You Can't Build a Company: The Life and Principles of Marlene and Spencer Hays

Spencer Hays grew up in a small town in a family of very little means to become a business leader and a wealthy philanthropist by way of sheer grit and hard work—a true Horatio Alger story. His success was such that he and his wife Marlene were able to bequeath to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris a major collection of French Impressionist and post-Impressionist art—an act of philanthropy so exceptional that they were given the highest civilian honor that France bestows. Hays’s corporate leadership was based upon an extraordinary commitment to his customers and especially to the well-being of his employees in an era when corporations see profits for upper management and stockholders as their chief, if not only, responsibility. Beloved by friends and employees alike for his self-effacement and generosity, Spencer Hays wanted the principles that his corporations operate by to be the primary focus of this book. These principles, which embody commitment and service, undergird the success and growth of his businesses. Spelled out here for the benefit of readers, they are vividly brought to life by the remarkable career of one remarkable man. 

DAN WILLIAMS has published eight books, most recently Past Purgatory, a Distant Paradise (poems), which won the Philosophical Society of Texas’s 2019 prize for best book of poetry, and more than fifty articles and essays. He is the director of TCU Press and the Honors Professor of Humanities in the John V. Roach Honors College at TCU.