Former NBA star scores on Wendy's team: Bridgeman takes game to franchise court, retains no. 2 as second-largest player

Nation's Restaurant News, August 23, 2004 by Paul King

When the National Basketball Association's Milwaukee Bucks retired Ulysses "Junior" Bridgeman's No. 2 in 1988, the man who holds the team's record for most games played walked away from his former career and never looked back.

Bridgeman, who seldom talks about his playing days, now makes a name for himself as businessman, operating 153 Wendy's restaurants and a Baja Fresh Mexican Grill. He is president and chief executive of Bridgeman Foods Inc. of Wauwatosa, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee, and BF South, located in Louisville, Ky. His biggest restaurant markets are Milwaukee, with 38 outlets, and Fort Myers, Fla., with 20.

Franchisees like Bridgeman are the lifeblood of the Wendy's brand. Worldwide, franchisees operate 78 percent of the 6,535 Wendy's operating as of June 27. In the United States, for example, there were 4,530 franchised branches, versus 1,288 Wendy's-owned units as of that date.

Bridgeman Foods is the second-largest of Wendy's franchisees, and one of only three that currently have a Baja Fresh franchise. Only WendPartners Group, a 266-unit franchise collective in upstate New York, is larger.

As it happened, Bridgeman chose as his second career a business in which, as with sports, customers would convey almost immediately how well they thought he was performing.

"It's a lot of fun," Bridgeman says of the foodservice industry. "You know right away whether you did a good job, and the job changes every day. That's exciting. Also, food is something everybody has to have. There are always people willing to go out to eat."

When considering a restaurant concept to buy into, he looked at Wendy's because he liked the product.

"I wanted to go with a franchise system because it made the most sense to someone starting out in the business," he explains. "You give yourself the best chance of success when you go with something that is already proven.

"I always thought that Wendy's offered the best product [in quick service]," he adds. "You have to sell what you believe in; otherwise, you're not going to be able to make it work."

Bridgeman definitely has made his association with Wendy's work. Starting with restaurants in Milwaukee and Louisville--another city close to Bridgeman's heart because he played his college ball at the University of Louisville--he has branched out into northern Illinois; Nashville, Tenn.; and Fort Myers, Naples and Sarasota, Fla.

"Our association in Florida began because Wendy's corporate office presented us with an opportunity," Bridgeman explains. "Nashville I was familiar with because it's just two and a half hours from Louisville, and I wanted to locate stores there because I think the area is ready to explode."

Don Calhoon, executive vice president of marketing for Wendy's, says he believes Bridgeman is successful because he plays the restaurant game the way he played basketball--unselfishly, with a keen sense of the people around him.

As a player in the NBA, Bridgeman was known as a "super sub"; although he seldom started a game, he leads the Milwaukee Bucks in games played and is among the team's all-time team leaders in points, rebounds and steals.

"Junior has an honest concern for the business," Calhoon says. "He is committed to being successful but in the correct way. He wants those around him to achieve success. We've never had the conversation because he doesn't talk about his NBA days, but it is similar to how he played basketball."

More important, according to Calhoon, is Bridgeman's approach to his employees and the communities in which he set up business.

"He has such a keen sense of awareness of the people around him and what their concerns are, and their concerns become his concerns," Calhoon adds.

On the job Bridgeman's concern translates into incentive rewards for teenage employees who do well in school.

"We will pay students for good grades," he explains. "If someone who works for us gets accepted to college, we will help them out by buying their books."

Within the communities in which the franchisee has units, Bridgeman Foods is active in fund-raising for such medical causes as diabetes and cancer and raising money for clothing and school supplies for underprivileged children. He also works toward creating a better awareness of the issue of adoption--one of the pet projects of late founder Dave Thomas.

"We've also done a lot with education," Bridgeman adds. "We want to help people improve themselves, because you can't take away something somebody has learned." Among the beneficiaries of Bridgeman's largesse is a branch of the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Milwaukee. Collins is a teacher who has made it her life's work to teach "unteachable" children, and she has schools in Milwaukee and Chicago. Bridgeman's company helped fund the Milwaukee school.