Suncoast Business Forum; Frank Morsani

This. Is a special presentation of w. we do YOU Tampa St. Petersburg Sarasota. Hi I'm Geoffrey Simon. Welcome to the Suncoast business forum. If you were advising someone about selecting a career that offer great potential for success and the opportunity to become a community leader would you tell them to become a car salesman. No. Well. Perhaps you should think again because you're about to meet Frank Moore Sonnie whose success in the auto industry has been paying big dividends for the Tampa Bay community for years. Some men expressed their love for their spouses with diamonds or pearls. But Frank Corson he shared his love for his wife Carol by making a multimillion dollar gift to the

Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and putting her name on its largest haul forever. And that's just par for the course for a man who's become one of Tampa Bay's leading philanthropists and business leaders. Over the past 30 years Frank welcome to the Suncoast business form. Thank you. Pleasure being with you. How did cal react when you said you know I think we're going to do something special your name is going to be on of the major hall of the Performing Arts Center. Well she she won that crazy about actually. Really. But then she was she's been very pleased. That was the right thing to do. Well it's a great thing for the community. Now you've had a long and very very involved career in this community and before. Before we get into the interview I'd like to share some of your background a brief bio with our viewers. You started out you were born in 1931 and you grew up on family farms in Arkansas and then in Oklahoma you joined the U.S. Navy after your first year in college and then after four years in the Navy you attended Oklahoma State University where you got a bachelor's degree.

After that you join the Ford Motor Company and worked in a variety of capacities and then worked for dealerships in Florida New Jersey and California rising from the service department up to managing those dealerships in 1070 moved to Tampa Florida to follow a business opportunity at a dealership here in 1901 you started precision Motors and had a Toyota and a Mercedes dealership within 30 years you'd built that into 22 dealerships some of which you sold a number of years ago and now you're chairman and CEO of automotive investments and have two dealerships here in the Tampa Bay area. In terms of community involvement there's a long list and we've given you abbreviated version. Are you currently chairman of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. You're on the board of the University of South Florida Foundation and it's past vice president. You were past chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the past chairman of the Private Industry Council. Past chairman of the board of fellows of the University of Tampa and past chairman of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority which one's Tampa International Airport.

And that's just the short list Frank. I don't know where you find the time. But you're a farm boy correct. You grew up in Oklahoma in Arkansas. How is life on a farm and what were your parents like and what things did you learn as a farm boy that helped you become successful the future. I learned to work I guess. As I've said some people live to work and others work to live and I've always lived to work. I think that what the farm gave me was a foundation of of entrepreneurism. You have to think you had to make decisions and my daddy was a welder on pipeline construction he was gone eight months of the year. So as a teenager I had the privilege of running a 400 acre farm and putting in we oats and running cattle and so I learned an awful lot and taken care machinery in being having to fix machinery because on a farm a lot of it breaks down.

But so I and then I was privileged to have a very loving family even though we didn't have a minute you know we never had a telephone. My entire life until I joined the United States Navy didn't have any indoor plumbing. Ten years old we got electricity so we really felt we had come a long way then. So those were the fun we knew. Nobody thought anything of it. That's how life was. Now after you grew up and you went to one year of college but then you joined the Navy then this is during the Korean War am I right. That's correct. What did you take away from your experience in the military that you think of been beneficial for you. Well I guess I run my dealerships when I learn of the service which is you know the structural command structure. I learned so much in the military. I learned how to organize and and learned about that's how management training I learned more

because in the military they do it I refer to they reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. You learn how to pass authority all the way to the lowest common denominator. And so I learned so much in the military and I said well I'm going to be here for four years. And I sort of capitalize on all the assets that the military has and and so I attempted to do that and it's served me well over the years. Have you found the passing authority to the lowest common denominator has been important in business. Oh absolutely. It's in my view it's the essence it's easy. It makes people feel good it gives everyone authority and and they they respond so much better to to direction and to control and they run their own. But you know wick It's been a great way to run a company in my opinion. Tell us about your wife Carol. You met when you were young.

Yes. We had one date in high school. Then a year later we started dating in a year later we got married we then married forever. As we say we've been married 54 years now. But she has a great intellect tremendously well we read woman she reads a lot of books on all kinds of things. She is a great historian and is a very organized. She raised her two daughters and I as I said I worked a lot like to work I never was into sports or athletics you know. I thought I bribed and gone to heaven would work for Ford Motor Company making $90 a week. I thought that I had arrived I never had heard $90 in a week. And so she had to take care of the home and.

But she's been a great inspiration and a great supporter and as I said she has a great intellect. How do you work as a team though behind every talented man and a great man is a very talented and great woman. How have you worked together both when raising family helping you succeed in business and now the two of you are very involved in philanthropy. Well I think she would say we we both learned a lot from each other. She's a very disciplined person and I am as well. And we have we've I think complimented each other's strengths and been able to overcome each other's weaknesses because we all have those. That's that's life. She. Has a good depth of understanding of the community and in philanthropy. I can say this my wife would say she had to. We came from entirely different backgrounds and

we both learned about philanthropy and the importance of it in our lives in our community and forum and how that's the legacy that people leave i.e. as an example the Ford foundation of the Mel Mellon Foundation the Rockefeller and so we have that responsibility so both of us have looked at life as leaving it a little bit better place than what we found. Now after you graduate from Oklahoma State University you went into the automotive industry. Correct. Why cars. Well I always wanted to you know living on a farm and always working on a written way through college as an automobile mechanic. And so that's what I knew. And so when I graduated from college I wrote everybody that made something that moved in. And some people wanted me and some didn't and it didn't work for Ford Motor Company.

And what did you learn though working in the automotive industry the 1950s and 1960s working for Ford you working for some other dealerships around the country what did you learn about working in that side of the automotive industry. Well I always wanted to to be a better than what I saw in some situations and circumstances. I wanted to I started out wanting to perform a service for the consumer which I still want to but that's what motivated me to go to work for Ford Motor Company. I wanted to be a service representative and help people with their problems on their vehicles. And because at that time you know our cars weren't very good. And back in the 50s automobiles were not built very well. And there were a lot of problems and so I enjoyed doing that and I enjoy working with people and I enjoyed

being able to assist them and that's I was always going to do that all my life I never had any idea about being an automobile dealer. I just wanted to fix things and help people. And you still are trying to. Yeah. Now in 1990 you moved to Tampa. You were working for an auto dealer and then in 1981 you actually. I acquired your first two auto dealerships you had a Mercedes and a Toyota dealership and was the beginning of precision Motors. That's correct. How did you view going out on your own you're about 40 years old at the time. Yeah I was scared to death. They when I borrowed $5000 from my brother and $10000 from one of my employees and there was a bank in town then called the First National Bank they loaned me two hundred forty thousand dollars and Mr. George Holsinger was chairman of the board of the bank at the time and he was a Ford dealer in town and they had all these kind of things that you know they look at for loan you money. And

Jim Warren was a young vice president. And so I had to go up there and meet with them and they said Mr. Holsinger who had known he said I think the young man will pay us back. So that's how I started in business. And so it was it was quite an experience. But they had confidence in me and I had confidence in myself and but I was scared to death. I'll tell you a quick story. I broke out in hives. I was a sick puppy. I was scared to death I'd never have heard $240000 especially I owed somebody. And so it was it was a real experience and it's not easy to sign on the back of that note. Now over the next 30 years you took those two car dealerships to twenty two dealerships. That's correct. What challenges are there and what did you learn

along the way. Going from a relatively small business to one that is that substantial and you sold most of those dealerships about five years ago. That's correct. Well. Again I go back to the military. We operated very let the managers have a lot of autonomy. People had to be you know the responsibility and authority but accountability and we held people accountable but we let each person as I said put the stamp on the front door of the leadership they were running. It was their dealership. And what we really as I said they had a lot of autonomy. We like that kind of operation. I used to tell them up I'm lazy so you're going to work hard. And so by doing we think by giving people the autonomy they want to succeed. They have everyone everyone wants to be successful. So by giving them taking the shackles off

they're able to use their own ingenuity to create to to create a company. And I think it worked very well for me. You think the great challenge was being a judge of people the people that you picked to work for you. Well yes I think and growing the people as we call it yes being a good judge of character because our integrity or ethics that's all we have in life when we have it if you compromise your ethics and your integrity you know I'm not willing to do that. And so having people that wouldn't compromise their integrity was extremely important to me. Now during this time while you were growing this business you also became very active in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in fact you rose to its chairmanship of a very very big national and international position in the mid 1980s How did that come about and what did you take away from that experience. Well briefly had a camp that was very unique. I got a letter in the mail. We have a

system in our companies the manager always opens all the mail we don't let other people open the mail. And then each company could learn a lot when you open the mail. And so I got this letter in one addressed to me and the envelope and the address but it was in our mail. And then I so I said well I opened it and the letter wasn't addressed to me it was addressed to somebody else and the envelope in the letter were both to different people. But the United States Chamber of Congress said they were creating a small business council and would this person be interested. Well I sat down wrote a Myna sent him back the envelope I sent him the letter back I said I'm not in either one of these two people but if you're going to have a Small Business Council the U.S. Chamber I've been taking your magazine nation's business for 20 years. I'd be very interested in joining. They call me up and said Well come on aboard so that's how I got on the U.S.

Tabor board. And then the I learned had wonderful experiences. No one could have ever bought the ticket. I was privileged to travel all over the world. Bill from everything and everyone from Rajiv Gandhi and be his host for several days in New in Washington Minorcan Bagan Anwar Sadat work with these people all over the world and give speeches from roll them to Beijing and all over the United States from Maine to Florida and from Boston to San Francisco. I had a I had a great run I have had the most interesting fantastic life. And so I learned so much and I was able to be in people's company I learned a lot from some of the titans of industry Don Kenda who took PepsiCo up to its heights.

Many many people throughout the United States I was privileged to rub shoulders break bread have a great relationship with three presidents President Carter President Reagan and the first President Bush George Bush and a lot with the administration so I've had it. I have it and unusual and fantastic life and experience. Now while you were doing this in the 1980s you not only building precision Motors and precision enterprises not only chairing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce you were also attempting to bring Major League Baseball to Tampa you were the chairman of a group that so nice to bring Major League Baseball here and you had a number of successes. It became very close a number of occasions you had a number of setbacks in the end it didn't happen. Tell us about how that all got started and how it ended for you.

Well it finally happened just didn't happen on my watch as I said. A few people got together and they came to me and said Would you lead the effort to bring Major League Baseball to the area. And I said Golly I have a few other things on my plate that I would do. So I agreed to do that to assist him and I thought it was an assist I had. And I said well if I can get Joe Casper or Ted cow which a few other people together to be part of this I would consent to do it. So what did we do. We first knew that expansion was eventually going to come down the pike. So we set ourselves up to try to get expansion. And then we at the same time we knew some of the teams wanted to sell. So we made a deal to purchase the Minnesota Twins and of course they didn't want Minnesota to move and so on so forth so that

was one of the efforts. And then we had a call from the Oakland A's they wanted to sell. That's owned by Levi-Strauss family. We negotiated a contract with them and then at the last minute they decided they would. The city of Oakland didn't want to go and they gave them a bunch of money and they stayed there. Then at the same time though we're talking about expansions or all these road or parallel paths. Then when the Texas Rangers had been on the market they were in a lot of trouble and they didn't so the owners of the Texas Rangers came to us and wanted us to buy them. So we did may in fact we had the signing ceremony at the Harbor Island Hotel. Then we actually made that you've got to remember those agreements we did own 42 percent the Minnesota Twins we were the majority owner of the twins. And we did our own. The Texas Rangers

but the Rangers they decided Major League Baseball after encouraging us to do that. They decided they were going to find people in Texas to take us out of the out of the deal which they did. So it's a very very expensive. We spend an awful lot of money a lot of us with several millions of dollars to make all these things happen. But in the Major League Baseball is here it has its difficulties. We're hopeful that they overcome those difficulties and make it this is the successful franchise for the nation that we envisioned 23 years ago. Now again all during all of this involved in baseball you're involved in building your company. You're involved in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce you're raising a family at the same time you're involved in

major philanthropy some of the largest organizations in the community the aviation authority you're involved in the Tampa Bay performing arts center of which you're chairman active the University of Tampa active at the University of South Florida foundation. How did you decide and how do you carve out time to not only give of your time but you've given millions of dollars to these institutions. Well first it is time. Time management is the biggest thing you have to learn early on in in running companies. So we develop what I call a 20 minute hour so x. So you have 24 hours. If you just change it it's pretty easy 24 hours rather than eight. So it's definition so time management. And we would commit two days a week to do our community meetings to do the things that you've

articulated so two days a week we would do that. And I had a wonderful secretary who was a great manager and we were great time managers. And if we were going to visit with you for 15 minutes we didn't visit with you were 16 15. We just had to do it that way. So we did it that way. The other part of your question was How do you make the decision as to what to be involved. Well that ebbs and flows. Currently we have my wife and I Carol and I are devoting. I think the twilight years to primary to University of South Florida and the Moffitt and to health. The health sciences we we it's hard to. Hard decisions to make we have a pretty nice foundation on a lot of people. We get a lot of requests but

we try to spend our money's here in our community. Now I say in our community meeting panellists Hillsborough Pascoe primary and Pocono primary these Pascoe in Hillsborough and and Pinellas is where we devote our dollars to. If you look back upon your career and you were to look at the successes and the failures what have you taken away from success and what have you taken away from failure. Well we learn by our failures and not our successes. It's the little things that make the difference you know. Can business in these used cars if you bring in your car and you've got a water leak in an engine failure. We know it's easy to fix the engine we just replace that with a water leak to get you upset if we don't fix the heart of a leak. That's the difference A little things are what makes a difference in business.

My employees say you know Frank will mind if the building burns down. But if there's a piece of paper on the lawn he's ABA fire you. And it's the little things that make the difference not what you take away from it and so we see what we learn by our failures and not our successes and I've had my failures. We all have failures. When you're when you're doing things and those those don't go down well they hurt but they don't because none of us planned to fail. We plan to succeed no matter what our position is in life we plan to succeed. But the difference is in success in failure though and took me a long time to come up with this in my view Mayanja people asked me as an example in a press interview why are you successful and other people aren't. Well how do you ensure that. It took me a long time and so I have developed an answer to that question.

It's rather simple really. When you have a problem being being willing to work through the problems those are the difference and successes and failures. A lot of people in business or in life aren't willing to work through their problems. So being willing to work for you pursue the problems attack the problem make the problem go away problems do not solve themselves. You've got to solve them. You learned how to solve those problems when you were back on the farm. That's right. He just learned how to do a better and better over time. Just keep working at it. Well Frank I want to thank you very much for joining us today and I want to thank our viewers for joining us on the Suncoast Business Forum and we invite you to join us next time.