CARY, N.C. (BP) -- Dan Cathy oversees one of the country's most
successful businesses. As president and chief operating officer of
Chick-fil-A, Cathy leads a business with 1,608 restaurants that had
sales of more than $4 billion dollars last year. They sell chicken and
train employees to focus on values rooted in the Bible.
His
father, S. Truett Cathy started the business in 1946, when he and his
brother, Ben, opened an Atlanta diner known as The Dwarf Grill (later
renamed The Dwarf House). In 1967, his father opened the first
Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta. Today, Chick-fil-A is the second
largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the United States
based on annual system-wide sales.
Dan Cathy's success has not
erased the biblical values he learned as a child in a Baptist church. He
is a warm, common man who is deeply committed to being a faithful
Christian witness. And he is fully involved in New Hope Baptist Church
in Fayetteville, Ga. He drives Chick-fil-A's efforts to provide genuine
hospitality, ensuring that customers have an exceptional dining
experience in a Chick-fil-A restaurant. Based on Matthew 5:41, Cathy is
on a mission to provide customers with "second-mile" service --
exceeding even the highest expectations of a typical fast-food
restaurant.
"We don't claim to be a Christian business," Cathy
said in a recent visit to North Carolina. He attended a business
leadership conference many years ago where he heard Christian
businessman Fred Roach say, "There is no such thing as a Christian
business."
"That got my attention," Cathy said. Roach went on to say, "Christ never died for a corporation. He died for you and me."
"In
that spirit ... [Christianity] is about a personal relationship.
Companies are not lost or saved, but certainly individuals are," Cathy
added.
"But as an organization we can operate on biblical
principles. So that is what we claim to be. [We are] based on biblical
principles, asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on
decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we
have. And He has blessed us."
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