TRIBUTES have flooded in for Irish American Don Keough who died yesterday in Atlanta aged 88.
A giant of business world, he rose from a humble upbringing to his role as the President and COO of Coca-Cola.
Passionate about his Irish roots, he retired from Coca-Cola in 1993 (though he remained on the board of directors until 2013) and turned his focus to Ireland and to his alma mater Notre Dame.
There he established the Keough Institute of Irish Studies and the Keough Notre Dame Centre in Dublin.
Keough had been hospitalised in recent weeks for pneumonia, and was surrounded by family at the time of his passing.
The news of his death has been followed by an outpouring of tributes from around the world.
Words of thanks and respect from Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
“As one of Ireland’s greatest friends, Don built lasting business, cultural and education connections with Ireland which have helped thousands celebrate their own roots and forge new partnerships,” Kenny said in a statement.
“He was a valued member of the Global Irish Network and in recognition of his many services to the Irish nation he was awarded a Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 2013.
“Don Keough was one of Ireland’s finest sons and the establishment of Coca Cola plants in Wexford, Drogheda, Athy and Ballina are testament to his commitment to Ireland. We have lost a true friend.”
Across the Atlantic, Muhtar Kent, the Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, paid tribute to Keough in a company-wide memo.
“We talk today about ‘brand love.’ Don understood those words at a deeply personal level. Our brands were something far more than products to him,” he said. “They were a trust and a legacy; an asset beyond value and the key to our future.”
Keough shepherded Coca-Cola through the Cola Wars of the 1980s and the tumultuous introduction of ‘New Coke’ in 1985 before it was replaced by the classic version.
“Don Keough was a celebrated business leader, a transformative philanthropist, a devout Catholic, a devoted husband and father, and a friend to so many who today mourn his passing,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President of Notre Dame, where Keough was Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees.
But it was perhaps Keough’s longtime friend Warren Buffett who put it the best. “You can sum up Don Keough’s life in three words: Everybody loved him,” Buffett said in a statement.
Obituary
Donald Keough’s great-grandfather Michael Keough left Co. Wexford in the 1840s and arrived in America where he married Hanora Burke.
Then only 17 years old, Hanora gave birth to a son, John, the year they married.
The courageous young newly-weds went on to have nine children between 1848 and 1875, settling on the prairies of northwest Iowa to become sodbusters, farmers and cattlemen.
The Iowa winters were harsh and Michael and his sons had to drive their horses miles to chop down wood so that the family would survive.
Then there were the grasshopper plagues of 1874, '75 and '76 that swept across Iowa like a biblical swarm of locusts. But Michael Keough was tough and so were his sons.
By the time he passed away on October 2, 1904, the family had solid roots in America.
John continued homesteading, growing oats and potatoes and raising cattle after his father passed away.
He married Kate Foley, the daughter of a businessman, and they had four sons: Leo, Lloyd, Verne and Frank.
Later in life, John’s sons recalled that their father had worked them almost to breaking point, not out of harshness, but the need to survive.
When John expired just one week after building “a fine new modern home” for his family, the responsibility for the farm fell on Leo, the eldest son.
It was on this farm that Donald Keough was born in 1926, the youngest of Leo and his wife Veronica’s three sons.
As a 15-year-old, Don learned the sales patter and how to negotiate and close a deal.
When he got suckered in a small deal, he learned a valuable lesson: “Watch the cattle, not the man,” his boss told him. In other words, know what you are buying and don’t be influenced by the hype of the person selling.
“There is no question that everything I know about business I learned in that stockyard. I learned how to weigh someone up, to know the weakness and strength of your own position, and realise the fundamentals – that he wants to sell and you have the money to buy, and leverage that,” Don said in an interview in 2010 to mark his induction into the Irish America Hall of Fame.
Don’s mother, a schoolteacher, was determined that her sons would have the best education possible.
“My mother was tough but loving,” Don remembered. “She never spared you because she knew we were in tough circumstances and that education and self-reliance were the way out.”
In August of 1944, just shy of his 18th birthday, Don left for the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. His brothers had already enlisted.
Emmett was serving under George Patton in Europe and Wayne was in the air force. In a strange twist of fate, Don was not shipped overseas but to a Navy psychiatric hospital in Newport, Rhode Island where he would care for soldiers who were traumatized by war.
It was a lot for an 18-year-old to absorb, but Don quickly developed a rapport with the men, and found that a little kindness went a long way.
“I learned to respect people’s dignity. No matter how far they had fallen these were brave men caught up in something that was far greater than themselves.”
After the war, Don moved to Omaha, Nebraska and entered Creighton University on the G. I. Bill. Among his neighbours in Omaha was Warren Buffet, who became his life-long friend.
Following graduation, Don started a career as a talk-show host in Omaha, and just before he started on his chosen career, he got married.
Marilyn “Mickie” Mulhall, who had family on both sides from Iowa, took his eye. It was love at first sight.
The couple married at St. Cecilia’s Cathedral in Omaha on September 10, 1949 and honeymooned in Chicago, a rushed five-day affair because Don was due back at WOR where he had landed the assignment of being the commentator on the first ever televised transmission of a live sports event west of Chicago.
Soon he was making the acquaintance of the other television newcomer, John Carson.
The friendship blossomed when Keough, Carson and their wives found themselves living opposite each other in a local apartment building.
Carson’s show directly followed Keough’s “Coffee Break,” and he often found himself producing it.
“He was just shaping his own unique humor; he found humor in everything,” Don remembered. He might well have gone to a successful television career like Carson, but he realised that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and growing family. He’d had enough of working “football weekends.”
Carson moved to Los Angeles and Keough to a company called Butternut Coffee, where he was instrumental in the company’s sponsorship of Carson’s first ever television show.
Within a few years, Butternut was acquired by Duncan Foods, which in turn was taken over by Coca-Cola. “Suddenly, we were part of a whole new ball game,” Don remembers.
He found himself as number two to a legendary Coke hand, Luke Smith, who saw something in the young Midwesterner. Meanwhile, Charles Duncan, Keough’s mentor, was a major success in his assignments for Coca-Cola.
In 1971 Duncan was elected president of the company. Luke Smith, who was Keough’s immediate superior, was called back to Atlanta, and Don was made head of Duncan Foods, which was renamed the Coca-Cola Foods Division.
Keough went on to a brilliant career. He was appointed as head of all the Americas for Coca-Cola in 1976, and in 1981 he was appointed president, chief operating officer and director.
He enjoyed running the iconic company. “I had passion for what I was doing. I always believed that you have to have people at the top who are passionate about their company, and that that is communicated down through the ranks.”
He went on to say: “The task of leaders in business is to convince the people who work for you that what you are suggesting for them is in their best interest. It is like a perpetual marriage, you get along to go along, you have difficulties, spats, but you have to sit down and say we are going to work this out.”
When he was granted Irish citizenship in 2007, the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, presented Don with a vellum inscription which included a phrase from the Book of Sirach, chosen by Don’s good friend Fr. Timothy Scully CSC: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: He who finds one finds a treasure.”
For all those who know, love, admire and are inspired by this great man, Don Keough has surely been a ‘sturdy shelter.’
Words Courtesy of Irish Central and featured image courtesy of Atlanta Business Chronicle
