About book Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun?: How Reginald Lewis Created A Billion-Dollar Business Empire (2005)
Before there was Oprah there was Reginald F. Lewis. So who is Reginald F. Lewis? Wall Street lawyer and financier who in 1987, achieved what many thought was an impossible feat. At that time, "the billion-dollar LBO (leveraged buyout) of Beatrice International Foods was the largest offshore leveraged buyout ever pulled off." Retold in a semi-autobiographical format, Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? - How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire by Reginald F. Lewis and Blair S. Walker.Born and raised in East Baltimore, Maryland, the seeds of success were planted at an early age. Educated in the Baltimore public school system, he was a bright student, star quarterback in high school, and football scholarship recipient to Virginia State University in Richmond, Virginia. "He always had an agenda, a sense of purpose and direction," which served him well in both the legal and business worlds.In his junior year of college he was chosen to participate in a new summer program at Harvard University that was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to "acquaint black college students with legal study." As a result of his experience he ended up being "the only person in the [148 year] history of Harvard Law School who was admitted before he applied." Reginald F. Lewis eventually started his own law practice Lewis & Clarkson and specialized in venture capital interests. This provided the foundation for TLC (The Lewis Company) acquisition of McCall Pattern Company; which resulted in a 90-1 gain and doubled McCall's income for the next two years and earned 12 and 14 million respectively. This set the stage for the billion-dollar Beatrice acquisition. This book lays out in detail the what, when, where, how, and why, it is essentially a manual for others to follow.THOUGHTS for your SOUL:•"In 1965, the highest ranking black faculty member at Harvard University was the assistant reference librarian."•"Colors and labels have a way categorizing people and creating artificial constraints around people and the way they think about themselves."•"Take a global perspective, don't neglect international studies, train your students to learn about international law, international business and tax."This is not a story about an African-American man, but rather a story about a man who against all odds lived the adage "luck happens when preparation meets opportunity."- Seneca. Most people want to leave a legacy of some sort, something that said "I was here." Mr. Lewis died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage brought on by the cancerous tumor on his brain at the age of 50 in 1993. Here are a some of his legacies:•The Chairman and CEO of TLC Beatrice Corporation.•The Lewis International Law Center on the grounds of Harvard University.•The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland.•The Reginald F. Lewis High School of Business Law in Baltimore, Maryland.His accomplishments are an example of a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." Driven by desire and determination, he wanted to compete and win, irrespective of race. He loved the game, did the work, took the risks and eventually won! Reginald F. Lewis exceeded everyone's expectations except his own.
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I finally read Reginald Lewis biography after I met his biographer a few weeks ago. As a black woman who did her undergraduate work at an HBCU, I am disappointed that his story and accomplishments were not part of the curriculum. Now for the review: the book is well-written, thoroughly researched, and balanced in the treatment of Mr. Lewis' favorable and unfavorable attributes. That is what I like to see in biography (which incidentally is my favorite genre) - a complete picture of a flawed yet remarkable person. Mr. Walker accomplishes that with this work. As far as the subject, Mr. Lewis, is concerned, there is so much to admire and respect. He had the courage to go after what he wanted. True courageousness, not just reflexes that arise in a crisis, but the deliberate audacity to want big things, to plan how to obtain them and then to execute on his plans. I also admire the way he understood that formal education is just the beginning. School taught him how to think and how to research, but most of the knowledge he used to build his empire was self taught. He knew where the answers were, accessed the information, learned how the game was being played on the highest levels and then courageously grabbed his piece of the pie. It is for this reason that his biography should be among the books that supplement the theory in college textbooks.
—Shavon Jones
