“Nearly every moment of every day we have the opportunity to give something to someone else— out time, our love, our resources —and I have always found more joy in giving when I did not expect anything in return.”
Truett Cathy
I had the opportunity to hear Truett Cathy speak probably 20 years ago when I was running audio where he was speaking. I only remember one thing from that talk; he said that he learned as a kid selling magazines in kind of a newsstand/street style (think the Newsies—without the singing and dancing) and he learned that some people would always pay more for a magazine, even if it was essentially the same magazine, just because it was more expensive.
Cathy moved on from selling magazines to selling chicken sandwiches. Lots of them. The New York Times reported that in 2013 the company he founded, Chick-fil-A, had “1,800 restaurants and sales of more than $5 billion.” Cathy died this week at the age of 93.
“Rising to prominence between Robert Woodruff, who took over Coca-Cola in the 1920s, and Sam Walton, who began the Walmart chain with a small store in Bentonville, Ark., in 1950, Mr. Cathy was one of a handful of Southern entrepreneurs who in one lifetime took small, hometown companies to a global level.”
Kim Severson
New York Times
As of March 2014 Forbes listed Cathy’s net worth at $6.2 billion. That put him on the list of the top 250 wealthiest Americans. Not bad for a man born in a small town in Georgia with a high school education, who started working as a youth during The Great Depression. But more impressive is his philanthropic work. In 2008 he won the William E. Simon Prize for his charity work that included work with foster children and awarding more than $23 million in scholarship funding.
And while the man who spent 50 years as a Sunday School teacher may not seem like a candidate for having a hand in movie business but he did that as well. He helped finance the faith-based film on basketball great Pete Maravich, The Pistol, The Birth of a Legend (1991). Maravich was an undersized player as a youth who would go on to be named as one of the 50 Greatest Basketball Players in NBA History.
More recently Cathy. via the Cathy Family Trust, helped with financing Pinewood Atlanta Studio.
Georgia’s film tax incentives make it one of the top five production destinations in the US. (The Frank Darabont created TV program The Walking Dead films in Georgia.) Pinewood’s newly opened studio just south of downtown Atlanta has 288 acres and six sound stages up to 30,000 square feet.
“Pinewood Atlanta’s location will contribute significantly to Georgia’s growing reputation as a top draw for movie and television productions. We welcome the business this world-renowned company will bring to the state and the jobs it will create for our crew base and supporting companies.”
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal
A couple of months ago I read that Marvel’s Ant-Man with be shot at Pinewood Atlanta.
So when you read articles about Atlanta the New Hollywood, you can give Cathy some of the credit (or, if you’re in L.A., some of the blame). He earned his wealth (to borrow that title from the great Anne Lamott book on writing) bird by bird—and cow by cow.
‘Put two Cows on a billboard with a bucket of paint and a brush, and they’ll create some unexpected opportunities…The Cows still haven’t learned to spell, but five years after they painted their first billboard, Chick-fil-A had doubled our sales volume. The lesson from the Cows is the lesson of my life: Take advantage of unexpected opportunities.”
S. Trutte Cathy
Eat Mor Chikin:Inspire More People
P.S. Pinewood Studios is not the only game in Atlanta either. EUE/Screen Gems Studio Atlanta has 10 stages, Atlanta Filmworks Studio and Stages has 57,000 square feet of production space, Raleigh Studios in Atlanta has four sound stages, and there’s Tyler Perry Studio. There are others—but you get the idea.
Related Posts:
Martin Luther King Jr. and Screenwriting (Includes a photo I took in Atlanta on the weekend after Coretta Scott King died.)
“Super-Serving Your Niche” Includes a photo of Tyler Perry’s studio I took when I drove through Atlanta last year.
Creativity and Milking Cows