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