American businessman and entrepreneur (1928?2019)
For the American football player, see
Carl Eller
.
Karl Eller
(June 20, 1928
[1]
? March 10, 2019)
[2]
[3]
was an American businessman and
entrepreneur
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Eller grew up in
Tucson, Arizona
. He played football collegiately at the
University of Arizona
where he was a member of the
Phi Gamma Delta
fraternity.
In 1962, Eller purchased the Arizona operations of New York-based billboard advertising company
Foster & Kleiser
and built it into a major regional business. As a result of the influence garnered by his leadership of this firm, Eller became one of the founding investors of the NBA's
Phoenix Suns
in 1968, and it was Eller's ownership group that hired future Suns owner
Jerry Colangelo
as its inaugural general manager.
Eller merged the outdoor advertising business with
KTAR
radio and television in 1968 to form Combined Communications, Inc., which was absorbed by
Gannett
in 1979. At its height, Combined Communications owned 7 major metropolitan television stations, 14 major metropolitan radio stations, 12 American and 2 Canadian outdoor advertising companies and two metropolitan daily newspapers.
Eller would later go on to become the head of Columbia Pictures Communications, during which he helped with
its parent company
's 1983 merger with
The Coca-Cola Company
, and of the convenience store chain
Circle K
, which was based in Phoenix during Eller's tenure as CEO (1983?1990). During that time, Eller built Circle K into the second largest convenience store operation and the largest publicly owned convenience store chain in the U.S. with 4,641 stores in 32 states and an additional 1,386 licensed or joint venture stores in thirteen foreign countries. Under his leadership, the company grew from annual sales of $747 million to $3.4 billion. Circle K then declared bankruptcy and Eller resigned in 1990.
Eller was inducted into the
Advertising Hall of Fame
[4]
by the
American Advertising Federation
in March 2004 in
New York City
. Eller is also the first Arizonan and second outdoor advertising executive to be elected to the Advertising Hall of Fame.
Karl Eller is the namesake of the
Eller College of Management
at the
University of Arizona
, where he was also an alumnus.
Articles
[
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]
- Miracle in a Glass
? (Feb. 1979) Karl Eller, then President of Combined Communications Corp., gives a speech on November 15, 1978, dealing with the
free enterprise system
.
[5]
Awards
[
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]
Mentions
[
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]
- Karl Eller's Big Thirst for Convenience Stores
? (June 1988) Karl Eller, then Chairman of Phoenix, Arizona-based
Circle K Corp.
, plans to mold
Circle K
into the industry's most aggressive, fastest-growing player. The number of
Circle K
stores tripled to about 4,600 under Eller's leadership, and sales soared to $2.3 billion from $747.8 million.
[7]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Status of Air Traffic Control System: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session ... October 1, 1984"
. 1985.
- ^
Arizona Historical Society,
Stive & Karl Eller, Honored as Historymakers 2001
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"UA alumnus, businessman Karl Eller dies at age 90"
.
KGUN-TV
. March 10, 2019.
- ^
"advertisinghalloffame.com at directNIC"
. February 4, 2012. Archived from
the original
on 4 February 2012.
- ^
Eller, Karl (1 February 1979). "Miracle in a Glass".
Vital Speeches of the Day
.
45
(8): 229.
- ^
"Arizona Heritage Award"
. KarlEller.com. 2016
. Retrieved
2021-04-20
.
- ^
Carson, Teresa; Vogel, Todd (13 June 1988). "Karl Eller's Big Thirst for Convenience Stores".
BusinessWeek
(3056): 86?88.
External links
[
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]