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Dave Thomas has one of the most recognizable faces in America, despite the fact that he died on January 8, 2002. This is largely because he appeared in over 800 commercials between 1989 and his death to advertise his entrepreneurial venture, Wendy’s. Dave Thomas was a born entrepreneur and exhibited the signs of that from an early age, despite the fact that he ended up getting fired from his first job in the food industry. As such, he is an example of why you should never give up your dream.

An Early Start

David Thomas was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on July 2, 1932. However, he was never to know his real parents. He was adopted by Rex and Auleva Thomas and raised as their own. He did have a happy childhood and was taught the core values of respect, hard work and treating others as you would want to be treated yourself. Whether his parents knew it or not at that time, Dave Thomas was to be an important and esteemed entrepreneur that lived and worked by those very values, and it was those values that made him as successful as he was.

Dave Thomas has little in the way of an education because he did not graduate high school until much later on in life. He was working from the age of 12 in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. The entrepreneur’s first job was actually at a restaurant but did not last for long because he was fired after just a few weeks. Promising himself that he would never lose another job, the entrepreneur went on to another restaurant when his family moved to Indiana and then dropped out when they planned to move again to take care of himself from then on. At the time, he was just 15 years of age.

The Army And Beyond

As he was old enough to be drafted at the time of the Korean War, Thomas decided to go into the US Army on his own terms and chose to join the Cooks And Baker’s School at Fort Benning. It was there he learned to cater for up to 2000 people at one time and this was a key skill in his entrepreneurial ventures a few years later.

Thomas left the Army in 1953 and moved into the fast food business. A Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was failing badly and Thomas was given the opportunity to turn it around. He succeeded by simplifying the amount of dishes on offer and working closely with Colonel Sanders himself to ensure that KFC thrived as a business. This was not enough for the entrepreneur though. After helping KFC to get back on its feet again, Thomas set about fulfilling a lifelong dream – to own his own restaurant.

Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers

After selling his franchises in KFC, Thomas used the proceeds to form his own restaurant. He opened the very first Wendy’s in Columbus, Ohio after formulating a plan to bring back old-fashioned hamburgers, which was something that the fast food industry lacked at that time. Over the next few years, Wendy’s gained a reputation in the local area and Thomas the entrepreneur spotted a chance that he felt he just had to take. Copying the method behind KFC, he began to franchise Wendy’s and soon the chain filled spaces in the fast food market all over the United States.

Dave Thomas officially retired in 1982, but his retirement was to be short lived because the new owners did not seem to have the vision that he had. They made many mistakes that the entrepreneur had successfully avoided making for years and so Thomas returned to prevent his original vision from crumbling. From then until his death twenty years later, Thomas acted as a spokesman for hard work and core values that the business had began to lack. It is those core values that every other budding entrepreneur could learn from. After all, Dave Thomas was the heart and soul of Wendy’s and ensured its survival to the present day.

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