Overview

BusinessWeek Best-Seller! ""King Midas has nothing on Wayne Huizenga ...""--Business Week ""Anyone curious about how the balding near-billionaire did it will find this book a satisfying read.""--The Miami Herald ""This is an informative account of an American success story.""--Publisher's Weekly The inside story of the multi-millionaire behind Blockbuster Video and a major player in the Viacom/Paramount/Blockbuster deal The Making of a Blockbuster chronicles the transformation of Wayne Huizenga from an ambitious Florida garbage man into a corporate titan. Follow Huizenga through a quirky string of profitable ventures-from the USD6 billion Waste Management, Inc. and the USD2.6 billion Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc., to the ownership of the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins, and the Florida Panthers. GAIL DeGEORGE (Coral Gables, Florida) is the Miami Bureau Manager for Business Week. She has covered Blockbuster and Huizenga since 1987. She has also written for The Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

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9780471122692

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Reviews

If diligence alone could yield good biography, Business Week correspondent DeGeorge would have produced a blockbuster on high-profile tycoon H. Wayne Huizenga. Unfortunately, the result of her considerable labors is a bloated, often gushy jumble of raw data. The grandson of a Dutch immigrant who set up shop as a trash hauler in the Chicago area, Huizenga (who turns 58 later this year) entered the same trade in South Florida's Broward County. In league with midwestern family members, the Sunbelt transplant parlayed his one-truck outfit into a sizable equity stake in the multinational disposal firm now known as WMX Technologies. Tired of the constant travel demanded by his executive post, Huizenga left the garbage game in 1982. He dabbled in any number of offbeat pursuits (bottled water, lawn care, portable toilets), but proved a decidedly restless retiree. Huizenga soon went active with Blockbuster Entertainment, a small chain of videocassette-rental shops that he turned into a show-biz power in less than seven years. Since he sold out last year, the major-league baseball, football, and hockey franchises he has bought or launched in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area have kept him occupied to a limited extent. But it's unlikely that the relentlessly enterprising Huizenga will be long absent from the commercial mainstream. At last report, he and his brother-in-law were organizing a new environmental-services/waste-disposal outfit whose revenues they intend to expand rapidly via strategic acquisitions. DeGeorge all but buries Huizenga in a welter of tedious particulars, although she glides quickly by his frequent brushes with regulatory authorities, invariably giving him the benefit of any ethical doubt. For all the detail she has amassed in her kitchen-sink narrative, moreover, DeGeorge never comes to grips with what makes Wayne run. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

About the Author GAIL DeGEORGE has been the Miami bureau manager for Business Week for five years. She joined Business Week as a correspondent in the Miami office in 1987, after working as a business reporter for The Miami Herald and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. She teaches business and economics journalism in the graduate school of the University of Miami. She has covered a broad range of business topics and has written about H. Wayne Huizenga and Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. since 1990.

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