An American Icon
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Some final thoughts on Dave Thomas.
He's gone now and for me, it hits hard. Not only because was one of the best chief executives I ever knew, but because he was so damn decent.
I mean this guy really was the guy in those commercials. Earnest. Offbeat. Genuine. The real thing.
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He had his fortune and status, but you'd never know it. And his clothes certainly didn't reflect it. He was just an average guy, he would tell me, who loved burgers.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him dozens of times over the last nearly 20 years and each and every time he was the perfect gentleman. Not only to me — you'd almost expect that, after all, I was profiling him for TV. But to his people.
You know, they say you can tell a lot about a big guy by how he treats the so-called little guys around him.
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I remember on one occasion, a production assistant on a commercial suit accidentally spilled a soda on him, disrupting the entire taping. The P.A. was petrified. Thomas just came up to him and said, "given my shirt, I think you improved it."
He put everyone at ease.
A CEO who was a human being. Who smiled and joked. At others and at himself.
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And he gave back, to causes he held dear, like adoption and scores of other charities to which he lent his considerable good name.
Am I fawning a bit? Perhaps.
But there's no way I can be unbiased here. He was among the first CEOs I ever interviewed and he will always rank among the best.
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Dave Thomas, dead at age 69.
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