THOMAS, David R. ("Dave")

(b. 2 July 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey; d. 8 January 2002 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida), fast-food entrepreneur and founder of Wendy's restaurants.

Thomas, an adopted child, lived for the first five years of his life in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with his adoptive parents, Rex, a construction worker, and Auleva, a homemaker. After Auleva died of rheumatic fever in 1937, Rex remarried, moving his family to various locations in the Midwest and South, where he could find employment. Thomas spent most of his summers with his adoptive grandmother, Minnie Sinclair, whom he described as a compelling and uncompromising religious woman who gave him the one thing his father had not, a refuge from his isolation. Still, by 1947, Thomas estimated that his family had moved at least twelve times as jobs appeared in various towns. He never really felt as if he belonged with his family and came to find security in work.

The seeds of Thomas's interest in the food-service industry came from his early work experiences helping his adoptive father pay the bills. Thomas began his career at the Hobby House, a local restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When the family relocated yet again, Thomas decided to stay at his job and work his way up. Living at the local Young Men's Christian Association, he even dropped out of school to focus on his work. His career goals were delayed temporarily by his entry into the army during the Korean War. Thomas went to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he attended the army's Cooks and Bakers School. Sent overseas to Germany, he served as a staff sergeant and a cook.

After his military service, Thomas returned to the Hobby House, working as a short-order cook. When his boss, Phil Clauss, opened a second restaurant, Thomas became the assistant manager there. In the mid-1950s, Clauss began working with Harland Sanders (later known as Colonel Sanders). Thomas was taught how to prepare chicken using Sanders's recipe and how to sell it to customers. In the latter half of the 1950s Clauss bought four Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) franchises in Columbus, Ohio. But the restaurants failed to make a profit, so he offered to sell 45 percent of his ownership to Thomas if he was able make them solvent. Thomas had married Lorraine Buskirk in 1954, and by that time they had four children to support, with a fifth, their last, on the way—he was determined to succeed.

In 1962 Thomas moved his family to Columbus so he could run the four restaurants. Under his leadership, the four not only became solvent but also made a profit. Sanders became Thomas's mentor, and he took advantage of the experience, learning everything he could from the fried chicken entrepreneur about the quickly evolving fast-food industry. Thomas helped create the new famous revolving Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, and according to Nancy Millman of the Chicago Tribune, he helped persuade Sanders to appear in his own commercials. It was a move that boosted profits for KFC and made Sanders a familiar face in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Having made his four franchise shops profitable, Thomas sold them back to KFC in 1968. The move made him a millionaire, and he was invited to take a position at the parent company. Thomas stayed only briefly at KFC headquarters, because of a business conflict with John Y. Brown, Jr., another executive. Brown and Jack Massey had bought KFC from Sanders in the mid-1960s.

Thomas then took his money and used part of it to build his own chain of restaurants, whose specialty was fresh-cooked made-to-order hamburgers, not ones made from frozen meat patties. For his freshly cooked hamburgers he offered customers a variety of toppings. Sandwiches were never prepared in advance, and diners always got a hot, fresh, and juicy sandwich on a square bun. The original menu at his new restaurant consisted of made-to-order hamburgers, chili, french fries, soft drinks, and the Frosty Dairy Dessert. To make his restaurants even more inviting, Thomas created a relaxed, homey atmosphere with carpeting, Tiffany-style lamps over the tables, and Bentwood chairs. As a final touch, Thomas used the face of a little freckled, red-haired girl in ponytails as the logo for his new business. This image was the likeness of his eight-year-old daughter, Melinda Lou, nicknamed Wendy. The first Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant opened in Columbus on 15 November 1969. Thomas's new enterprise began to make a profit within six weeks of its opening.

By 1973 Thomas began to expand his restaurants across the country. He negotiated with entire cities and geographic regions, rather than selling single franchises to individual buyers. Wendy's restaurants became familiar sights in cities across the United States. Then Thomas decided it was time to step aside and let his corporate office run the business. Serving as senior chairman, he invested in other smaller businesses as his restaurant business continued to boom. In the late 1980s, however, quality began to slide, and Thomas was asked to return to a leadership position in the company. Until his death in January 2002, Thomas made folksy humorous commercials stressing the difference between Wendy's and its leading competitors. The campaign worked. By 2002 Wendy's had five hundred franchise stores for a total of more than six thousand restaurants worldwide.

Thomas in his later years came to terms with being adopted and became an advocate for foster parent and adoption programs. In 1979 he received the Horatio Alger Award for his business efforts. He also wrote his autobiography and a follow-up book that explained his restaurant business philosophy. Thomas spoke frequently to teenagers and young adults, urging them to stay in school. To prove the benefits of an education, he earned his general equivalency diploma in 1993 from Coconut Creek High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Thomas continued to be active and outgoing, despite being diagnosed with cancer in the early 1990s. He died at home in Fort Lauderdale of liver cancer and is buried in Union Cemetery in Columbus.

Thomas's autobiographical work, Dave's Way: A New Approach to Old-Fashioned Success (1991), and Ron Beyma and Dave Thomas, Well Done! Dave's Secret Recipe for Everyday Success (1994), provide invaluable background information. The Chicago Tribune (2 Mar. 1993), Forbes (5 Aug. 1991), and People Weekly (2 Aug. 1993) had important articles on milestones in Thomas's career. An obituary is in the New York Times (9 Jan. 2002).

Brian B. Carpenter