Word: decio
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Behind the Store. Why the rapid growth? One major reason, says Arthur Decio, 38, founder, chairman and president of Skyline Corp., of Elkhart, Ind., is that "some years ago, builders just decided to forget about low-income groups. This was our opportunity, and we are trying to make the most of it." Last year Decio's Skyline sold about 30,000 mobile homes and 12,000 travel trailers, more than any other U.S. firm. For the company's fiscal year, which ended May 31, it earned almost $9,000,000 on sales of $180 million, a jump...
...Decio himself is worth at least $70 million.* The son of an Italian immigrant grocer, he grew up in Elkhart next to the railroad tracks. When he was 21, he went to work in the garage behind the grocery store, where his father built mobile homes in his spare time. Later, Decio invested his savings of $3,200, talked friends into putting up $7,000, and began to introduce some method into what was then a helter-skelter industry. Borrowing some ideas from auto manufacturers, he offered many different models and sold them through competing dealers. From the garage...
Next to inefficient workers, Decio abhors waste. He believes that its most flagrant form is the payment of interest on borrowed money. Thus, Skyline's expansion has all come out of profits; it has no outstanding debt at all. Because of the tremendous need for low-cost housing, Decio can name his own terms. When his dealers order mobile homes, for example, they must pay in advance -an unusual practice in any industry where each unit for sale represents a large investment of cash...
...Decio was one of six men featured in TIME'S cover story on young millionaires, Dec. 3, 1965. Since then, his wealth has risen from...
...decided early in life to be their own bosses. Most of them started earning money while still children: by the time he was 13, Arthur Carlsberg had been a caddy, gardener, seed salesman and fruit trader. Many of them, like Merlyn Mickelson, never went to college; others, like Arthur Decio and Charles Bluhdorn, impatiently dropped out of college in order to study in the marketplace. At the beginning of their careers, they lived lean, often taking shoestring salaries in order to pump profits back into their enterprises. In his first plant, Mickelson doubled as a floor-sweeping janitor. Many...