Preston Mitchell Fleet (February 26, 1934 – January 31, 1995), nicknamed Sandy, was the founder of

Fotomat Fotomat was an American retail chain of photo development drive-through kiosks located primarily in shopping center parking lots. Fotomat Corporation was founded by Preston Fleet in San Diego, California, in the 1960s, with the first kiosk ope ...

. Fotomat was a once-widespread retail chain of

photo A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now crea ...

development

drive-thru A drive-through or drive-thru (a sensational spelling of the word ''through''), is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars. The format was pioneered in the Unite ...

kiosks located in shopping center parking lots. He was a son of aerospace pioneer Reuben H. Fleet. Fleet co-founded

WD-40 WD-40 is an American brand and the trademark of a penetrating oil manufactured by the WD-40 Company based in San Diego, California. The formula for WD-40 was invented for the Rocket Chemical Company as early as 1953 before it evolved into ...

in 1953, then went on to co-found Fotomat in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

, in 1965; the first kiosk was opened in

Point Loma Point Loma (Spanish: ''Punta de la Loma'', meaning "Hill Point"; Kumeyaay: ''Amat Kunyily'', meaning "Black Earth") is a seaside community within the city of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the w ...

in 1965). The company went public in 1971 and was listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

(NYSE) in 1977. At its peak around 1980 there were over 4,000 Fotomats throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, primarily in suburban areas. Fotomats were distinctive for their pyramid-shaped gold-colored roofs and signs with red-lettering, usually positioned in a large parking area such as a supermarket or

strip mall A strip mall, strip center or strip plaza is a type of shopping center common in North America where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. ...

, as the Fotomat huts required a minimal amount of land and were able to accommodate cars driving up to drop off or pick up film.LA Times
Obituaries: Preston Fleet, 60; Fotomat Founder February 03, 1995 He was a co-founder of San Diego's

Reuben H. Fleet Science Center The Fleet Science Center (previously the 'Reuben H. Fleet Science Center') is a science museum and planetarium in Balboa Park, located in San Diego, California. It is at the east end of the El Prado Drive walkway, next to the Bea Evenson Fountain ...

and Space Museum. He helped design the Science Center to have a special

movie projector A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying motion picture film by projecting it onto a screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras. Mod ...

Omnimax IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme F ...

, housed in a dome wall and ceiling that makes the audience feel as if they are moving like the camera did when filming. A decade earlier he had been a founding director of the

San Diego Air and Space Museum San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM, formerly the San Diego Aerospace Museum) is an aviation and space exploration museum in San Diego, California, United States. The museum is located in Balboa Park and is housed in the former Ford Building, ...

. Fleet's hobbies were

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot a ...

and playing

theater organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements o ...

s. He was for a time the president of the National Theatre Organ Society. He attended

Culver Military Academy Culver Academies is a college preparatory boarding school located in Culver, Indiana, which is composed of three entities: Culver Military Academy (CMA) for boys, Culver Girls Academy (CGA), and the Culver Summer Schools and Camps (CSSC). Culver ...

. His third wife was Beth Palmer Fleet and was survived by sons Justin Fleet and L. Alexander Fleet, and step-sons Drew Palmer, Darryl Gray and Derek Gray. His eldest son, Allen Mitchell Fleet, died 1991. Film Credits *

Chronos Chronos (; grc-gre, Χρόνος, , "time"), also spelled Khronos or Chronus, is a personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature. Chronos is frequently confused with, or perhaps consciously identified with, the Tita ...

(Consulting Producer) * Shinbone Alley (Producer) * Run If You Can (Executive Producer) * Cabaret (film) (Producer) *

The Man Who Would Be King "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a story by Rudyard Kipling about two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan. The story was first published in '' The Phantom Rickshaw and other E ...

(Producer)

References

External links

Family photographs of Preston Mitchell Fleet

1934 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople Culver Academies alumni Businesspeople from San Diego {{US-business-bio-stub