Donald Schneider of Schneider National, Inc., a trucking firm, runs his family's $2.4 billion company, but he has an attitude that I have extraordinary respect for. In an article published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in June, I read the following.
"...He talks economics with the head of the Chicago Fed and trucking with any of Schneider National's 14,000 or so drivers, who have a standing invitation to pop into Schneider's office whenever they're in Green Bay."
Then later in the article: 'His modest office and the fact that he drives a Suburban doesn't mean that he hasn't enjoyed the fruits of his labor and the fruits of the results of the company as well,' said one close observer.
'It's just that he doesn't flaunt it at all, and that's to his credit. The wearing the jeans and the things to work every day - that's part of the persona that he wants to portray to the employees, primarily the drivers, that he is accessible, that he is a real person, which he lives out on a daily basis. . . . He's pretty genuine from a standpoint of all those sorts of things that he has espoused for years and that he has actually lived through for years.' "
Read it for yourself here:
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/News/jun02/51377.asp
To me, it said that no matter how big you are, if you stay real, you'll be the best executive you can be.
Nickrosis