Former chairman and CEO of Darden Restaurants, Joe Lee, visited UCF on Wednesday night as part of the entrepreneurial speaker series put on by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Lee is also co-founder of Red Lobster, and former vice president of General Mills, providing him with much to share about business with his audience.
While the audience piled inside a room in the Business Administration Building, senior business major Richard Cassidy was surprised that a big time speaker was going to be in such a small room.
"I'd think more people would go, it's pretty informative," Cassidy said.
After attending a similar event the previous week about franchise sales, Cassidy returned to hear what Lee had to offer.
Although the event attracted mostly business majors, others found interest in all that Lee had been a part of.
"I'm an engineering student but I like to listen for my own personal knowledge," junior engineering major, Sympson Placide, said.
After Lee was introduced, he began telling the audience how honored he felt to be on campus.
"This is one of my favorite schools," Lee said. "And I have a lot of pride, more than you can imagine."
Lee's presentation was focused around the story of Darden Restaurants, what it was, how it started and what it has become. As Lee took his audience through the journey of Darden, he stressed how important integrity, attitude, ethics, leadership and teamwork were to success.
"Looking back I realize that it was an attitude we had that was unusual…to help propel us and get to where we are," Lee said, speaking of the team he was a part of while building up Darden.
Lee explained how Darden started as an idea to give the average American consumer more inexpensive, less fancy seafood restaurant options. He shared the knowledge he gained through his experiences but first made sure to keep things realistic.
"There were a lot of hurdles," Lee said.
While he explained those hurdles he talked about the importance of leadership, and how success wasn't just about making a good choice or taking the right path. Before the opening of the first Red Lobster in Lakeland, Fla. in 1968, Lee discussed how a seafood restaurant away from the water wasn't easy to create. With very few refrigerated trucking options to choose from, it was hard to get the food delivered. To solve this problem, Lee and his team created their own trucking company, making sure their common goal was achieved.
"Real leadership is about creating a path that didn't exist before," Lee said.
Lee went on to summarize some core elements of success and continued to reiterate the importance of learning.
"This university is teaching you how to learn…you've got to have continuous learning," Lee said.
As a word of advice on how to achieve this, Lee said, "Keep looking for the answer, it's not always the first thing that pops up."
Before concluding his presentation, Lee told his audience to take risks, face the facts when things aren't working right, and make a difference in the world.
After the long journey, Darden has become the 19th largest employer in the nation and the world's largest casual dining restaurant company, something Lee takes pride in.
"We're real proud of that and I hope there's someone in here tonight that has that same experience," Lee said.
When the floor opened for questions, Lee's answers were full of the passion he said was so important to have in business.
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