Obituary: Subway Co-Founder Peter Buck

choi

James R Hagerty, Billionaire Built Fast-Food Empire. Wall Street Journal, Nov 22, 2021, at page B2.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sub ... -age-90-11637517169

Note: Mr Hagerty most frequently write for obituary section that appears as a column every Saturday.

---------------------
Subway Co-Founder Peter Buck, a Low-Profile Billionaire, Dies at Age 90
Nuclear physicist, raised on a farm in Maine, loaned $1,000 to a teenager to start the global sandwich chain in 1965
By James R. Hagerty
Nov. 21, 2021 12:52 pm ET

From childhood, Peter Buck remembered an Italian-style sandwich shop called Amato’s near his home in Maine. The long lines outside the door made a strong impression, as did the diamond rings and gold bracelets worn by women behind the counter.

By 1965, Dr. Buck was a physicist who worked on designs for nuclear power plants. When 17-year-old Fred DeLuca, the son of a friend, asked him for advice on how to pay for college, Dr. Buck remembered those sandwiches. He lent the young man $1,000, and they became partners in a sandwich shop called Pete’s in Bridgeport, Conn. Through aggressive franchising, it grew into today’s Subway chain, with nearly 40,000 locations world-wide.

Dr Buck, who died Thursday [Nov 18] at the age of 90, maintained a low profile but had a fortune of $1.7 billion at the time of his death, Forbes estimated.

He was born Dec 19, 1930, in South Portland, Maine, and few up on a farm producing lettuce, squash and celery. His mother, Lillian :Molly" Buck, worked as a journalist and prodded her sons to go to college.

At Bowdoin College in Maine, he studied economics and receive an undergraduate degree in 1952. He then enrolled at Columbia University, where he earned master's and doctoral degrees in physics. During his career as a nuclear physicist, Dr Buck worked in laboratories for General ElectricCo and United Nuclear Corp in New York State and for Nuclear Energy Services in Danbury Connecticut.

His investment in Subway wasn't an immediate success. "We didn't make a profit for 15 years,” Dr. Buck told The Wall Street Journal in 2014.

His survivors include two sons and five grandchildren. His marriage to Haydee Piñero Buck -- the daughter of Jesus T Piñero, a former governor of Puerto Rico -- ended indivorce in 1977 after 22 years. He then married Carmen Lúcia, a native of Brazil who came to the US to study. She died in 2003.

In 2004, he donated a 23.1-carat Burmese ruby, called Carmen Lúcia Ruby, to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. He also made donations to Danbury Hospital, Gowdoin College and charter schools in Connecticut and New York. He established the Tall Timbers Trust, which held more than 1.2 million acres of timberland in Maine, according to Subway.

9one paragraph omitted-

He spent some of his money on a hobby of flying glider planes and on a ranch in Brazil.

When a Wall Street Journal reporter interviewed him seven years ago, he was living in Danbury and driving a 17-year-old car. He said he ate at least five Subway sandwiches a week.

When asked whether he was a billionaire, Dr Buck replied, "Yeah, I guess so." Even so, he said, "I can go any place in Danbury and nobody recognizes me."
uess so." Even so, he said, "I can go any place in Danbury and nobody reconizes me."