Leon W. 'Pete' Harman: the operational father of KFC has many goals - and retiring isn't one of them

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 14, 1996 by Alan Liddle

Innovator and seat-of-the-pants marketing expert are just two of the titles that could be claimed by Leon W. "Pete" Harman after a 60-year career in foodservice that included a pivotal role in building the world's largest chicken-restaurant chain: KFC.

Harman and his wife, Arline, became Col. Harland Sanders' first franchisees 44 years ago when they began serving "the colonel's recipe" fried chicken out of their Harman's Cafe in Salt Lake City. Apart from being Sanders' first paying customer. Harman became the white-haired entrepreneur's operations guru and confidant.

The two men met in Chicago in 1951 during the National Restaurant Association show. Harman said, and the following year Sanders stopped by Salt Lake City on his way to California. Sanders wanted to see firsthand how Harman was able to generate $ 1,000 in sales on Saturdays by peddling 30-cent hamburgers.

It was during that 1952 visit that Sanders cooked his chicken for the Harmans, who soon struck up a business deal to add it to their menu. The extent of Sanders' trust in Harman is best illustrated by the aging chicken master's actions before the sale of his company in the 1960s to two young businessmen: Jack Massey and lawyer John Y. Brown, who later became governor of Kentucky.

Before the Colonel would sell, he wanted to get Pete's approval, so we got on a plane to visit him," recalls Brown, who in recent yeas has been involved in the start-up of Kenny Roger's Roasters, Miami Subs and Roadhouse Grill.

Brown says Sanders "had his own business instincts, but this was a big move and he trusted Pete's judgment and felt he had credibility." He remembers that Harman seemed a bit surprised by the pro posed sale but signed off on it a few days later.

Later Harman sat on the board of the Brown-Massey-owned company, where he served as the "ramrod" for a close relationship between franchisor and franchisee, Brown says.

Today the 77-year-old Harman remains active in restaurant operations through his formal capacity as "founder" of Harman Management Corp. of Los Altos, Calif. Harman Management operates 264 franchised KFC restaurants in California, Utah, Colorado and Washington.

Among Harman's contributions to the rise of KFC:

* He teamed up with a sign painter to coin the phrase that stuck as the chain's name through the late 1980s: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

* He and his staff created some of the fist training materials used by the chain.

* He trademarked the chain's memorable "it's finger-lickin' good" slogan, which sprang from the mouth of a manager working for Harman's brother, Dave, another KFC franchisee.

* In 1957 he bundled chicken, rolls and gravy in a paper bucket to create the chain's signature "complete meal" for takeout.

At the time Harman sold his first bucket meals, the chain was little more than a network of independent restaurants that paid pennies per order for Sanders' "secret blend of herbs and spices" and the right to feature his recipe chicken on their menus and use his name and likeness for promotional purposes.

Harman explains that the popularity of the bucket meals ultimately made it feasible to open free-standing KFC restaurants "by giving you enough volume to justify a manager and pay the overhead." And freestanding stores, he adds, led to a faster growth rate for the chain because those specialized operations proved easier to sell to would-be franchisees.

"You won't hear Pete say this, but Pete Harman was to KFC what Ray Kroc was to the McDonald's brothers," Don Smith, the Taco Bell chair at Washington State University, says.

"It really was Pete Harman's little store, the carry-out unit and the bucket [packaging] that made that [KFC's longterm success] possible," insists Smith, a Harman friend and former restaurateur and restaurant chain executive. "I'm not suggesting that Pete was above or below the Colonel in importance, but I will tell you that the Colonel couldn't have made it [so big] without him [Harman]."

James Collins, chairman of Los Angeles-based Sizzler International Inc. and a KFC franchisee since the early 1960s, says Harman might be considered the operational "father" of the KFC chain.

"Pete helped anyone who called or went to Salt Lake City, including me," Collins says of the chain's early days.

KFC has recognized Harman for his contributions through a variety of acts: He is in the chain's Hall of Fame; he was named to represent franchisees at grand-opening ceremonies when KFC launched the fist Western-style fast-food restaurant in mainland China in 1987; and when the chain reached a major milestone in 1990--the opening of its 5,000th domestic unit--it shared the promotional glory with Harman by making Harman Management the developer.

Harman was selected as an early inductee into the Utah Restaurant Association's Hall of Fame, and in 1985 he was named to the College of Diplomates by the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association. But if his deeds over the years are any indication, he'd rather be known as a motivator than an innovator. His company always promotes from within, makes 40 percent of the stock in each restaurant available to the top two unit-level managers and lets headquarters staff buy stock in the parent company, which also operates a distribution division. Harman Management also sprinkles its compensation system with incentive programs and hosts a variety of annual conventions and social events, including family picnics, geared toward having fun and recognizing contributions to the company and community.