Senior Chairman of the Board; lunch in lower Manhattan; Dakota’s Coda

Posted: March 14, 2025 | Author: David | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, consciousness, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm |2 Comments

Fred Turner was a titan in American commerce.  1956, in Des Plaines, Illinois, Fred started flipping hamburgers for Ray Kroc; while other young men were hustling to become a corporate Vice President, Turner saw his future: Kroc had a limitless vision, and Turner had the skill and drive to pragmatize the operation, globally.  38 years later, he was the Senior Chairman of the Board of Directors but I knew him as a neighbor, the father of classmates at Holy Cross School, I played the drums in his wife Patty’s jug band. 

I wrote a letter requesting a meeting, and mentioned that I had lived off-grid recently.  Douglas excoriated me, leaning in slowly, he spoke, “You…can…not…write…that….David! this is…the Chairman of the Board…of McDonald’s!!!”  Brazen, I mailed the letter to the headquarters office, but then called Patty at their home.  

Cautious at first, Patty happily arranged our meeting.  Over a breakfast of eggs and hash browns, I explained my business concept.  Fred listened politely, then replied, “If you are going to quote me, say ‘I don’t get it.’”  

I always found that phrasing of interest.  Having spent a career on quarterly earnings calls, convincing skeptical bankers and financiers of the promise that McDonald’s held, he had been quoted regularly in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, any paper reporting the news.  Although it was just him and me, he still used that lens, “…if you are going to quote me…”

Having made his fortune selling hamburgers, the digital future was less clear. It was hard, then, to envision Google + You Tube + Starbucks, which essentially is what GDC encompassed.  The power behind Global Data was less the media offerings and more the back-end data; with a growing user base the scope would become transformational, as proven in the real world financial success of Facebook and Google.  But imagine all profits redounding not to stockholders but to the peoples of this planet, whereby “dignity credit” could be extended based upon local civic participation.  GDC was an arbitrage of money and information. 

Having met with Fred, it was arranged that I would speak to Edward R. Stavitsky.  I had been told that his Uncle had financed Samuel “Goldfish” Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, Marcus Low, as well as Cecil B. DeMille; with Chase Manhattan Bank, he had financed 100% of 20th Century and 25% for Universal and United Artists studios; had structured the financing of McDonalds Corporation in 1954, “invented” the  trilogy structure: operations-franchisee-real estate holding company, which launched the venture.  As of 2025, McDonald’s is believed to be the third largest holder of real estate in the world.  Bill Gates owns nearly 270,000 acres, while the Catholic Church owns 177,000,000 acres of land.

We spoke on the phone and I was invited to fly out to Los Angeles, to meet in a hotel lobby just off Rodeo Drive.  The meeting went well, he was quite friendly and supportive, but “others people money” would be the key.  A moment of significance, I stood on the edge of the abyss: I needed to raise $38 Million USD.  

My challenge was great.  The absolute condition of the Information Alliance was no venture capital, which meant no equity sold.  Debt was no option – negative cash flow can service no debt – so the model needed to be an endowment, the academic approach, an asset base generating yield to fund the venture.  Progress was slow, very slow, as the calendar turned from 1994 into 1995.  

Laurie’s star was ascendent.  Employed as a business librarian at Altschuler, Melvoin and Glasser, an accounting and tax-audit firm on Chicago’s Wacker Drive, she was offered a job at Spencer Stuart, a leading global executive search firm.  Laurie was lured to London, and so too Douglas, where he enrolled in the London School of Business, a globally respected MBA program, ranked higher than the Business schools of Harvard and the University of Chicago.  

The transition was hard.  The change complete.  Douglas had gone global, on the road, again. 

CODA

Our blessings can be our curse.  The brilliant mind one wild tiger hard to tame.  Douglas was mercurial, like quicksilver: when we were together, he was focused and present, but once apart, he was gone, completely gone.  Years passed when we rarely spoke.  

I recall standing, after the London move, on a beach in Rogers Park, Chicago, gazing out at the horizon.  He spoke of his dream of becoming a college professor.  I suspended disbelief until a few years later he was hired to teach at the Kelley School of Business at the University of Indiana.  His was the gift of manifestation.  Not surprisingly, he became a favorite of the students, annually ranked among the top professors.  His light would fill any room, whether a small kitchen or a university lecture hall.  

I pursued the endowment for another ten years.  Like Sisyphus in an ice storm I struggled to climb that hill.  I did deliver funds to Ed Stavitsky and we flew to Wall Street for meetings and meals with the banker, fine red wine not white with fish; contracts were signed but he failed to perform.  Whether a potemkin or the real-deal remains an unknown.  Ed died in July 1999.  I attended his funeral, among many, laid a spadeful of dirt upon his casket. 

Eventually I found my way to Maine, to build furniture for Thos Moser Cabinetmakers.  I worked the A-shift.  It was grounding.  I collaborated with my sister on a pair of essays about heirloom furniture – my story was the making, hers the receiving – published in the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday edition.  Tom flew me to Chicago to give a demonstration on chair making, then asked me to write an essay about his Customer-in-Residence program.  I arranged for Tom to fly to his hometown, Chicago, for a tour of the estate of John Bryan, a major collector of American furniture.

At no one’s request I recruited the Head of the Art History Department at Yale University to create a course on three generations of New England/New York chair making: Hitchcock in the 1800s, Stickley in the 1900s, and Thos Moser into the future.  And then on 9 January 2009, after the financial collapse which brought the Great Recession, I was laid off along with half the Thos Moser work force.  Profits before collaboration.  Money the measure of the man.  

I found my way, working as a carpenter, fabricating public art and now, managing the plant and property at the Friends School of Portland.  

On 21 December, this past solstice, I called Douglas and we picked up where we left off.  We were immediately in synch, as though no time had passed.  As our conversation ended, Doug laughed and said, “Hey man, let’s keep in touch more often!”

An opportunity presented itself.  I have been thinking about launching a new community project, to teach furniture making to recovering addicts and former convicts.  The act of making is at once both practical and therapeutic.  My wife is a registered Art Therapist and a Licensed Therapeutic Counselor.  I have an idea, she has the credentials, and a woodworker friend is getting a degree in counseling; the elements seem in place.

On 7 January 2025, just before the dawn, as the light returned over the horizon, I found myself thinking about Douglas.  There is no one here with his energy, his spark, his purifying flame, and so I thought to reach out, to ask “can we rekindle our flame, chart a new path, ride together, again?”

Five hours later I received the call that he had died.  

Bereft, I sat down to write this festschrift “celebration writing” for a deep true friend.    

Would that he ride shotgun once again, in spirit, this time.  

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