You will never make money working for someone else

Wayne Huizenga

The only person to ever create three Fortune 500 Companies. Building the first one, Waste Management, Inc from a single garbage truck, followed by Blockbuster and AutoNation. Huizenga is also the only person to have owned three professional sports teams; the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins and the Florida Panthers.

Background

Wayne Huizenga was born December 29, 1939 in the small Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park. The first of two children born to Gerrit Henry Huizenga and Jean Huizenga.  In 1953 Gerrit Huizenga moved his family to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in hopes of taking advantage of the housing boom as a builing contractor. Huizenga’s parent divorced in 1954, his mother was awarded custody of Wayne and his younger sister Bonnie.  After graduating from Pine Crest School, Wayne returned to Chicago to be near his friends and majority of his family. He worked for a family trash removal company until enrolling at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he studied for three semesters before deciding college just wasn’t for him. Wayne then spent a short six months in the military, before marrying Joyce Vanderwagon in September, 1960.  The couple moved to Florida where Wayne went to work for a friend of his fathers as a garbage truck driver in Pompano Beach. Wayne and Joyce had two children before divorcing in 1966.  Wayne’s father always told him “You won’t ever make money working for someone else”. Before long Wayne Huizenga was taking the steps to create his first billion dollar company.

Starting out in 1962 with just one garbage truck and 20 commercial accounts, Wayne worked nearly 20 hours per day.  He transformed his small business into Waste Management by 1968 and continued to grow his business by merging with three Chicago based trash companies and buying out small competing businesses.  In 1972 at the age of 35 Wayne Huizenga owned the largest trash collecting business in the world profitting over $1 billion per year. Huizenga resigned from Waste Management in 1984 tired of traveling between Chicago and Fort Lauderdale, he took with his 3.7 million shares of stock worth over $100 million. As of 2010, Waste Management employed over 40,000 people.

In 1987 Huizenga along with John Melk, a Waste Management executive, purchased 43% of a chain of eight video stores for $18 million in Dallas, Texas known as Blockbuster Video. Just as he did with Waste Management, Huizenga began to buy out competing video stores nationwide. By 1992 there were over 2,000 stores and was number one in sales of the top 100 video stores in the country. In 1994, Huizenga sold his share of Blockbuster to Viacom for $8.4 billion.  In 2009 Blockbuster had 60,000 employees.

 

AutoNation was founded by Wayne Huizenga in 1996. It had grown to be the largest auto retailer in the country with 371 stores in 17 states and also the largest number of online sales.  AutoNation had roughly 20,000 employees and a profit of $20 billion. The company had some tough times from 1997-2000 and reconfigured most of the stores from used cars to new and were ranked #197 on Forbes fortune 500.

Mixing business with pleasure

In 1993 Wayne Huizenga bacame full owner of the Miami Dolphins after buying out Joe Robbe’s family for their 85%. Huizenga bringing the Marlins and Panthers, introduced baseball and hockey to South Florida. In doing this he became the only person to own three professional sports teams in a single market.

Conclusion

Harry Wayne Huizenga is an American businessman who grew Blockbuster Video, Waste Management, Inc., and AutoNation into successful companies.   He is the former owner of the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins, the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers and the Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins. He is extremely dedicated to his community and giving back. Through out his whirlwind life buying, selling, and creating Wayne Huizenga has managed to create thousands of jobs and make an impact on our economy.

 

Work Cited

H. Wayne – Overview, Personal Life, Career Details, Chronology: H. Wayne Huizenga, Social and Economic Impact, http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6278/Huizenga-H-Wayne.html”>Huizenga

The Fortune 1000 Entrepreneur: Wayne Huizenga Gets his Start, http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/3640/Creating-a-String-of-Blockbusters-How-Huizenga-Achieved-Success.html

SME5Q:Wayne Huizenga, http://www.smebranding.com/content/wayne-huizenga

Reference for Business: AutoNation, Inc-company profile, information, business description, history, background information,  http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/78/AutoNation-Inc.html