Frederick Leo Turner (January 6, 1933 – January 7, 2013) was an American restaurant industry executive, chair and CEO of

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

. He is credited with helping to massively expand McDonald's, introducing new meals and setting service standards for the company and its employees.

Early life

Turner grew up in Des Moines and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, going to high school at Dowling Catholic High School, and graduated from

Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States. His ...

in 1954. After college, he served in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Career

Turner began his career at McDonald's in 1956 as a grill operator and was quickly promoted. He was named Operations Vice President in 1958, when the firm had only 34 restaurants. In that role, he established strict guidelines for how McDonald's hamburgers and other products had to be served - including that fries "had to be precisely 0.28 inches thick", and that "exactly ten patties had to be formed from each pound of beef". "Quality, Service and Cleanliness" became his motto. He became Executive Vice President in 1967, then President and Chief Administrative Officer in 1968. He became CEO in 1973 and replaced

Kroc Kroc is a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Janae Kroc (born 1972), bodybuilder and powerlifter * Joan Kroc (1929–2003), American philanthropist * Ray Kroc Raymond Albert Kroc (October 5, 1902 – January 14, 1984) was an ...

as Chairman in 1977, later named Senior Chairman upon Kroc's death. Under Turner, McDonald's expanded its operations to 118 countries, with over 31,000 outlets, and more than a billion hamburgers were sold. He retired in 2004, after which he served as Honorary Chairman.

Awards and memberships

Turner served as a director for

Aon Corporation Aon PLC () is a British-American multinational financial services firm that sells a range of risk-mitigation products, including Commercial Risk, Investment, Wealth and Reinsurance solutions, as well as boutique strategy consulting through Aon ...

, Baxter International, and

W. W. Grainger W. W. Grainger, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago by William W. (Bill) Grainger. He founded the company in order to provide consumers with access to a consistent supply of motors. The company n ...

. He received the

Horatio Alger Award The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, that was founded in 1947 to honor the achievements of outstanding Americans who have succeeded in spite of adversity and to emphas ...

in 1991. He was a member of the Bohemian Club and

Sigma Phi Epsilon Sigma Phi Epsilon (), commonly known as SigEp, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College (now the University of Richmond), and its national headquarte ...

Personal life

On June 22, 1954, soon after graduating college, Turner married fellow Drake graduate Patricia Shurtleff. The couple had three daughters. Patricia died on October 9, 2000. Fred Turner died on January 7, 2013, the day after his 80th birthday, due to complications from pneumonia.

Pop culture

Fred Turner has a small reference to his position as a grill operator in the 2016 film ''

The Founder ''The Founder'' is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by John Lee Hancock and written by Robert Siegel. Starring Michael Keaton as businessman Ray Kroc, the film portrays the story of his creation of the McDonald's fast-food rest ...

'', which portrays the creation of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. At a later point in the plot in this same movie, Fred Turner has a much larger presence, during Ray Kroc's successful attempts to open up McDonald's restaurants in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. He is also amply portrayed in season 2, episode 12 "Game of Chicken" of The History Channel series '' The Food That Built America''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Fred L. 1933 births Drake University alumni 2013 deaths McDonald's people Businesspeople from Des Moines, Iowa American business executives United States Army soldiers 20th-century American businesspeople