- [Voiceover] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- One of the greatest things that can be said of us when our life is done, is that we had a life well- lived.

In September, 2023, Tampa Bay business leader, and humanitarian extraordinaire, Fred Fisher, passed away at age 92.

He had a life well-lived.

After achieving nationwide business success early in his career, he dedicated his next 40 years to innovative philanthropy, and making life better for others.

The "Suncoast Business Forum" profiled Fred Fisher back in 2006, when we were all a lot younger.

We're proud to revisit that profile, of a man who truly led a life well-lived - [Voiceover] "Suncoast Business Forum," brought to you by the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice, and banking, and capital markets expertise, all with a commitment to putting clients' financial wellbeing first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

(bright music) - In the late 1960s, home building was pretty much a local business.

That is, until a small group of Tampa Bay businessmen decided to buy up home builders around the US, and merge them into one big company.

That's how US Homes was started, and quickly became the largest home builder in America.

Well, one of those men was Fred Fisher, a local accountant who became the financial engineer who helped grow US Homes, from $20 million in revenues, to more than one billion, in a little over 10 years.

Fred, welcome to the "Suncoast Business Forum."

- Thank you.

Glad to be here.

- Now, let's go back to those days.

In the 1960s, you were a CPA working here in Pinellas County with a young family.

And a couple of your clients who were home builders, got together, and you put together US Homes, small company.

How did this all come about?

- Well, like many things, it was sort of fortuitous, but one of my clients, Art Ruttenberg, went to a home show in Dallas, and met a young man by the name of Bob Winerman, who really had the vision of taking what has been a up and down business in many, you know, urban communities in the nation, and putting a lot of them together.

And perhaps that would take some of the volatility out of the industry.

And keep in mind that at that point, there were not any large builders.

The largest builder in the country was Levitt in Levittown, doing about $90 million.

So Artie came back, and said, "You know, this guy Winerman made a good story.

"Maybe you ought to go visit his business."

I got on an airplane, went to Freehold, New Jersey, came back, and subsequently we went back up there with their investment banker, shook hands in July of '68, 1968, and proceeded then to go into a registration, and a merger, added Charlie Ruttenberg, Art's brother.

So at that point, it was Art, Charlie, Bob Winerman, and I left public accounting.

And on February 18th, 1969, we went effective and it was then US Home Corporation.

Prior to that, Bob had had a little company called US Home and Development Corporation.

- So you all took a leap of faith.

- Yeah, but you know, we were young enough, and we didn't think it was too big a leap.

- Now over that next 12 years, you went from $20 million in revenues, all the way up to a billion dollars.

You were involved in dozens of mergers, and acquisitions.

- 27, something like that.

- And you're working with Wall Street on a regular basis, doing financing, and stock offerings and so forth.

What did that period say about Fred Fisher then, and what Fred Fisher was to become?

- Well, it was a period of a lot of learning.

And of course we had, we were able to assemble a wonderful board of directors, which, you know, were sort of mentors in that sense, like I enjoyed much of my life, some good mentors.

You know, we had the chairman of the board of Electrolux, we had the former chairman of General Motors.

We had an investment banker from a very national investment banking firm.

So I wasn't alone in the financial affairs of that company, but having set out this strategic plan of acquiring companies doing like a hundred, maybe 150 homes, and those were large then, and then capitalizing them so that we could grow them to maybe 500 or a thousand homes.

You had to go into regular urban areas, with a substantial population.

And we set out to do that in 19, we went effective in '69, and 1971, we were the second largest offer of equity securities in the nation, because we did two different offerings that year, six acquisitions each time.

So it was an exciting, very busy time, very little time off, but learning, and it was a wonderful opportunity, when you think of coming from Clearwater, Florida, to be exposed to that opportunity.

- And you were creating an industry that is large now, the home building industry, you were creating that scale.

- Well, that's right.

In '71, when we went on, I think, with July the 10th or something, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and bought the first hundred shares, we were suddenly doing 300 million, and were the largest actually at that point.

I think there was another one or two close to us.

And it was a new industry.

You know, historically there wasn't any public companies in housing.

So we had an advantage, and an opportunity, because, you know, we created things that had never been done.

Unsecured credit for a home builder was unheard of prior to that.

But if you're building 16,000 homes, you don't want to have every draw inspection on, you know, so it's obvious that we had an opportunity.

We did our own self-insurance, private, captive, mortgage-backed bonds had a lot of fun.

- Let's back up, and let's go back to your youth, and let's discuss how your youth, and your upbringing, may have laid the foundation for the challenges that you were to meet in the years to come.

You grew up in Illinois, am I right?

- Juliet, Illinois, yeah.

- Let's talk about growing up in Joliet, and your family.

- Well, I didn't have a lot of family, but my mom and I, from the time I was five, were together.

I had an older brother who when they divorced, went to live with my dad.

I had next door, probably a real asset, I had an aunt and uncle, and that was sort of it.

But he was a good mentor for me, and spent some time.

And then I had the real advantage of not having a lot, so I could go to work.

I was a big kid, and I went to work across Otto's Root Beer Stand, across the, kitty corner from our house, and Otto Lankinau just became a real mentor and dear friend.

Later, he lived in here in Dunedin, he and Sadie.

And I used to take him to dinner, and thank him for being part of my life.

I waited cars, got tips, got 25 cents an hour.

- How, how old were you when you started?

- Eight years old.

- And then you worked at where?

Otto's?

- I opened in the spring, and I helped him set up the signs before we opened.

- This was?

- A drive-in back in those days.

- Hamburgers, and shakes, and that?

- Beef, pork, hot dogs, sodas.

And he made his own root beer, Otto's Root Beer.

And it was wonderful.

It was lasted, what, four or five years, until we, you know, lost the house, and moved on to Chicago.

Anyway, I just look back and say, I probably would've been taken from my mother, if it were 2006, but as it turned out, it didn't seem to hurt me, and I certainly wasn't abused.

- You weren't abused, but you were a child working at the age of eight.

and a Social Security card, and yeah, the whole thing.

I had a checking account at 12, so I mean, I was blessed to be able to do that.

- Well, in many ways you were the man of the house, right?

- Yeah, I was a little man.

(laughing) - Well, you continued to work all throughout your years at school.

You continued to have jobs, am I right?

- Oh, yes, oh yes.

I learned a lot about, well, of course, when I was in Joliet, I was an entrepreneur, you know, I raised chickens, and sold them in the neighborhood, and had a vegetable garden, which in 1941, became a victory garden in the war.

You know, everybody had a victory garden then.

And, I would, you know, sell the vegetables, and kill the chickens, and pluck 'em.

And so I've always been inclined to be busy.

And when we moved to Chicago, I made beds, and ran the switchboard in the, well I can't remember the name of the hotel, but it was on the Lakeshore.

And you know, worked in drugstore.

I plucked chickens up there too, and ducks, even on holiday, there was a little place down the street there.

Pay sometimes was getting a duck or a chicken, and some vegetables.

That was the payday.

But yeah, I've always had a lot of fun working.

- Now your mother lost the home in Joliet, to foreclosure?

- Yeah, that was the, where we grew up.

But you know, back then they did mortgages that all came due at once.

And when it came due, and she was making like $20 a week, and mine didn't count, you know, no one would give her a mortgage.

So we lost the house, and moved to Chicago.

It was a three story walk up, on a block north of Wrigley Field, which was another great thing, 'cause I became a crazy, dyed in the wool Chicago Cub fan, and we've been waiting since 1945 for them to win the pennant, you know?

But I got to know a lot of the Cub players.

And Charlie Grimm was the, I can give you the whole lineup from 1945.

- You and your mother went to Chicago, and started all over again?

- Oh yes, yeah, she went to work in the bank, and doing public relations work.

And I was still in school, you know?

- And working when you weren't in school.

- Always, always worked, always worked, yeah.

- Did you have other family around in the Chicago area?

- We had my grandmother, and one aunt was a dear aunt, aunt Ruth, whom every year, until I was very independent, would send me a birthday card with a dollar bill.

Later in life, she encountered some problems.

It was one of the greatest things that I was able to seriously help her out.

And I told her I'd saved my dollars, and they had grown, invested them and they grew.

And that's how I was able to give her that help.

And she was very independent, and that's the only way she would take it, you know?

She was a wonderful aunt.

I loved her dearly, and she was a lot of fun.

Just, you know, full of mischief, you know?

- And your grandmother was an independent lady as well?

- Yeah, at 65 years old, she worked in a defense plant, wore high heels and, you know, I mean, yeah, I come from some interesting jeans in that sense.

She was also, she could buy a gross of stockings back when the family had money years ago, and give 'em away.

I mean, she was just a very charitable lady.

- Now in 1948, you actually quit high school, before you graduated?

- Yeah, that was luck too, I guess in many respects.

I had had an English teacher, I was trying to get outta high school in three years, so I got into summer school, and then I got selected to go to Boys State in Springfield, Illinois, which was honor.

There were only two kids out of the Lakeview High School.

And so I left early, and didn't take the final in English.

And I needed that English, because if I was gonna graduate the next semester, I couldn't take two courses of English.

And the teacher flunked me, and I didn't really worry about it, 'cause Alex Winter was the principal, and I knew when I got back, that he'd fix that somehow.

But then he died in the summer.

So, you know, and then, and keep in mind, I was 17, and knew everything, almost 18, and so I quit, and went to Colorado Springs.

And three, four days after I got there, I got a job at Weller Lumber Company, unloading box cars of four by 12 bridge timbers.

And, after about six months of that, I figured that was not, that was in great shape by then, but not the thing to do the rest of my life.

And, I had an opportunity, because my dad, whom I had really never known, was keeping books, and selling insurance and stuff in Joliet.

So I drove back to Joliet, and actually went to work for my dad.

He had this little practice, and we made it work.

I remember going to work for $40 a week, you know, and by the time I got drafted, which was I guess five years later, we did substantially better.

But during that time, I took my weekends in the evenings, and we built a house.

- Really?

- And I dug the foundation, and put the plumbing, and the wiring, back then it was galvanized pipe, you know, you had to thread it.

And so I learned a lot about building.

Ironically the only house I've really ever built myself, was that one.

But I mean, back then, you didn't have trusses either, you know, you had a ridge board.

And you know, planted 10 acres in soybeans even, and had a red jeep, and plowed it, and planted it, inherited it, you know?

But yeah, always busy.

- Now you were in Joliet for a number of years, and then?

- From '49 until I got drafted.

- Drafted.

You got drafted in the early 1950s, right?

- Right.

- Well, tell us about your experience in the military.

- Well, that was another wonderful thing.

I went to basic training in Fort Leonard Wood in April, may, June, July.

And then clerked at the school, when it was only like 110 degrees.

But I did well there, and they sent me to a secretarial school at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana.

And I was there with 38 other guys, that had all either graduated, or been to college.

And they were nice people, they were interesting people.

And I worked hard, and I graduated number one in my class, and it really built my self esteem.

And I said, "Well, you know, I can compete."

I might not be as inept as I thought I might have.

You know, we all have those insecurities and I'm not any different.

And then of course, I got an opportunity to work for, they sent me the number one job, they sent me to work for Anthony McAuliffe.

It was the general that sat at the Battle of the Bulge.

So I was in Heidelberg, Germany, you know, we had the good life there as enlisted men.

And I took a GED course from the University of Maryland while I was in Heidelberg.

And started writing to universities, that when I got out I was gonna go back to college.

And that changed my life, totally.

The military was a wonderful thing for me.

Besides, I traveled in 23 countries when I was in Europe, and had a lot of fun over there too.

- So you got to see the world.

- Absolutely.

- You tot your high school degree while you were serving in the military.

And then you came home, you didn't come home, you came to Tampa, Florida, to go to school, am I right?

- I did.

I got out early.

The earliest I could get out is I found the university that would get me out the earliest.

(laughing) Not that I was suffering, but I wanted to come home for Christmas.

And by getting out early, I got home for Christmas, and I started at the University of Tampa, and lived on South Melville Avenue here.

About three months, two, three months after I got back, this lady that I had met right before we went to Europe, on a vacation in Naples, we'd had three, four, five dates, and she called, and we ended up getting married in April of that same year.

So I was two months in school.

But after about a year and a half, I ran out of accounting professors at Tampa, 'cause there were only two, and transferred to the University of Florida, and spent a year and a half there.

So I was in and outta school in three years, but by that time I had two children.

- Mm hm.

- So went to work with Darby, Darby, and Odom, which was a local accounting firm.

Still one of the partners has passed away.

The other two I'm still in touch with.

And after a year I've got fortunate, I guess.

I took the CPA exam in May of '59, and got the high grades.

And that fooled, I guess people into thinking maybe I knew more than I did.

So I was a partner thereafter, about a year and a half.

And had a wonderful learning experience.

And, and then in '66, for whatever reason, you know, I guess I thought I was worth more than I was earning in my partnership.

So I said I would leave on January third of '66.

So I left.

A couple of the other partners called me later that night, and they left too.

And so we formed another partnership, called Fisher Morrison and Company.

And that's where I was practicing when I met the opportunity with Bob Winerman, through Arthur Ruttenberg, and started US Homes, '69.

- Well, you had sort of been an entrepreneur all your life growing up.

You'd gone to work for a CPA firm in Tampa.

You then became a partner, and then shortly thereafter, went out on your own.

How is it now as an adult with a responsibility, and growing client base, to be on your own, as an entrepreneur?

Did you anticipate that it would go on to become something very substantial over time?

- I've always been surprised with the good things that have happened, but to keep in mind, I was raising chickens when I was eight.

So I mean, I've kind of had that bent.

But no, to be honest, when I left the University of Florida, I can remember us saying, "Boy, if I could ever just make $10,000 a year, "I'd be in high cotton," you know?

I went to work for $80 a week in '69, which is what, you know, 5,000 a year.

And we lived, I had two kids.

Of course I taught at the University of Tampa also, at that time, for a couple of years, a couple advanced tax courses, and something to make a little extra, you know.

But it always has worked out better than I thought.

And I wish I could say I had the master plan.

The only thing I really knew is I wanted to be a CPA.

And that was because I met a CPA that I admired, when I was keeping books there in Joliet, Illinois.

And there weren't many CPAs around.

You know, I have certificate number 1,210, or something like that.

And when I went to work for Darby, Darby, and Odom, each of those partners had certificates in the low 400s.

So it was not unlike later, US Homes was a young industry, accounting was a young profession at the time.

- But it was only a short number of years that you had your own accounting firm.

- Very short.

- And then the US Homes opportunity developed, and you changed gears completely.

- Three years, yeah, a little over three years.

- Did you have trepidation about giving up this career that you trained yourself for, and all of a sudden, now were in the home building business?

- Yeah, I did, because I had considered that with the Ruttenberg brothers.

Actually a year or so earlier, they wanted me to come to work with them.

And I almost agreed, but I couldn't do it.

So then when this opportunity presented itself, it was difficult.

Yeah, I like the profession, still do.

- Now, US Homes, as we've discussed, you built it up into a billion dollar business, and at the height of its success in 1980, you left.

How did you decide at this point, a billion dollar a year company, it was time to go?

- Well, I've always said to myself, you gotta ask, and somebody told me this, there's nothing, by the way, whatever, nothing original with me, I copy everybody.

But they said, "You gotta ask yourself every once in a while, "how much is enough?"

And I asked myself how much was enough in 1980, and I had enough, and money.

And so I said, I really need to do what I've always wanted to do, and that is to buy a boat and go boating.

So in December 31st of '80, I left.

By then we had moved the company to Houston.

And we did that in 79.

I agreed to stay that last one year, did that, and I bought a big boat, and spent about 18 months living on it in the islands.

After a while, you know, you can only fish, and snorkel, and boat so much.

And I'm an A personality, so I sold the boat, and went looking for something to do.

- And since then, you've been involved in a number of enterprises, but if I were to ask you, what is your vocation, what would you say?

What do you do for a living?

- Well, you know, somebody asked me that recently, so I kept track for a week, but I enjoy helping people.

But yet, you know, you've got a talent, I'm able to somehow make things happen.

So when a few of these business opportunities presented themselves, and I've been involved in three businesses since I quit, they were all bankrupt situations, and spent six to nine months with each of them.

And all of them became, turned into a lot of money.

But I did not keep any of it.

I've donated it all to my favorite charities, but it's all gone to charity.

So I guess that's what I do.

I help people best I can.

And as long as I've got that ability, I think I have an obligation.

- Well, I've heard you on occasion say that if you were to describe yourself, you'd say you're a beggar.

- Well, yeah, I like that term, because it's an attention getter, and it's, I always parallel that with the, a good friend and I started a drug rehabilitation program 15 years ago, where we deal with about 280 kids that would otherwise be in prison.

And we have had remarkable success with it.

So when I wanna talk about my drug rehabilitation bent, charity, I always say it's my drug deal.

Well, when I say my drug deal, boy, it gets attention.

Or when I say I'm a beggar, it gets attention.

You know, I always say, well, I've got that organ grinder, you know, with a monkey.

But I try to have a little fun, put people at ease.

And I hate to ask for money, I really do.

I think everybody does.

But it's like I share with my friends and my children, you have to do some things in life you don't like, in order to properly invest, and pay for all of that wonderful 90% of the time, good things that happen to you.

- Well, you hate to ask for money, yet your alma mater, University of Florida, asked you to head up a capital campaign.

The goal was $200 million.

And you raised?

- We raised 400.

That was interesting because one of these bankrupt things had worked out to provide about $7 million.

And they had asked me for a $3 million donation.

And after I picked myself up off the floor, I said, "If I gave you $3 million, I'd have to go back to work."

But this opportunity presented itself, and I took on this bankrupt situation, and it developed into $7 million.

And so I gave it to the university, which was more than they'd asked for.

But the president that, bless.

- They named the School of Accountancy after you.

- Yeah, you know, Marshall Kreiser was the president, and he called me into his office one day, and he says, "The public universities in the state of Florida "have never had a capital campaign.

"We are gonna have one, and you're gonna be the chair."

I said, "Oh no."

He says, "Oh, yes."

He says, "If you don't take the chairmanship of this capital campaign, I won't take the money."

I like to tell this story.

So we argued and we fought, and we compromised.

I took the job, he took the money.

But it worked out well.

A lot of people worked on that campaign, don't get me wrong.

But I traveled the country, and visited with a lot of, I met a lot of wonderful people, and they gave us a lot of dollars, a lot of dollars, 400 million.

And that changed the giving culture in the state of Florida, to public universities, I believe, because heretofore, it had been sort of thought of was a tax base, the taxpayer base.

But if you're gonna become a preeminent university, and as Marshall used to say, "Florida should have several preeminent universities, "but first we must have one."

And we have made that the University of Florida, at this point, - We've got a couple of minutes left.

You have several guiding principles that direct you, and that you share with other people.

One of your ideas is the 85/15 rule.

Explain that.

- Well that, okay, you know, there's a little card my kids gave me on my 65th birthday, and it's got a bunch of things.

But the 85/15 is again something that I learned elsewhere.

But assume when you meet someone, they have a hundred things in their persona.

If you find someone that you like 60 of their things, and don't like 40, you can become friends.

If you find someone that you like 85 of their things, and don't like 15, you can fall in love and get married.

But there's three important things: Remember that you have 15 things too, that they don't like.

So concentrate on the 85 things you do, and put the 15 in a box on the shelf.

And if the box ever falls off, put it back on the shelf quickly.

Concentrate on the 85.

And if you, third thing, if you believe this theory, find someone to marry that agrees with you in this theory.

And it does.

You know, I have a lot of fun when we disagree on something, or I don't, like, I say, "Oh, that's one of your 15," or "Now you got 16."

Or, you know, we joke about it.

And I think that's, it works in life, you know, because you'll never meet anyone that you like everything, or you'll never do anything that you like everything about it.

And that's sort of like asking for money.

That's one of the 15 things I don't like, you know?

But that's my 85/15, and I think it works.

- Well, Fred, I'm afraid we're off time.

- It passed quickly.

- It does, and it's been great and we could go a lot longer.

And I wanna thank you for being our guest, and I'd like to thank you for joining us on the "Suncoast Business Forum."

(upbeat music)