Word: mize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Texas empire builders like Ross Perot, James Ling and Haroldson L. Hunt have a penchant for headlines -but D. (for Davis) Doyle Mize does not. A self-effacing entrepreneur known by only a few in the upper echelons of business, Mize, 48, is chairman of Houston's Southdown, Inc. In three years under Mize, Southdown has acquired a cluster of companies that drill for oil, develop land, refine sugar, make cement and sell beer, pushing its sales up from $35 million to $182 million, with net profits of $38 million last year. Now Mize is spreading into the thriving...
...Mize's method is to buy relatively small, family-owned, money-earning companies and then rapidly increase their profits by hiring new managers, paring payrolls and investing in modern machines and plants. His record of successes has brought him into the clubby inner circle of Houston's top businessmen and bankers, who lend him money to make deals. Speaking of his own wealth, Mize says, with some understatement: "I'm not big rich, but I'm damned comfortable...
...poor Texas farmer, Mize dropped out of the University of Houston and went to work as a bench hand for an oil-exploration company. He moved up to become a salesman and then climbed through a succession of corporate jobs to become president of Mandrel Industries, an oilfield-equipment manufacturer. Naturally, he bought some stock in Mandrel and, when the company was sold in 1963, he had a bankroll...