Roads To Success 2.2

A Little Extra Cash

Boise, Idaho is a rural community in the western United States.  Several technology companies have headquarters or division offices here, but historically local business has been centered around agriculture and ranching.  Boise has been home to Jerry Caven for most of his life.

Jerry is literally the last of a dying breed, an honest-to-goodness cattle rancher.  But the trail leading to the ranch wasn't a straight one.  We shot most of Jerry’s Secrets Of Success interview at the home he built on a hillside overlooking Boise, and he told us how it all came to be.

At Northwest Nazarene University Jerry majored in biology with a minor in education.  In his freshman year at NNU he met a young lady named Muriel Parsons.  By his senior year, Jerry and Muriel were married.  Upon graduation Jerry began a career as a schoolteacher, and he and Muriel wasted no time in starting their family.  Actually, they took a super charged approach, having five children in five years. 

Jerry taught science and math, and coached the football and basketball teams at a local junior high school.  At age twenty-nine, in his sixth year of teaching he found that he was barely getting by financially.  “When I was teaching school in my sixth year in Boise I was making $4,600 a year.  And for a wife and five children that was not a sufficient amount,” Jerry told the camera.

Jerry began looking for a way to bring in a little extra cash to help his family.  A part time job seemed to be a logical solution.  “I went to the want ads in the paper and saw the name McDonald’s,” he recalled.

The name immediately registered with Jerry because his family often bought McDonald’s fast food.  Knowing that the restaurant was open in the evenings, Jerry reasoned that he might be able to teach during the day, and work for the fast food company in the evenings and weekends.  He decided to apply for a job.

Jerry was in for a disappointing surprise.  It turned out that McDonald’s was not looking for part time help.  They weren’t even looking for full time help.  Somehow the only McDonald’s restaurant in Boise had managed to go bankrupt.  McDonald’s had taken it back from the franchisee, and with no other McDonald’s units within 500 miles of Boise, the corporation was eager to sell it to a new operator.

Bernie Baxter, the McDonald’s representative charged with the task, encouraged Jerry to purchase the franchise.  In 1965 it was a bargain at only $60,000 dollars.  “Immediately I explained to him that I had no money and I wanted a job, not a franchise,” Jerry told us.  “You don’t understand, I explained to him, I don’t have six dollars let alone $60,000.”

Mr. Baxter returned to McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago and Jerry thought it was all over.  He continued his part time job hunt not realizing that a gift that could only come from heaven would soon change his life forever.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 1.2

Jerry Caven

I first met Jerry Caven in his home town of Boise, Idaho, on a chilly February morning in 2000.  My assistant and I arrived at his office, a single story, unassuming building on Fairview Avenue near the outskirts of the city.  Neatly stenciled lettering on the glass door identified the business within as States Realty.

I’m fairly certain that Jerry didn’t know we were coming.  Perhaps it was a scheduling goof or maybe he just forgot, but in those first few minutes he was conspicuously quiet, a little distant, and behaved as if he didn’t quite know what he should do with us.

My initial thought was that this was going to be a tough interview.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Within fifteen or twenty minutes Jerry wrapped up what he was doing when we first arrived and invited us into his office where we began chatting about his story.  What I originally viewed as aloofness disappeared, replaced by a quiet and gentle but strong demeanor.  His answers were thoughtful, honest and thorough.  As the day progressed he made us feel more and more welcome.

We would soon learn that his humble headquarters in the States Realty building was more than it seemed.  Real estate was certainly sold there, homes built by Jerry Caven’s construction company on land developed by his development company.  Oh, yeah, the place was also the center of operations for his chain of forty-seven restaurants.  And did I mention the cattle ranching business?

Over the next two days Jerry served as a gracious and generous host, chauffeuring us around so we could see his various business interests in Boise, taking us out to his ranch and giving us a tour of his home.  He did this all while answering my substantial amount of questions about his life.

At the time it was our practice in producing Secrets of Success for me to visit the subject of each episode on their home turf prior to actually shooting the show.  I would conduct a preliminary interview in order to get a sense of the story, do a little location scouting and meet anyone in their lives who might be able to contribute to the story.  After the initial interview, a few weeks to a couple of months later, I would return with a camera crew to actually shoot the show.

It would be more than two years before I returned to Boise with a camera crew to shoot Jerry Caven’s story.  There were several scheduling conflicts during that time, and then we wanted to wait until the spring months so we could shoot footage of the annual cattle drive that took place on Jerry’s ranch.

It was all worth the wait because Jerry Caven’s story turned out to be one in a million.  In a nutshell, it’s the story of a man who ended up with a sizable business empire just because, once upon a time, he needed a part time job and answered an ad in the local newspaper.

© 2012 Philip Kassel