![]() Now everybody will want to take my idea.” “He said, ‘Son, I’m madder than hell about it. Gary Neeleman remembers his father’s reaction to the national publicity. The all-day, all-night business’ reputation spread to the point that the national magazine Argosy sent a reporter and photographer to Salt Lake City to do a feature story on “the biggest little store in America.” The first Miniature Market on 600 South and State Street was such a hit he opened two more, one on 3300 South and another on Highland Drive. His idea was to create a store that would be open at all hours and conveniently provide everything anyone needed, including freshly made sandwiches. He had noticed that large supermarket chains were driving the traditional corner markets out of business. But in 1951 nobody knew that term because Johnny Neeleman had just invented the concept. Today they’d be called convenience stores. ![]() ‘All about family’: How those closest to Zach Wilson - Ute fans to the core - influenced his football trajectory and played a hand in landing him at BYUīut to get to the original high-energy source you have to go back to John “Johnny” Neeleman, David’s grandfather.īorn in 1911 to Dutch immigrants who arrived in Utah with their membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the catalyst that brought them here, and little else, John Neeleman went from nothing to own and operate no less than nine businesses in his lifetime, among them a chain of stores he called Miniature Markets. ![]() BYU’s Zach Wilson: Inside the making of a future first-round NFL draft pick.The family tree is full of stories of innovation, overachieving and never slowing down.ĭavid’s younger brother Stephen, for example, built from scratch Draper-based HealthEquity, the largest health care savings plan in the nation his father, Gary, rose from cub reporter to the top echelons of United Press International - and today at 87 remains Brazilian Honorary Consul for Utah and with his wife, Rose, is working on their 13th book and you may have heard of his nephew Zach Wilson, his sister Lisa and husband Mike Wilson’s son, the expected high first-round NFL draft pick this year despite being a lightly recruited quarterback out of high school - to list just a few of many examples. He wasn’t the first Neeleman to act like this, nor the last. It was the public’s first glimpse into his ability to look at what everyone else was looking at and see opportunities and improvements no else could see. That’s how the entrepreneurial force that is David Neeleman began. There was money to make and deals to be made. When it turned out there was a healthy market for the rentals, Neeleman upped the ante and partnered with airlines and hotels to create low-cost Hawaiian getaway packages. He took out an ad in the newspaper (this was 1981, people did that back then) offering Hawaii condos for $50 to $75 a night. That set Neeleman’s mind to whirling: If they’re just sitting empty, why not rent the condos until they’re sold? He was in his second year at the university just another business major looking to get started on his first million, when a classmate told him about a relative who was having trouble selling timeshares at a condo project he owned in Honolulu. ![]() You might say his secret to success is getting bankrupted, laid off or fired. That’s the motivation that created Morris Air, WestJet, JetBlue and Azul, all of them airlines that went where others didn’t and did things others wouldn’t.Īnd that’s the motivation behind Breeze, his new airline headquartered along the Wasatch Front in Cottonwood Heights scheduled to open this summer that will connect regional cities and “fly where people don’t fly,” in addition to revolutionizing the flight attendant industry and setting new standards in being “nice.”Īlmost 40 years ago, he was working toward a degree at the University of Utah when he took the first of the many detours that have defined his career. Ask him why, and he’ll tell you it’s for two simple reasons: When he sees a niche he likes to fill it, and he loves to make life better for people.
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