| Show - a 7 am the American dream n says Herman “Ijust decided not to use segregation Cain chief executive officer of Godfather s Pizza and racism and color as an excuse cain Herman the life It him wdl from in the segregated South to Lxrporale leadership in the food --service industry The first person in his family to enter and finish college Cain is now chairman of the board CEO and of Godfather's Pizza a company he look over when it was failing and nursed back to economic health His life is an journey that began with two little boys sleeping on a fold-u- p cot in the kitchen of a three --room house in Atlanta Cain's mother and father pointed the way for his success “My father never looked for a government program a government handout" Cain 50 told me when I visited his corporate headquarters in Omaha Neb “I part-own- er never heard my father complain about somebody owing him anything All 1 ever saw was how hard my father worked to get what he wanted out of life My mother was my spiritual light — Mum talked to me about God She taught me that success is not a function of what you start with materially but what you start with spiritually Those were my beginnings They have been with me ever since" This year The Horatio Alger Association honored Cain for achieving success in the face of adversity "My philosophy has alw ays been to exceed die expectations of the job" Cain said “I always knew that for me to do well I couldn't be just as good as the next person I had to exceed die next person" Herman Cain was bom in Memphis on Dec 13 1945 the child of Luther Cain Jr and the former Lenora Davis — a poor struggling couple who had Ixtth fled their farms in search of a better life When Herman was 2 the family moved to Atlanta where Luther's first job was as a porter and Lenora worked as a domestic Soon they had enough to rent one side of a duplex “It was half a house" Cain recalled When Herman and his brother Thurman went off to elementary school packed their lunch bags w ith homemade biscuits filled with syrup fathack or leftover meal from the nighi before school Herman kinged to buy a lunch like every body else But 'try ing to gel a quarter out of my dad was like Le-no- ra 25-sx- B W pulling a tooth out of a hen" he recalled To make more money Luther wurled e three jobs: He chauff cured at Coca-Col- a worked an evening shift as a janitor in a bakery and cut hair in between When Herman was in the eighth grade his father was promoted to chauffeur and personal valet for the president of Coca- part-tim- Cola Ludier was able to quit his other jobs and make a down payment on a "whole" house Lenora quit her job Herman and Thurman gut a bedroom of their own “We had a fenced-i- n backyard" Cam recalled "It was the American dream came true" Cain finished high school second in his class Encouraged by his teacher Charles S Johnson he appiiod id and wax accepted by Morehutae College in Atlanta where tie studied matfi He worked after school and during the summers to help pay far tumor He shined shoes waxed cars became n lab assistant at Coca-Col- a and clerked m the grocery store his father — soil a chaut feur and valet —had bought by then R R Y |
