Family Reins: the Extraordinary Rise and Epic Fall of an American Dynasty by Billy Busch

Author:Billy Busch [Busch, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

7

THE END OF CAMELOT

My father, who was already inundated with work, always found the end of the year to be especially busy. This was particularly true in 1974. Even though he had recently stepped down as president and a longtime friend and colleague, Dick Meyer, now held the position, he was still working as hard as ever. As CEO and chairman of Anheuser-Busch, he was also trying to manage the relationship with his oldest son, August III. It came as a real blow to August III that my father handed over the reins of running the company to someone outside the family—that had never been done before. Even though August III had been preparing for the leadership position for years, he was only thirty-seven, and my dad didn’t think he was quite ready for all the responsibility that being a president entailed. Dad needed a very seasoned, mature person in that position, and Dick Meyer, who had been an executive with the company since the year August III was born, was the guy, not August. Though Dad had to get approval from the board to elect Meyer as president, it wasn’t difficult. Board members usually go along with the recommendations of the CEO, and beyond that, the board respected Dad’s leadership ability and many of them were family members.

August III was an intense and competitive person. I am sure this didn’t sit well with him, especially since he was witnessing what we all were at the time—my father beginning to show signs of wear. The stress of being chairman and CEO, training a new president, managing his son’s feelings, and ensuring his legacy was clearly getting to him. He was still working seven days a week and trying desperately to keep Budweiser at the top as the number one US beer company.

The toll this had taken on my father had never been more visible than during the massive shareholders’ meeting in St. Louis that same year. At seventy-five, my father, a once gregarious and gifted public speaker, suddenly suffered from stage fright. His nervous system was clearly affected, and he struggled to speak in front of crowds. He was so worried about this particular meeting that he prerecorded his speech and planned to lip-synch it in front of the large crowd. When he got up on stage and began to speak, my mother, siblings, and I were so embarrassed for him. We were all watching him lip-synch—completely off count from the prerecorded speech. All of us were cringing in our seats. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as when he was awarded the very prestigious Globe-Democrat Man of the Year. As he accepted the award, his body and voice shook violently. He was shaking so badly, he couldn’t control his arms. The entire podium he held on to rattled. I couldn’t watch it. What made it worse was knowing how incredible he had once been in front of everyone. It pained me to see him this way.

To add insult to injury, my father had a number of other concerns.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.