippe 1899-1981
Pan American founder Juan Trippe believed international airline travel was something to be enjoyed by everyone, not just the rich. That’s why he introduced a “tourist class” fare from New York to London, cutting the ticket price by more than half. He ushered in the commercial jet age by commissioning jet aircraft using new jet engines, which cut travel times and carried twice as many passengers. Trippe realizing the impact, stated matter-of-factly: “In one fell swoop, we have shrunken the earth.”

Herb Kelleher b. 1931
What started as a regional carrier serving Dallas, Houston and San Antonio became one of the industry’s pioneering low-cost, no-frills airlines. Founded by Herb Kelleher and partner Rollin King in 1967, Southwest Airlines posted its 35th consecutive year of profitability in 2007. The airline has been known for campy antics—flight attendants singing in-flight travel announcements to the tune of popular songs, pilots telling jokes over the intercom—Kelleher was even known to help load luggage, process tickets or mix drinks onboard. He says happy employees make better employees. “Your people come first, and if you treat them right, they’ll treat the customers right,” Kelleher says.

William S.Harley 1880-1943
Arthur Davidson 1881-1950
William S. Harley was 21 in 1901 when he drew up plans for an engine to fit onto a bicycle. He and friend Arthur Davidson worked for two years on that 7.07-cubic-inch engine, along with Davidson’s brothers Walter and William, only to find the engine wasn’t powerful to get the bike over the hills in their native Milwaukee. But that didn’t deter them. By 1904, they had a working bike; by 1906, a little factory producing 50 motorcycles. Steady growth and innovation followed—as did competition from companies seeking to emulate Harley-Davidson’s success. Harley earned his mechanical engineering degree, while Davidson honed his sales and marketing skills and started a service school to train certified mechanics. Harley-Davidson went into combat in both world wars and was one of just two motorcycle manufacturers to come out of the Great Depression. It’s the only U.S.-made motorcycle today, with $6.14 billion in sales in 2007. Harley enthusiasts also pay for the brand and the attitude (what other brand would someone tattoo on their body?) licensing of the logo accounts for about 5 percent of net revenue.

Fred W. Smith b. 1944
Before Fred W. Smith purchased a small fleet of planes, the best way to ship your package cross-country was by train or automobile. The Federal Express founder made overnight express delivery possible with his innovative “hub and spoke” package processing system in the early 1970s. The idea, which he wrote about in a paper for an economics class at Yale, was based on a bank-clearinghouse system, with the clearinghouse in the middle of the representative banks. Now FedEx moves approximately 6 million packages worldwide every day, and has expanded into print and copy services with the acquisition of Kinko’s.

Aaron Montgomery Ward 1843-1913
Open your mailbox and thank Aaron Montgomery Ward for what's inside. The retail magnate is most noted for his innovation in mail-order catalogs for department stores. Working as a door-to-door salesman for a dry-goods wholesaler, he noted the disparity between the cash prices farmers received and high retail store prices. In 1872, he produced a single-sheet catalog of farming equipment at reasonable prices--the first of its kind. The catalog's popularity was immediate, growing to 150 illustrated pages in just four years. More than a decade later, sales reached $1 million. Expanding into department stores in the 1920s, which were sold in the 1990s, Montgomery Ward exists today as an online catalog.

Sam Walton 1918-1992
There's no denying the entrepreneurial significance of Sam Walton's Wal-Mart on American society. Sure, Wal-Mart has become the punching bag for what's wrong with American big business, but Walton wasn't alone when he opened his first discount retail store in 1962. That same year, with the launch of Kmart, Woolco and Target, the nation moved away from mom-and-pop shops to big-box retailers.

Walton outpaced his competitors with aggressive expansion and growth. Like a player purchasing Monopoly houses and hotels along Marvin Gardens, Walton gobbled up property along prime intersections and rolled out new stores state-by-state in record time. Each store had formulas in place--rural locations less expensive than those in town, proximity to distribution centers to cut restocking time and computerized inventory to eliminate overstock waste. With low overhead and efficient inventory, Walton passed along the savings to the customer, true to its "low prices every day" motto, while continuing to net billions in revenue. Wal-Mart netted sales of $348.6 billion in 2007, making it the largest retailer in the world and Walton did it all with a formula for entrepreneurial success.

Richard Sears 1863-1914
Alvah Roebuck 1864-1948
Founded by Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck in 1893, Sears, Roebuck and Co. grew from a rural mail-order catalog to the largest retailer in the United States by the mid-20th century. Richard Sears was regarded during his lifetime as a promotional genius, and the overwhelming success of Sears "wish-book" catalog extended well into the 20th century. Although Sears has lost much of its retail dominance to Wal-Mart and other competitors, it still has a significant place in the marketplace as the anchor store in many suburban malls.

Ralph Lauren b. 1939
The name Ralph Lauren conjures images of classic Americana ensconced in high-end luxury, and that’s exactly how the New York-born fashion designer intended it. Instead of selling just clothes, he sold a lifestyle that he portrayed with his distinctive advertisements of fair-haired boys in khaki chinos, elegant brunettes in sharp, white, dress shirts and bright-eyed children in preppy, seersucker shorts. Sure, he sold the clothes, but he also sold the fantastic, romanticized lives of the people who wear the clothes—the look of success. While his fellow fashion designers started at the high end and filtered their brand downstream, Lauren was visionary in offering luxury at all price points.

Phil Knight b. 1938
Nike founder Phil Knight made athletic shoes sexy with slick advertising campaigns and celebrity-athlete endorsements. “You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to,” Knight said, referring to his innovative ad campaigns. And considering many of the company’s advertisements show only the trademark “swoosh” symbol without the mention of the company name, Knight’s branding has worked.

Levi Strauss 1829-1902
Depending where you’re from, they’re called jeans, chaps, dungarees or denims. But the true test of a product is when a proper name is used to definitively describe its product category, and no product is more recognized the world over than Levi’s jeans. Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant, went to San Francisco during the Gold Rush to strike it rich—not by panning gold but by offering his wares to hard-working Forty-Niners. He struck out selling tents and wagon covers made of a durable canvas but saw its potential as a heavy-duty, rip-proof material for pants—or waist overalls as the miners called them.

Strauss opened a factory in San Francisco and began adding copper rivets at the stress points in his pants. He switched from canvas to a heavy blue denim material called genes in France, which became jeans in America. In 1873, Strauss and Nevada tailor Jacob Davis patented the process for putting rivets in pants for strength, and the world’s first jeans—Levi’s jeans—were born. Strauss’ innovation spawned an entirely new fashion movement and became an indelible American icon, along with baseball and apple pie.

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