Word: burrs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...aspects of his life, Burr, 44, is gripped by something he calls the "perfection imperative." He quit smoking 2½ years ago, for example, wants to lose 20 lbs. and frets about his caffeine habit. Burr thinks everyone has the same imperative, but his constant effort to draw it out of subordinates can sometimes backfire. Four top aides have quit, and another was fired. Said one insider: "He divides the world into people who overdeliver and those who underdeliver...
Distantly related to Aaron Burr, who was Thomas Jefferson's Vice President when he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, the People Express chairman was a brash achiever from the start. His father was an M.I.T.-trained engineer and his mother a social worker, and young Burr remembers going to the neighborhood drugstore to admire not only its candy counter but also the proprietor's efficient storekeeping methods. In high school Burr sang in the barbershop quartet and played saxophone in the band. He went in for varsity soccer, basketball and baseball, and proceeded straight to the expert slope...
...Burr went on to earn an economics degree at Stanford and a Harvard M.B.A. He always had a fascination with airlines, and so at 24 he took a job at Wall Street's National Aviation, a mutual fund dealing in airline securities. Six years later, after proving an astute stock picker, he became its president. He left in 1973 to join troubled Texas International Airlines and rose to be chief operating officer within three years. One of his first steps was to begin trying out radical fare discounts to boost business. But Burr soon began to form a more revolutionary...
...absolutely fearless," a member of People's board of directors observes. "He takes business risks that are unbelievable." As he assembled People Express in Newark, the new boss used Army-style screening tests to make sure job applicants had the same daring spirit that he did. By November 1980 Burr had gathered together a band of renegades who were attracted by People's you're-the-boss structure. They included a flight scheduler and a personnel manager. The new company issued stock, raising enough cash to buy 17 used 737 jets. Five months later People Express made its maiden flight...
Since then People's rapid growth has put immense pressure on Burr. A member of People's board of directors even feared that the company's acquisition of Frontier in October might be "a bridge too far for him" in terms of work load. Indeed, Burr often rises as early as 5:30 a.m. and begins work in the study of his white clapboard home in Bernardsville, N.J. There he toils all day Mondays, usually wearing a flannel shirt, baggy jeans and deck shoes. During the rest of the week he dons a business suit and drives 40 minutes...