In researching for our fundraising project I came across a very devout Catholic philanthropist named Carl Karcher. If ever there was an example of what happens when you don’t keep the business in the family, or at least with trusted friends, it’s the moral demise of Carl’s Jr., his hamburger chain. Nothing wrong with the food, it’s the advertising.
He started out in 1941 with a hot dog cart on the corner of Florence and Central in South Central Los Angeles. He borrowed $300 off his car and his wife pitched in $15 of her own to get a license and set up the stand. They were off. By 1945, the Karchers were able to open their first restaurant, Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue, in Anaheim. By 1975, they had one hundred fast food restaurants. By 1981 there were three hundred. Today there are over one thousand, including a number in foreign countries. In 1997 Carl’s Jr. purchased the Hardee chain. After McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s Carl’s Jr. is the fourth largest fast food hamburger chain in the U.S.
The founder’s opposition to certain business ventures and marketing practices promoted by the Board of Directors led to his ouster as Chief Executive Officer in 1993. After that sleazy commercials for the fast food chain were run on television, which were geared at bringing in more business from young uncouth urbanites. One campaign motto was “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face.” Then came Dennis Rodman, with one of his tattoos becoming animated and munching down a burger. Paris Hilton also contributed in an ad not worth describing. Another ad had a rap group singing sexually suggestive lyrics. In 2003 the company went so far as to hire Hugh Hefner for more TV ads. Karcher was very upset and publicly denounced the ads, saying that he was “just heartbroken that a company he founded on Christian principles has taken such an amoral act”. But enough of that. If Mr. Karcher had to do it all over again I am sure he would hire only those executives whom he knew shared his values.
Carl and Margaret Magdalen Karcher raised twelve children, one of whom, Jerome, is a priest in the Orange County diocese of California. He has been very active in creating mercy houses for the homeless and those afflicted with AIDS. He remembers how his father would make sure everyone in the family went to Mass every day during Lent. Carl himself attended Mass every day all year round before heading off to work. Daily family Rosary after dinner was also a must in the Karcher household.
So what’s the moral to be learned? “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” as the Chinese General Sun Tzu advised 2400 years ago? No. “Know your enemy?” Fine, if his enmity is easily detectable.
For whatever my opinion is worth, I’d say Carl Karcher probably listened to bad advisers rather than his own heart. When you are as financially successful as he was, you only allow on your Board of Directors people who agree with your principles. And you keep the number of members small. Apparently Mr. Karcher was too trusting a fellow. He didn’t experience much of the world in his younger years, which may have made him a bit naïve. He did, in fact, quit school after eighth grade to work with his father on a farm. I’d guess that he was a very simple man, and a man without guile.
I am sure that there have been many successful companies, owned by good Catholics, who allowed their life’s work to be taken over by some very smart and smooth talking assistant. But the case of Carl Karcher is particularly disturbing because he was such an exemplary Catholic. In fact, the only negative memory that any of his children had about being a Karcher was that dad wouldn’t allow any of his restaurants to give them free food.
Carl Karcher died on January 11, 2008. Contributor to so many good causes, Catholic and patriotic, pro-life and pro-family, Knight of Malta, may his magnanimous soul rest in peace.
