Rags to Riches CEOs: Howard Schultz

By Mike Schuster Nov 18, 2009 8:30 am

The coffee king squeezes his rough-and-tumble childhood tale for all it's worth.

With over 16,000 store locations worldwide and 176,000 employees whipping up double tall lattes, the Starbucks (SBUX) franchise doesn't seem like it ever had to struggle from humble roots. Its quick expansion and ubiquitous marketing produced an effortlessly successful brand that sprang seemingly from nowhere. A few short years after adopting the winning coffee bar theme, the Seattle staple began launching a global campaign that led to outlets every five blocks and B-plus stand-up material suitable for Leno -- all without the semblance of ever breaking a sweat.

However, CEO Howard Schultz, 56, isn't afraid to tout his humble beginnings when describing his own bootstrap-hoisting pursuit toward caffeinated riches. Between his autobiography Pour Your Heart Into It (Hyperion, 1999), an essay entitled "Growing Up Poor: The Lessons of the Schoolyard," which appeared in the collection Brooklyn: A State of Mind (Workman Publishing, 2001), and countless other interviews, Schultz makes it clear that he and his family had a tough row to hoe.

In fact, given how often Schultz name-drops his old Brooklyn stomping ground, it's a wonder why he didn't title his memoir "Poor Your Heart Into It."

Howard Schultz was three years old when his family moved from his grandmother's apartment in East New York to a federally subsidized housing project in Brooklyn's Canarsie neighborhood. There, he fit in quite swimmingly, he says, within the melting pot of mid-1950s lower-middle-class families -- mostly due to his rough-and-tumble lifestyle and a strong skill set for sports.

"You had to be a good athlete to get chosen to play, and you had to be tough just to stay in the game," Schultz writes in his essay -- painting an image of inner-city Americana as subtle as an Italian street vendor selling produce just before a mob hit.

He describes the aural flow of the ballgames -- Yankees, of course -- that emanated from porches and open apartment windows as one would stroll down the block. He recounts -- in both his essay and autobiography -- the pain and rejection that his father felt when the Dodgers ditched their Brooklyn roots and headed for the west coast. (His father forbade anyone to mention the team in his presence henceforth.) He illustrates his undying love of the late, great Mickey Mantle and how he would mimic his stance and gestures -- presumably during the countless stickball games that sprang up during the summer.

Curiously, he never speaks of the time when he and the rest of the suspender-clad paperboys simultaneously broke into song and danced in the streets.

Of course, Schultz faced scorn for his working-class upbringing from those unfamiliar with the compassion and spirit that lied behind those hallowed brownstones. He tells a tale of dating a girl from Long Island and the uncomfortable contempt in her father's face when Schultz told him he was not only from Brooklyn, but Canarsie of all places! Talk about a shonde!

Schultz is clearly proud of his Brooklyn heritage but -- and he has made this abundantly clear -- was reluctant to address it as a badge of honor. In his book, after spending seven pages detailing his childhood, he writes with abundant modesty, "For years I hid the fact that I grew up in the Projects. I didn't lie about it, but I just didn't bring it up, for it wasn't much of a credential."

Interesting -- especially since he's turned it into a medal on his chest. Schultz has addressed his smudge-faced early years and the football scholarship that got him into Northern Michigan University almost every chance he gets since becoming a CEO. Maybe he thinks it gives his business more credence to associate it with the working-class poor rather than the Wall Street Journal-toting executive making six figures. Maybe it's a reminder to his friends and family that he hasn't forgotten his roots.

Who knows? Maybe he's running for office.

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