The Daily Signal - How a Childhood Experience Propelled Andy Puzder From Working Class to CEO

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

Andy Puzder has lived the American dream. Raised in a working-class home, he worked his way to become a CEO in the fast food industry. "What I didn't think was, 'That son of a b---- is stealing from us.' Or, 'He's in the 1%,' and we're in whatever percent you were in when your dad sold Fords in the 1960s," Puzder recalls of his childhood experience seeing a rich man's mansion. "What I thought was, 'I could do that.' And thank God I lived in a country where I could do that." We also cover the following stories: Sen. Lindsey Graham announces a new Republican response on the impeachment push. Vice President Mike Pence criticizes the NBA and Nike over currying favor with China. The Trump administration is reportedly telling federal agencies to stop subscribing to the New York Times and Washington Post. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Andy Puzzter has lived the American dream. Raised in a working class home, he worked his way to become a CEO in the fast food industry. He says America is what allowed him to rise. But could his story happen today? Does the meritocracy still exist? I got to ask him these questions and more in a recent interview recorded at Presidents Club,

an annual gathering of Heritage Foundation supporters in Washington, D.C. Today we'll bring you that interview. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating at iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Senate Republicans are moving to condemn the impeachment probe led by House Democrats. The resolution is being put forward by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Specifically, it criticizes the House for holding secret hearings

to question witnesses behind closed doors. Here's what Senator Lindsay Graham said at a press conference Thursday. And the purpose of the resolution is to let the House know that the process you're engaging in regarding the attempted impeachment of President Trump is out of bounds. It's inconsistent with due process as we know it. It's a Star Chamber type inquiry, and it's a substantial deviation from what the House has done in the past regarding impeachment of other presidents.

He also said this. What's happened is that the attempt to open up an inquiry of impeachment against President Trump failed miserably so they've created a new process that I think is very dangerous for the country. Instead of the judiciary looking at a potential impeachable offense, they've created a process in the Intel Committee that's behind closed doors, doesn't provide access to the president's accuser, shuts Republicans out for all practical purposes, and is a unworthy substitute for the way you need to do it, is at its core, un-American. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday criticized Nike and the NBA for how they have reacted

since Houston Rockets general manager, Darrell Mori, tweeted, and then deleted, a statement of support for the Hong Kong protesters. Here's what Pence had to say via the Associated Press. And far too many American multinational corporations have kowtowed to the lure of China's money and markets by musseling not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even affirmative expressions of American values. Nike promotes itself as a so-called social justice champion. But when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social conscience at the door. Nike stores in China actually removed their Houston Rockets merchandise from their shelves

to join the Chinese government in protest against the rockets general managers seven-word tweet, which read Fight for Freedom Stand with Hong Kong. And some of the NBA's biggest players and owners who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of China. Inciting with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of that authoritarian regime. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is out with a new book on China, Trump versus China, facing America's greatest threat, spoke at the Heritage Foundation Thursday.

Here's part of what he had to say. He challenged in China's image as China. Okay. And I recently saw as a senior Chinese leader, and I was trying to do research for the book, and I wanted to get their version of some things. And so I said to him, can you explain why you have over a million people

in concentration camps in Western China? And without changing his facial expression, he said, well, you know, You really shouldn't think of them as concentration camps. You should think of them as boarding schools. Now, it's really hard to build a positive image when you have boarding schools that have people who escape from them who explain that they're concentration camps.

Hundreds of lawmakers gathered in the Capitol building on Thursday to honor the life of Congressman Elijah Cummings. The longtime Maryland representative passed away, suddenly last week at the age of 68. Cummings is the first African-American lawmaker to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Here's what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had to say. He was strong, very strong, when necessary, but also kind and caring and honorable, universally respected and admired in a divided time. His voice could shake mountains, stir the most of the most of the way.

stir the most cynical hearts, inspiring us all to be better. Representative Katie Hill, Democrat of California, is under investigation from the House Ethics Committee. Hill, who is in the middle of a divorce, said in a statement this week that she had had an affair with a campaign staffer, writing, during the final tumultuous years of my abuse of marriage, I became involved in a relationship with someone on my campaign. I know that even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate, but I still allowed it to happen despite my better judgment. Hill, who identifies as bisexual and is now 32, had the affair with a female campaign staffer.

The House Ethics Committee announced it is now investigating Hill. There are also allegations that Hill had an affair with the male staffer, legislative director Graham Kelly. Hill told the D.C. outled the Hill that allegations that I have been involved in a relationship with Mr. Kelly are absolutely false. And I am sadden that the deeply personal matter of my divorce has been brought into public view and the vindictive claims of my ex have now involved the lives and reputations of unrelated parties. Seven-year-old James Younger of Texas has been in the news this week.

His mom wants him to transition to a girl. and on Monday a jury handed her a victory over the boy's father who was battling her for custody rights. On Wednesday night, Texas Governor Greg Abbott weighed in on Twitter, saying that the State Attorney General and the Department of Family and Protective Services were looking into the matter. Senator Ted Cruz also tweeted, This is horrifying and tragic. For a parent to subject such a young child to life-altering hormone blockers to medically transition their sex is nothing less than child abuse.

President Trump is reportedly asking government agencies to end subscriptions to the New York Times or the Washington Post, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham told the journal, Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved. Trump has been critical of both outlets in their coverage of him and his administration. Up next, my conversation with Andy Puzzter about how he rose from working class to become a CEO. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court.

Well, I want to welcome back to the podcast, a man named Andy Puzzter. He is the former CEO of CKE Restaurants, which is the parent company of Hardee's, and Carl's Jr. And it's been about six months since we had you on the podcast. Welcome back, Mr. Puzzler. It's good to be back. Thank you. So you have a very interesting story. I think a lot of folks would look at your life and say, he really lived the American dream and rose from the working class to become a CEO. And I want to ask you about that. In your upbringing, did your parents, who came from a working class background, did they encourage you to seek out this path? Or were you really kind of

a different kind of black sheep in your family? Well, they were very encouraging of whatever me, my brothers, my sister wanted to do. They were Depression-era kids themselves. Neither my mother nor my father had a college education, and I think they envied people who had been able to go to college. And as I said, my dad fought in World War II was a combat vet, and that all stuck with him. but they were very encouraging of all of us to reach our full potential.

And as a matter of fact, all of my brothers, my sister didn't go to college, but my three brothers, and I all did. And I was the first one in the family to graduate from college, and they were the second, third, and fourth. So whatever they did, it worked, I guess. So when did you first aspire to go into business? Was that when you were a kid growing up? You know, when I was about 10 years old, my dad asked me if I would go with him to deliver

a car to a very rich man in a very rich area that was really just a few miles from our house. My dad was a Ford car salesman at the time, and I told him I'd go. And we pulled up to this huge gate, this big gated house. The gate opens up. I was 10 years old. I can't tell you if it was as big as it is in my memory. But in my memory, this was a big gate. It opens up.

There's a beautiful White House. It's sunset. It's in a place called Hunting Valley, which it's very wooded. There's a lot of hunting. There's a polo field nearby, beautiful, wealthy area. And we pull up towards this house, and then my dad veers off and goes around it. I looked at my dad, and I said, why didn't you stop? And he looked down and said, son, that was the guest house.

So we kept driving. We then go by these beautiful stables, which were much nice. than, I don't know, the 2,000 square foot ranch house we lived in nearby, and pulled up to the main house, which was this, you know, in my mind it's like Doughton Abbey. I don't know if it was really that big, but it's this huge house. And we walk up, the man answers the door, his name was George Humphrey. And his father had been secretary of the treasury, and they owned a business, Hanna, industries in Cleveland.

And my dad and Mr. Humphrey talked for a while. Then we, they traded keys, and we're walking back to the, trade in and I meant I was just dumbfounded by the affluence that I was sure never seen anything like this and I asked my dad I said what does mr. Humphrey do that he can live like this and my dad said well son he's a lawyer and he runs a business and I can still remember thinking like it was yesterday you know a lawyer you know I could be a lawyer and I thought it was I think it's important that I thought that but I think it's more important what I didn't think was that son of a bitch is stealing from us. Or, you know, he's in the 1% and we're in whatever percent you were in

when your dad sold Ford's in the 1960s. What I thought was I could do that, and thank God I lived in a country where I could do that. There was a path. It wasn't an easy path. It was an arduous path, but there was a path for me to be successful. And eventually I did become a lawyer, and I did end up running a business. I can't say, and I had a house just as nice as Mr. Humphreys. Maybe not as nice as the one I remember, but I think probably as nice as the one that he actually had. So I did live the American dream, but I think that's sort of where Adam Smith kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said, you know, there's potential here for you. Well, and you talk about there being a path for you to rise in this country, really a meritocracy that allows the, you know, great talent to rise to the top. Do you think that kind of meritocracy is still thriving in America or are we losing it?

Well, I think it's still thriving. I think people still respect the entrepreneurial spirit, the desire of people to better their lives. But we are seeing the shadow of socialism re-enter the picture, which kind of discourages individual achievement. It tries to make everybody more or less the same. They go, I like to call it the equality of poverty and misery, which is what we've had in the Soviet Union, in Cuba. in North Korea and Venezuela. In every place, socialism has actually been tried, where the policies at somebody like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Elizabeth Warren,

the policies they're promoting would have the potential to destroy the incentives to take risk, to invest, to work hard to try and build a future for yourself that are the hallmarks of capitalism, those things are antithetical in a socialist socialist, system and I think for some reason they seem to think that people are better off if they're taken care of. So it is scary but I think it's I think today we're we're still fine.

Right. Well I mean there's so many folks who are in the working class just as you are growing up and they would like to pursue the path that you followed. What advice would you give for them? I never look back. Just keep trying. There's nothing that can stop you other than yourself. You know you may not you're not get everything's not going to be a victory. The path. Enough isn't going to be easy. You're going to run into hardship. You just have to keep going forward. And if you keep going forward, you'll be fine. Well, you mentioned being the first in your family to go to college. How did you finance that? I painted houses. I cut lawns. One summer, I was going to law school in St. Louis. I busted up concrete with the jackhammer and through the chunks on the back of a truck. I don't know if you've ever been to St. Louis in the summer, but it is a miserable place to be busting up concrete and throwing the chunks on the back of a truck.

I worked just about every dirty, difficult job you can think of. Whatever would pay, whatever I could get, whatever would help me. By the time I graduated from college, I had, and I went to Washington University Law School, Cleveland State undergrad. So I had an affordable undergraduate school, but the college was expensive. Law school was expensive. I decided to go full bore, and I had no family help. My family didn't have any money, and no government help, I didn't qualify for any.

So it was either I worked my way through or I didn't get through. And by the time I graduated, I had my wife and I had two children and she was pregnant. So I had to support my family during this process while going to a top 20 law school, Washington University. So it was difficult, and there were a lot of kids in school that had it easier. Some of them had parental support. There were a lot that had support from the government that, again, I didn't qualify for. I didn't resent them then and I don't resent them now. I think I learned things going through that process, toughing it out myself, that I wouldn't

have learned if my dad had been paying the bills or if the government had been paying the bills. So just hang in there, fight. Keep going forward. You'll be fine. Well, you mentioned going to law school, but most people who've heard of you know you as a business CEO who turned around a couple of fast food companies. You mentioned your story of being inspired to go into law, become a lawyer. What kind of work were you doing as a lawyer that eventually led you to, into business? How does one, how does one, how does one go from doing legal cases to running a fast food company? Well, I was, in 1997, I became the general counsel and executive vice president for CKE restaurants. So I was the lawyer for the company. And we bought Hardee's. I actually did the

deal to buy Hardee's. And after that, we went to Rocky Mount North Carolina where Hardies was located and had to, when you buy a company, you reduce, you want to reduce overhead. If you're merging to companies together. So we were merging Carl's Jr. and Hardys. And I had to go to Rocky Mount to tell some lawyers. They needed to find other jobs because we didn't need this many lawyers. After I did that, I went to a meeting where they were talking about turning Hardies into Carl's Jr. And it's going to be great. We're going to turn Hardee's into Carls. We'll change the signs. We'll keep some of the breakfast stuff. And I remember looking around the table thinking, everybody at this table is from California. The only guy here that ever lived in a Hardee's

market is me. So I spoke up and said, you know, I don't think that's going to work. I think that people are going to say, who's Carl Jr., and where's my hearties? Because the company was formed in, like, 1961. So at that point, you had like 40 years of brand equity buildup. And everybody laughed and said, Andy, go fire a lawyer, go do stuff. I mean, knew all these guys, because I used to represent the founder of the company. They said, go buy a company because I also represented Fidelity National Financial. And I was buying Chicago title at the time for Fidelity.

So went off, did the Fidelity deal. A couple years later, I came back, and the two markets where they had tried to change Hardee's to Carles, one is still the worst performing Carl's Junior market, and the other one they had to change back. So there was a shareholders meeting in June of 2000, and the stock of the company had gone from $42 to $2. I mean, it was like this Hardee's thing not working had just killed the company. And in Orange County, California, these Carl Jr. meetings were a big deal.

A lot of people came because they all loved Carl Carcher. And I walked in, I was secretary of the company, and I'd been gone for two years, you know, buying Chicago titles. So, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I didn't drive it down to $2. I told them not to do this. I'm kind of laughing. Thinking what joke I'll tell while they're voting for the shareholder. The board of directors was meeting in the corner, and they called me over in the chamber. The board says, Andy.

I said, yeah, I said, you're going to be the president of Hardee's. I said, excuse me? Why would you make me the president of Hardy? And another guy named Byron Allen Ball. He used to run Ralph's Market in California. Byron came over and said, no, Bill. This is Bill Foley, who was the chairman. He said, no, Bill.

If Andy's going to be the president, he's going to be the president and CEO, you had your chance. And Bill laughed and said, you know, because Hardys was a disaster at that. He was really on the verge of bankruptcy, if not technically bankrupt. And Bill laughed and said, all right, Andy, you're the president and CEO of Hardies. What are you guys thinking about? Anyway, that's how I became the president's CEO of Hardee's. And about three months later, they made me president's CEO of the whole company.

And who knew I could fix it? Wow. I actually, I think they made me present. I think two theories. One theory is they said, hey, let's see if the cocky lawyer can fix this thing. That's theory one. Theory two is that they thought I'd take it into bankruptcy or sell it because I was a lawyer and the company was in trouble. So I went to Rocky Mount, and for about two weeks there, I realized, you know, if I take it into bankruptcy,

It really is bad for the investors. It's bad for the people that are lending us money. It's bad for the employees. It's bad for the franchise. It's bad for everybody. Why would I do that? I think I can fix this. And who knew?

I could. I did. But school didn't really train you to run a business, right? You went to school to be a lawyer. You know, it's interesting. When I was a lawyer, I tried complex civil cases. So I represented guys that owned businesses. And when you're in a lawsuit, representing somebody that owns a business, you have to become as knowledgeable in that business as they are.

Because if you've got somebody on the stand, you're examining or cross-examining, if they know more than you do, you're in trouble. So I was always, you know, I was learning about one business and then settling a lawsuit and trying it or trying the lawsuit. And then at the end of it, moving on to another business, you know, learning about it. And these were all people that had gotten in some kind of trouble because I'm representing, you know, they're in a lawsuit, right? So I actually came up with some ideas about how to run a business by trying those lawsuits. So when I came and I sort of treated it like I would treat a lawsuit, I learned everything I could about the business. Also, I had represented Carl Carcher, who founded Carl Jr. in CKE and represented Bill Foley, who became the chairman of that company and a Fidelity National, Financial. And I learned a lot about running businesses from them.

Interesting. So I did learn, not in school, but I think practicing law, because of what I practiced, I learned a lot about business. But I think a lot of it, too, is intuitive. You know, you've got a lot of people who knew a whole lot more about business than I did. Probably couldn't have fixed these companies. I went into them as a customer. I'd walk in a restaurant, and rather than saying the temperature's wrong on the oven or, you know, we need to change the amount of syrup that we put in the sodas, I'd walk in and say, what would it?

Yeah, if I walked in as a customer, what would I think? And that really turned the business around. So what was wrong when you walk into one of these franchises? Well, the restaurants were dirty, the food was bad, and the people were rude. Matter of fact, when I was my first board meeting as CEO of the whole company, we had been remodeling Carl's and the sales would go way up. We spent $150,000 to remount, which was a lot of money to remodel the restaurant back in 2000. and we do the same amount

and remodel the Hardee's and sales would go up for a week and then they go right back down, maybe go down worse. So the board said, they said, Andy, why is it that we're remodeling Carl's and we're getting a return and we're remodeling Hardee's and we're not? And I said, well, the problem is you go into an old Hardee's that hasn't been remodeled and you've got a guy in a dirty shirt who's rude to you and serving you food

while you're standing in French fries. And then you go into the remodeled Hardies and you got a guy in a dirty shirt who's rude to you and serving your food while you're standing in French fries. If you don't fix the problem, you know, putting in a new picture frame, putting a new building around the picture, aren't going to change anything.

You've got to change the picture. Right. So we focused on doing that. We put in some procedures, and we got a good return. It worked pretty quick. Yeah. Well, I got to tell you, I mean, as a customer at some of these,

like, you know, I go to Chick-fil-A quite a bit. Yep. The whole experience there is, you know, Everyone is polite, very kind, professional. I'll tell you, they could teach the people at Disneyland who are supposed to be like the gold standard for service. They could teach the people at Disneyland some lessons. Chick-fil-A is a great brand. They've done an incredible job with the company.

They deserve everything they got. You should go to Hardee's and Browns. Arties as well, that's right. You know, you can't eat chicken all the time. Get a burger. That's right, that's right. If you feel like you don't want to eat a burger, they have that Beyond Meat Burger now. Yeah, oh, well, I don't know. I'll probably pass on that. How do you feel about the Chick-fil-A cows saying, stop eating meat? Beef, stop eating beef.

You know, look, if I could think of something that clever, Chris, I've retired now, so it's somebody else's responsibility. But when I've been running the company, if I could have thought of something that clever to get people not eat chicken, I probably would have used it. That's very creative. They're good people. Well, Mr. Puzzor, appreciate you being on today on the podcast. Thanks so much. My pleasure. Thank you. Well, that's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or PIPA, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback.

Robin, Virginia, will be with you on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, the Leah Rampersad, and Mark Geine. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.