Jean Nidetch: No Amount of Fats Can Stop Her Dream

Jean Nidetch is an American fitness enthusiast who co-founded the organization called Weight Watchers. Born as Jean Slutsky on October 12, 1923 in Brooklyn New York. Despite the fact that she was a partial scholar at Long Island University, meager resources forced Nidetch out of college. Instead, Nidetch went to the City College of New York to take up a business course. She dropped out when her father died in 1942.

Nidetch was an overweight housewife. She has an obsession for meat. In 1961, Nidetch experimented on a number of fad diets. This was after she was prescribed a regimen by a diet clinic which came as a sponsorship of the New York City Board of Health. She lost 20 pounds but later found her resolve starting to weaken. Nidetch kept in touch with some of her overweight friends which resulted in the creation of a support group.

The support group of overweight ladies eventually became a weekly class. On May 15, 1963. the group was formally incorporated and was named Weight Watchers. The group was acquired by H. J. heinz Company in 1978 but Nidetch continued to function as the organization’s consultant after that.

Adolph Ochs: Setting the Course of The New York Times

Adolph Ochs was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. He was known as the former owner of The New York Times. He also owned The Chattanooga, which known today as Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Ochs was born on March 12, 1858 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents were of German-Jewish descent. His father, Julius, was an educated man who with the Union during the American Civil War. His mother, Bertha, was a refugee of the revolution in Rhenish Bavaria. She sympathized with the South during the war. Despite their differences in sympathies, the Ochs family remained a strong household.

The war got the Ochs family to move to Knoxville, Tennessee. There, Ochs went to public school. He used his spare time to deliver newspapers. He worked with the Knoxville Chronicle under editor William Rule when he was just 11. Rule became Ochs’s earliest mentors. In 1871, Ochs moved to Providence, Rhode Islands to work as a grocer’s clerk while he attended night school. In 1872, Ochs returned to Knoxville and worked again for the Chronicle, working on the different details of the newspaper in the composing room.

At 19, Ochs became the publisher of The Chattanooga Times after he acquired its controlling interest out of his loan of $250. He created a commercial paper named The Tradesman the following year. Ochs was also a co-founder of the Southern Associated Press where he also served as president.

In 1896, Ochs was informed by Henry Alloway, reporter at The New York Times, that the paper was going a difficult financial time because of the stiff competition among the newspapers in New York City, and that it can be acquired at a greatly reduced price. Ochs did not hesitate to borrow money and purchase The New York Times. He established the New York Times Co. and positioned the company on a solid footing. Ochs became a major stockholder of New York Times Co.

In 1904, Ochs hired a new managing director in the person of Carr Van Anda. The duo refocused The New York Times in a rather partisan environment. They focus on objective journalism. Ochs also decreased the price of the newspaper from 3¢ to 1¢ per issue. At the time of Ochs’s purchase, The New Times had a readership of 9,000 which grew to 780,000 entering into the 1920s.

Ochs moved The New York Times headquarters to Longacre Square, which later known as Times Square. The newspaper became very influential in the US and earned a high reputation in American journalism.

Walter Newberry: Fortunes are Meant to be Shared with Others

Walter L. Newberry was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. One of his surviving bequests led to the opening of the Newberry Library located in Chicago, Illinois. After declining his appointment to the US Military Academy because of health reasons, Walter and his brother Oliver moved to Detroit, Michigan to establish a dry goods company in 1826.

After the success of his dry goods business, Walter became a part of the syndicate along with William Astor and Lewis Cass. They invested in real estate in Chicago, Green Bay and Milwaukee. Walter became very successful that he has to move to Chicago in 1833. He was the president of the first railroad in Chicago, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad.

In his will, Walter stated that his estate will be left to his wife and daughters Julia Rosa and Mary Louisa. If his daughters die without issues, half of his estate would be used to establish a library in Chicago. His daughters died without getting married and without children. Walter’s estate was used to create the Newberry Library.

Sir William Morris: Legacy Beyond a Lifetime

William R. Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield was a British motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was known as William Morris, Bt from 1929 to 1934, and The Lord Nuffield between 1934 and 1938, a title which he took from the village where he lived, Nuffield, Oxfordshire. Morris founded the Morris Motors Limited, Nuffield Foundation and Nuffield College in Oxford.

Morris was born on October 1877 in Worcester, England. He grew up in 16 James Street in Oxford, where his family moved when he was just three. He left the school when he was fifteen to work as an apprentice in a local bicycle repairer and seller. At sixteen, Morris declined an increase in his salary in favor of his own bicycle repair business which he opened in a shed at the back of his parents’ home. Because of his success, Morris opened a larger business located in High Street. Morris began to repair and assemble bicycles and labeled his product as The Morris.

Using  his own machines, Morris joined racing competitions even as far as South London. He did not limit himself with one time or one distance. At one point, Morris became the the champion of Oxford City and Oxford County, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire for distances that vary between one mile and fifty miles.

In 1901, Morris shifted to motorcycles. He acquired a number of buildings along Longwall Street. There, he designed the Morris Motor Cycle, continued to repair bicycles and operated a taxi service. Morris was also involved in repairing, hiring and selling cars. By 1910, Morris built a new business location which was called as The Oxford Motor Place. Morris renamed the business from The Oxford Garage to The Morris Garage.

Morris was the first to introduce Henry Ford’s mass production techniques in England. He assembled new car models by buying components from the US. Morris got the license from Hotchkiss for his American engines. Unwilling to expand, Morris acquired Hotchkiss and renamed it Morris Engines Limited. He also purchased E.G. Wrigley and Company, the manufacturer of back-axle, and renamed it Morris Commercial Cars Limited.

At one point in his career, Morris became known as the most popular industrialist of his time.

William Mow and the Rise and Fall of Bugle Boy

Dr. William Mow is  a Chinese clothier and industrialist who was known for the popular brand of pants Bugle Boy. Mow was a native of Hangzhou, China. His family moved to the US where he earned his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering. Mow decided to engage in business after spending two years with Litton Industries.

Mow was successful in inventing a process of testing large-scale integrated chips. In 1973, the company he founded, named Macrodata, went public. However, in 1976, the SEC investigated the company and Mow was forced to sell his interests in Macrodata. After the SEC cleared him, Mow stayed out of the electronics design industry because of his non-compete clause with Macrodata.

In 1977, Mow successfully opened a new business: a clothing company that featured tops and denim for boys and men. He named his company as Bugle Boy Industries. Through the 1980s, Bugle Boy’s sales hit the $1 billion mark. The Bugle Boy style became popular because of it stitching patterns and bottoms that featured elastic cuffs.

In 2001, however, the inevitable happened. Mow was not able to carry on Bugle Boy’s business and the company fell into a lot of trouble. Bugle Boy closed all 215 outlets and retail stores after the US Bankruptcy Court approved Mow’s declaration of bankruptcy. Subsequently, Mow sold Bugle Boy to Schottenstein Stores Corp. for $68.6 million.

Alfred Nobel: Life of Paradox

Alfred B. Nobel was an innovative chemist and engineer. One of his most lasting inventions was the dynamite. Bofors, which Nobel also owned, has evolved from being a producer of iron and steel to a cannon and armaments manufacturer. His patent for the dynamite was only one of 350 patents credited to him. Nobelium, a synthetic element, was named in honor of him. Two the companies that Nobel himself established are stili existing today: the AkzoNobel and Dynamit Nobel. The fortunes of Nobel were posthumously used to create the Nobel Prizes.

Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was born to poor family of eight children. Only Nobel and three of his brothers survived through adulthood. As boy, Nobel showed interest in engineering. He particularly liked explosives and his father, Immanuel, who was himself an engineer and inventor, taught him the basic principles of explosives.

A number of business failures have forced the Nobel family to Saint Petersburg in 1837. In Saint Petersburg, the Nobels established a store that manufactured and sold machine tools and explosives. Nobel started his work on the torpedo, a naval mine used by modern navies. By 1842, the Nobels have become prosperous. Nobel was attended by private tutors and became excellent in languages and chemistry. He became fluent in English, German, French and Russian.

The young Nobel became the student of chemist Nikolai Zenin. Nobel moved to Paris in 1850 for further studies. At 18, he moved to the US and studied chemistry for four years. He had a short collaboration with John Ericsson, the designer of USS Monitor which was used in the American Civil War. In 1857, Nobel got his first patent for a gas meter.

Nobel and his family moved back to Sweden where he invented the detonator. His studied the safe use of nitroglycerine after an explosion in a factory in Stockholm killed five people, including his brother Emil. In 1867, Nobel invented the dynamite, which was easier and safer to use than the nitroglycerine. In 1875, Nobel invented the gelignite, which was more stable than the dynamite.

Following the deaths of his mother and brother, Ludvig, Nobel moved to San Remo, Italy. He died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1896 at home. At the time his death, Nobel was awarded 350 patents and has established 90 armaments factories. His wealth, which were placed in trust, were used by his colleagues to fund the Nobel Prizes.

Frederick Laker: An Aviation Entrepreneur

Laker Airways was founded in 1966 by British airline entrepreneur, Frederick Laker. He is best remembered as one of those airline owners to adopt the “no-frills” airline business model. Other companies who embraced this concept are Virgin Australia, WestJet, easyJet, Southwest Airlines and AirAsia.

Although he didn’t finish his formal schooling, his strong entrepreneurial skills have proven to be more effective than what we would have learned in school. He was, for a time, educated at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys where he was expelled. After his expulsion, he worked with Short Brothers in aviation. He was made a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary during and after the World War II. Among the companies he had put up were Aviation Traders, Air Charter, Channel Air Bridge, Laker Airways and Skytrain.

For his contributions to the aviation industry, he was knighted in 1978 following the launch of his Skytrain. He also received several accolades for his continued innovation in the industry.

Frederick Royce: Founder of Rolls-Royce

Anyone who is into high end cars will definitely know a thing or two about Frederick Royce. Considered as one of the brightest minds of our time, he, together with Charles Stewart Rolls, founded Rolls-Royce Company.

Born Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet of Seaton in Alwalton, Huntingdonshire, near Peterborough, he is celebrated as one of the most influential and successful entrepreneurs who was not able to finish his studies. Although born to a family that owns a flour mill, he was not able to finish his schooling after his father died and their mill went bankrupt. Born in 1863, he was the youngest of the five children of James and Mary King Royce. Their flour mill was leased from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and when their business failed, the family decided to move to London. When he was still 9 he was forced to work by selling newspapers and delivering telegrams. This was after his father died, leaving him only schooled formally for just one year.

Though lacking the schooling needed to bag a decent job, he showed his entrepreneurial skills which helped him a lot in putting up his first business called F H Royce and Company. He founded this venture with his friend, Ernest Claremont, who contributed £50 to their venture. Their business was in the manufacturing of dynamos and electric cranes. The historic meeting with Charles Rolls happened on May 4, 1904. Charles Rolls owned a car showroom in London and during that time, Royce already showed interest in cars after he purchased his small De Dion.

Living up to his motto of “Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble,” Royce has led a life focused on work and tinkering motor cars. From his humble beginnings, he was able to put up a company that will be forever commemorated for its quality and class.