Page 10 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Foreword

ahead of the competition. And the driving force behind the
organization started with Ray and Fred and has been carried
through to today’s leadership under current CEO Jim Skinner.
I’m not only proud of the role I played in the company’s suc-
cess, but also grateful to have realized that you can’t do any-
thing without people, without teamwork. McDonald’s is built
on a chassis of growth opportunities, business opportunities,
systems, trust, and, yes, fun. And like many other “Evergreens”
(alumni of McDonald’s retirees) these elements resonate with
me still. I’ve brought these essentials to one of my great passions,
auto racing. As the owner of a leading NASCAR Nationwide
Series racing team, Team Rensi Motorsports, I still practice the
McDonald’s commonsense business approach. In my McDon-
ald’s days, I looked at the organization’s corporate employees,
franchisees, and vendors as partners. And I do the same with
Team Rensi, whether I’m collaborating with the administrative
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staff, crew, the guys in the shop, or sponsors. Together, our work
is inspirational and enjoyable.
I first met Paul Facella back in the early 1970s. Like me, Paul
began his tenure at McDonald’s as crew, working on the restau-
rant floor back in 1966. Both of us were grillmen, and we never
forgot our roots in the daily operations of our business. Paul
rose through the organization, ultimately running the New York
region, growing it to $600 million in revenues and one of the
top-performing regions in the country consistently during the
time that I ran the USA division. Paul was the perfect guy, liv-
ing in the perfect place, running the region right with the per-
fect group of operators. A New Yorker through and through,
he knew the territory and its challenges better than any of us.
He built an extraordinary team of licensees and staff. Was he
flawless? No, none of us were. But he did whatever needed
doing when it needed to be done. And when I pushed, you can
be sure he had the courage to question if he believed it was the