Roads To Success 4.6

An Unknown Element

Wayne Huizenga, Jr. was happy in marriage and had worked his way up through the ranks of Blockbuster Video, and then continued that upward movement in his father’s new conglomerate, Republic Services.  As perfect as life appeared on the surface there was still something missing, and at the time, Wayne, Jr. wasn’t even completely aware of it.

Wayne, Jr. eventually became a vice president at Huizenga Holdings.  Even though he had shown great focus in obtaining the goal of working with his father, his new executive position revealed that this focus did not necessarily transfer into all areas of business.

Bill Pierce, Chief Financial Officer for Dolphins Enterprises, was a senior executive in the company at the time and served as a mentor to Wayne, Jr.  “Like his father, he had great ideas, and he was very, very quick,” Bill said.  “But clearly, he lacked the focus necessary to be successful in business.  While he had a great business mind I would say he didn’t focus to the extent that he could stay with one project to see it all the way through.”

Wayne, Jr.’s focus was somewhat blurry in his personal life as well.  He had purchased Blockbuster stock while the company was still very young, and that stock’s value had risen astronomically.  Wayne and Fonda were living a life that most people can only dream of.

“We were incredibly happy living a life that was beyond anything that either of us had ever imagined,” Wayne, Jr. said in his I Am Second video interview.

Wayne, Jr.’s mother told her son that there “wasn’t much reality” to his life.  “She’d come to me and say, ‘Junior, you know, you need to get back to the church.  You’ve got two children now, three and four years old.  They don’t know anything about who the Lord is and they have no grounding.  And the lifestyle that you’re living, it’s not like the rest of the world lives’.”

“He loved to take big trips and take all his friends,” recalled Carlos Vidueira, a Vice President at Huizenga Holdings.  “He’d pack them up and go to exotic parts of the world.”

“There were no limits.  There were no boundaries.  There were no standards,” Fonda explained.

“My impression of Wayne was that he was a very good person, a warm-hearted person,” recalled Carlos Vidueira.  “But when you pack up twenty-five adults and take them to the Caribbean or other exotic parts of the world it doesn’t always go according to plan.  People get into disagreements.  People drink too much.”

In spite of his lavish lifestyle, something was missing.  There was an unknown element absent from the Huizenga family’s lives, and Wayne, Jr. knew it.

“I was happy in my life,” Wayne, Jr. remembered.  “I had everything the world would consider everything you should have – jet planes, yachts, a big house, and a wonderful family.  But I never really felt fulfilled.”

It took some time but eventually Wayne, Jr. began to get his bearings.  It happened gradually and in an unexpected way, and it really began with a submarine voyage.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.5

Ladder Climb

Life was going well for Wayne Huizenga, Jr.  Disappointment over the news of his father’s retirement from Waste Management, Inc. was now just a memory.  It had been replaced with the satisfaction of achieving the goal of working along side his father in business.  The business at hand was Blockbuster Video and the work was to expand the company.

While Wayne, Jr. was doing his best to advance at Blockbuster Video, Fonda Hicks once again emerged on the scene.

“She was living in Phoenix, working for Proctor and Gamble, and she was on the fast track then to become a plant manager,” Wayne, Jr. related.  “She called me up and told me she was going to be in town visiting her parents, and asked if I would like to get together.”

Getting together was fine with Wayne, Jr.  He and Fonda had kept in touch since their summer romance but hadn’t seen each other in five years.  They made plans to spend an evening together catching up.

“That one night would become a weeklong date,” Wayne, Jr. smiled.  “I realized at that time there was something special there, something I hadn’t felt with anybody else I’d ever dated.”

In many ways, Wayne was still the fun-loving boy Fonda had dated when they were both fifteen.  But she also recognized several new traits in him.

“He was a very young man, very energetic, very idealistic, very excited about business prospects, very excited about this whole world that was opening up to him,” Fonda described.

So, after 13 years apart, Wayne Huizenga, Jr. and Fonda Hix were together again.  And after a long distance relationship that lasted almost a year, Fonda moved from Arizona to Florida to be with Wayne.

Fonda’s friends thought she was crazy.  After all, she was leaving a promising career and stock options to marry a man who displayed every indication of being a playboy.

“She would go on to say that she knew in her heart of hearts I was the right person for her,” Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of Success camera.  “And she saw wonderful things in me that I never saw in myself.”

In 1988, Wayne, Jr. and Fonda were married.  Within a few years they produced two children.

Wayne Huizenga, Jr. was doing very well, indeed.  Not only had he married his childhood sweetheart but his professional life was advancing nicely as well.  Blockbuster became the largest video retailer in the world, at one point opening a store a day for several years.  But late in 1994, Wayne, Sr. sold the company to Viacom and began looking for new business territory to conquer.

Wayne, Jr. described what came next.  “The opportunity presented itself for Wayne, Sr. to get involved with an old associate and get back in the garbage business.  At that time my uncle also owned a large garbage company in Florida.  They merged the two together creating Republic Services.”

Republic Services was designed to be a conglomerate.  So, while looking for diversified investments, the automobile industry drew Wayne, Sr.’s attention.

“We started Auto Nation,” Wayne, Jr. advanced the story.  “Unfortunately, as we started to grow our mega used car super stores we discovered the margins weren’t as good as we had hoped they would be.”

Equally troubling, when the stock market began to focus on the hot technology sector, the Republic Services conglomerate lost favor with Wall Street.  Seeking to become a company focused on only one industry, the Huizengas spun off several of Republic’s assets into new, public companies and sold other assets outright. As for Auto Nation, they phased out used car sales and became a new car dealership.  Auto Nation would eventually become the largest car dealer in the world with over $20 billion in revenue annually.

Not only was Wayne Huizenga, Jr. climbing the ladder he was nearing the top of it.  But in spite of business success and a good marriage his life was not everything it seemed to be on the surface.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.4

A Little Video Store

As Wayne Huizenga, Jr. neared the completion of high school he saw his dream of working with and being more like his father transforming into something much more tangible.  College was the next step and then it would be a mere four years to finding a place in his father’s company, Waste Management, Inc.  He was aware of the respect and power his father acquired as the leader of a large, growing company.  He liked and enjoyed the lifestyle, the private jets, the yachts and the lavish trips.

In his I Am Second video presentation Wayne, Jr. said, “The stories that my mother would tell us about Jesus and trying to share about God quickly left my mind as I began to focus on what I had to do to be like dad.  I wanted all the things that he had.  I grew, went to college, and became very, very focused on what I had to do.”

But in 1984, in his third year of college, Wayne, Jr.'s plans were shattered with his father’s announcement that he had decided to retire from Waste Management.

Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of Success camera, “I remember thinking to myself, ‘what am I going to do with my life now?’  I had always known I was going to work at Waste Management and had trained for that my entire life.  I had worked at the landfill picking up garbage at age twelve.  I had worked at grinding containers and worked on the back of a truck.  I had worked at doing sales while I went through college.”

Wayne, Sr. assured his son that he could still work for the company, but Wayne, Jr. wasn’t interested.  He never believed he would actually get to work side-by-side with his father in Waste Management, but his heart had been set on being a part of his father’s business.  Essentially, a childhood dream had been destroyed.  “I was really very unsure of what the future held for me,” Wayne, Jr. said.  “I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do.”

But Wayne, Sr.’s next business venture in 1987 would soon put his son’s uncertainty to rest.  It concerned a single video store in Chicago and its owner who wanted to expand into the franchise business.

“Wayne, Sr. made an investment in a small company called Blockbuster Video,” explained Wayne, Jr.  “At the time it was himself and two of his partners from Waste Management.”

It was a deal that Wayne, Sr. almost passed on.  He rarely took the time to watch movies and didn’t even own a VCR.  But once he took a close look at the numbers and actually visited the Chicago store, he became excited about the potential.

“Wayne, Sr. and his partners were going to be passive investors with David Cook in this startup video company,” Wayne, Jr. elaborated.

Wayne, Sr.’s role in the new company would not remain passive for long.  A difference in philosophy regarding how best to grow the company led to David Cook retiring from actively running Blockbuster and selling his shares to Wayne, Sr.

“At that point Wayne, Sr. was in the position of having to protect the investment of his two friends as well as his own investment,” Wayne, Jr. elaborated.  “He took over the helm of Blockbuster Video which coincided with my graduating from college.”

The timing was perfect for Wayne, Jr.  He entered Blockbuster, as he had all his father’s businesses, at the ground floor.  He began as a store employee, worked his way up to store manager and eventually became a district manager.  From there he moved to special projects, working directly with Wayne, Sr. and the executive staff.  Working directly with his father was a dream-come-true for Wayne, Jr., but it was something of a challenge as well.

“It was an adjustment for me because I was treated no differently then any of the other employees,” Wayne, Jr. recalled.  “Often father and sons don’t work well together in business.  I’ve been blessed; it did work for Wayne, Sr. and me.  But it was definitely an adjustment for me.  He’s as intense at work as he is at play, and spending time with him in the workplace really lent an insight as to why I didn’t get to spend much time with him while I was growing up.”

As Wayne, Jr. was advancing through the ranks at Blockbuster, Fonda Hix reentered his life.

 © 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.3

Blind Date

After eight years in Chicago, Wayne’s mother moved him and his younger brother, Scott, back to Florida so they could be closer to their father.  Wayne, Sr. always took care of his family, but there was still a dramatic difference in living with his mother and the life Wayne, Jr. experienced visiting his father.

Wayne, Jr. described it this way.  “There was a disparity between how I lived with my mother, which was clean and comfortable and more than adequate, and what a visit with Wayne, Sr. was like.  I’d go to visit Wayne, Sr. and it was over the top.  He had a 90-foot motor yacht at the time, a number of cars, and jet planes with the corporation, so it was different.”

Wayne, Sr. would eventually build Waste Management, Inc. into the largest waste disposal company in the world.  Wayne, Jr. observed the process as it unfolded and as a teen-aged boy his longing to spend time with his father transformed into a strong desire to be like his father.

Realizing that attending college would be necessary if he was to someday work alongside his father in business, Wayne, Jr. set his sights on higher education.  But college was still a few years away; high school, along with the fun that often accompanied it, occupied his time.

One particular high school date would prove to be significant in Wayne, Jr.’s life, even though that significance would not be immediately obvious to him.  Wayne, Jr. had a friend whom was dating a fifteen-year-old-girl from a neighboring high school, Fonda Michelle Hix.  The friend asked Wayne, Jr. to accompany him and Fonda, and Fonda’s girlfriend, on a blind date.  Wayne, Jr. agreed.

“We spent the day water skiing behind our 13-foot Whaler and had a fabulous time,” Wayne, Jr. recalled.  “That night we all decided to go roller skating and my mother drove me to the roller skating rink.  Much to my surprise I had no date.”

“I flat out told my girlfriend who was supposed to be along with us at the roller rink, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be going with us that evening,” Fonda said, taking up the story.

Of course, Fonda made certain that her date [Wayne, Jr.’s friend], did not show up as well.  “That was pretty shameful, too,” Fonda confessed.  “I just dumped him.”

Wayne, Jr. didn’t know it at the time but this roller skating date with Fonda Michelle Hix would eventually change his life in a major way.

“We had your typical South Florida, teenage kid romance,” Fonda explained.

Fonda was completely unaware of Wayne, Jr.’s family background or what his father’s business success, a lack of awareness that was simultaneously charming and frustrating to her summer love.  “She never believed our family had a yacht or flew on a private jet to go fishing in Mexico,” Wayne, Jr. said.

“Dad has this or dad has that down in Fort Lauderdale,” Fonda remembered Wayne, Jr. telling her.  “My standard response was, yeah right.”

Wayne and Fonda’s summer romance turned out to be just that.

“For some reason the phone calls kind of tapered off,” Fonda recalled.  “I began to realize that it was a summer fling.”

“I was a young man and I was looking for a bad girl, and Fonda was a good girl,” Wayne, Jr. admitted.  “So I said goodbye to her but we kept in touch over the years.  Her mother worked in the principal’s office at my school.  She kept tabs on me since I visited the principal’s office numerous times throughout my high school career.

It would be 13 years before Wayne and Fonda were truly together again.

© 2012 Philip Kassel