“It’s your right to be uncommon if you can. You seek opportunity to compete. You desire to take the calculated risk, to dream, to build, yes, even to fail, and to succeed.”

Throughout his lifetime, Ewing Kauffman transcended the mundane towards the extraordinary. However, his simple impoverished background posed no obstruction but instead fuelled in him a fierce entrepreneurial drive until he amassed a huge fortune.

Ewing Kauffman had risen from humble origins

Ewing Marion Kauffman’s place of birth showed his humble beginnings– on a farm adjacent to the small town of Garden City on September 21, 1916. His family moved to Kansas City while he was growing up. His childhood was beset by health problems which kept him bedridden although he spent those moments productively and read as many books as he can. It was during the mid-1930s at the age of 17, when Ewing graduated from Westport High School and moved to Colorado to find a job. It was a time of adversity and jobs were scarce. He hitchhiked to Colorado with a friend, and took odd jobs along the way to pay for expenses to save money for a college education. Soon he returned home and completed an associate degree in business at Kansas City Junior College. During World War II, Ewing Kauffman enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After completion of service, he ventured into sales with a pharmaceutical company but quit when his territorial reach was restrained since he became so successful that he surpassed the income of the company’s president. As a result, he founded a pharmaceutical company and the rest is history.

“If you take a risk, sometimes you lose, but sometimes it pays off big.”

Kauffman’s meteoric rise to fame began in the 1950s, after establishing Marion Laboratories at his home in Kansas City. The pace by which the company flourished is accredited to the integrity and work values of the people who worked for Ewing Kauffman. Business as usual was slow in the beginning, especially during the first year until he started marketing Os-Cal, or oyster shell calcium, the phenomenal drug which propelled Kauffman’s pharmaceutical company to fame. Os-Cal was just the beginning and more followed suit until Marion Laboratories reached status as an immensely successful pharmaceutical company in the US.

Kauffman’s initial investment of five thousand dollars soon generated $1 billion in sales by the late 1980s. A merger with Merrell Dow in 1989 was later on bought out by Marion Roussel Hoechst for $7.1 billion in 1995. In 1968, Kauffman acquired a major league baseball franchise— the Kansas City Royals which followed his signature success model, winning six division titles, two American League pennants and the World Series Championship in 1985.

“Every individual that we can inspire, that we can guide, that we can help to start a new company, is vital to the future of our economic welfare.”

His charisma and energy were infectious and he became a source of inspiration to many; which challenged them to achieve more. He had an inclination towards helping deprived young people, which he forged into a commitment to help them acquire quality education that would enable them to reach their full potentials. He believed that building the enterprise is largely instrumental in realizing individual promise and developing the economy. He has developed an acute sense of social awareness grounded in his belief in people and guided a new style of philanthropy that sought to invest in bold approaches to address the root causes of complex social problems.

In a nutshell, the life of Ewing Kauffman was all about “giving back to others”.

Ewing Kauffman built his business on his life values and principles. While he climbed his way up, he dragged others with him until he became instrumental in transforming their lives into their own little success stories. How he struck gold is astounding, but it is the manner by which he shared his blessings to others which carved his enduring legacy. Ewing Kauffman’s permanent legacy in our time is the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He established the Foundation in the same mould by which he forged his business empire to success. It was developed to plant seeds of opportunities, hope and the determination to transform and make a positive change in people’s lives. Today, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City continues to collaborate with partners to support and advance entrepreneurship in America and improve the education of children and the youth.

The legacy of Ewing Kauffman

• Founded the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 1966 in Kansas City, Missouri
• Awarded by Major League Baseball with a franchise to establish the Kansas City Royals, 1968
• The founding and naming of Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City in honor of Ewing Kauffman
• Recognized as the 16th Point of Light in President George Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light” tribute
• Honored as the 1973 Man of the Year by Kansas City Press Club
• Inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame
• Kansas Citian of the Year by Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, 1986