A Lifetime of Planning Pays Off

"You gotta be crazy!" That's what Lee Dunham's friends told him back in
1971 when he gave up a secure job as a police officer and invested his life savings
in the notoriously risky restaurant business. This particular restaurant was more
than just risky, it was downright dangerous. It would be the first McDonald's
franchise in the city of New York - smack in the middle of crime-ridden Harlem.

Lee had always had plans. When other kids were playing ball in the empty lots of
Brooklyn, Lee was playing entrepreneur, collecting milk bottles and returning them
to grocery stores for the deposits. He had his own shoeshine stand and worked
delivering newspapers and groceries. Early on, he promised his mother that one day
she would never again have to wash other people's clothes for a living. He was going
to start his own business and support her. "Hush your mouth and do your homework,"
she told him. She knew that no member of the Dunham family had ever risen above the
level oflaborer, let alone owned a business. "There's no way you're going to open
your own business," his mother told him repeatedly.

Years passed, but Lee's penchant for dreaming and planning did not. After high school,
he joined the Air Force, where his goal of one day owning a family restaurant began to
take shape. He enrolled in the Air Force food service school and became such an
accomplished cook he was promoted to the officers' dining hall.

When he left the Air Force, he worked for four years in several restaurants, including
one in the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Lee longed to start his own
restaurant but felt he lacked the business skills to be successful. He signed up for
business school and took classes at night while he applied and was hired to be a police
officer.

For fifteen years he worked full-time as a police officer. In his off-hours, he worked
part-time as a carpenter and continued to attend business school. And he had started
saving and preparing for his dream. By 1971, Lee had saved $42,000, and it was time for
him to make his vision a reality.

Lee wanted to open an upscale restaurant in Brooklyn. With a business plan in hand, he
set out to seek financing. The banks refused him. Unable to get funding to open an
independent restaurant, lee turned to franchising and filled out numerous applications.
McDonald's offered him a franchise, with one stipulation: Lee had to set up a McDonald's in
the inner-city, the first to be located there. McDonald's wanted to find out if its type
of fast-food restaurant could be successful in the inner city. It seemed that Lee might be
the right person to operate that first restaurant.

To get the franchise, Lee would have to invest his life savings and borrow $150,000 more.
Everything for which he'd worked and sacrificed all those years would be on the line - a
very thin line if he believed his friends. Lee spent many sleepless nights before making
his decision. He decided this was it. The years of preparation he'd invested - the
dreaming, planning, studying and saving now had a vehicle to make them a reality. He signed
on the dotted line to operate the first inner-city McDonald's in the United States.

The first few months were a disaster. Gang fights, gunfire, and other violent incidents
plagued his restaurant and scared customers away. Inside, employees stole his food and
cash, and his safe was broken into routinely. To make matters worse, Lee couldn't get
any help from McDonald's headquarters; the company's representatives were too afraid to
venture into the ghetto. Lee was on his own.

Although he had been robbed of his merchandise, his profits, and his confidence, Lee was
not going to be robbed of his dream. Lee fell back on what he had always believed in -
preparation and planning.

Lee put together a strategy. First, he sent a strong message to the neighborhood thugs that
McDonald's wasn't going to be their turf. To make his ultimatum stick, he needed to offer an
alternative to crime and violence. In the eyes of those kids, Lee saw the same look of
helplessness he had seen in his own family. He knew that there was hope and opportunity in that
neighborhood and he was going to prove it to the kids. He decided to serve more than meals to
his community - he would serve dreams and solutions. He was going to make their obstacles their
stepping stones.

Lee spoke openly with gang members, challenging them to rebuild their lives. Then he did what
some might say was unthinkable: he hired gang members and put them to work. He tightened up his
operation and conducted spot checks. He continually taught his employees the need for honesty
and a good reputation if they were to succeed in life. Lee improved working conditions and once
a week he offered his employees classes in customer service and management. He encouraged them
to develop personal and professional goals. He always stressed two things: his restaurant
offered a way out of a dead-end life; and the faster and more efficiently the employees served
the customers, the more lucrative that way would be.

In the community, Lee sponsored athletic teams and scholarships to get kids off the streets and
into community centers and schools. The New York inner-city restaurant became a hub for ghetto
kids to get a new start and dream new dreams. And in the process, it became McDonald's most
profitable franchise worldwide, earning more than $1.5 million a year. Company representatives
who wouldn't set foot in Harlem months earlier now flocked to Lee's doors, eager to learn how he
did it. To Lee, the answer was simple: "Serve the customers, the employees, and the community-
dreams, goals and solutions along with hamburgers."

Today, Lee Dunham owns nine restaurants, employs 435 people, and serves thousands of meals every
day. It's been many years since his mother had to take in wash to pay the bills. More importantly,
Lee paved the way for thousands of African-American entrepreneurs who are working to make their
dreams a reality, helping their communities, and serving up hope.

All this was possible because a little boy understood the need to dream, to plan, and to prepare
for the future. In doing so, he changed his life and the lives of thousands of others.

Cynthia Kersey
Excerpted/Adapted from Unstoppable
Copyright 1988 by Cynthia Kersey, www.unstoppable.net

"May All of Your Dreams Become Goals"

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