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