Huizenga's Hat Trick

There's not much Wayne Huizenga hasn't done in his 72 years of existence. He has owned several professional sports teams as well as held ownership shares of several hotels and resorts, not to mention the three companies he built from the ground up. Huizenga was born in Illinois and lived in the suburbs of Chicago until he was 15 at which point his parents moved the family to South Florida. He attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and joined the Army reserves before marrying his first wife.

Huizenga began amassing his billions by driving a garbage truck in Fort Lauderdale in 1962. He responded to an advertisement regarding a route for sale and borrowed $5,000 from his father-in-law to purchase the truck and route. In just six short years, Huizenga parlayed that into 40 trucks and a major chunk of the garbage hauling in Broward County (Sun-Sentinel.com). He later took the company, Waste Management, public in 1972 and retired from the business in 1984.

His next big venture came three years after retiring from the garbage hauling business when he bought into the Blockbuster franchise. Huizenga was hesitant at first to get into the video rental industry but he and Steve Berrard bought it in when the company owned eight stores and 11 franchises. They sold Blockbuster to Viacom Inc. seven years later for $8.4 billion.

In 1995, Huizenga purchased Republic Waste and turned it into AutoNation, a used car franchise that quickly became the largest U.S. auto retailer. Although the company struggled at the end of the millennium, Huizenga hired Mike Jackson from Mercedes-Benz USA to take over as CEO and revived the company.

In addition, Huizenga owned the Miami Dolphins for 20 years and was the original owner of both the Florida Marlins baseball franchise and the Florida Panthers hockey team. Even though Huizenga is a billionaire and in his seventies, he doesn't show signs of slowing down. In 2010, he set his sights on Swisher International Inc., a company that provides commercial cleaning products (Bloomberg). Having already scored a hat trick, perhaps Huizenga is looking to achieve a second one in his lifetime.