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    One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy
    One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy
    One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy

    By John Burke

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A powerful, honest, and inspiring tribute to the incredible life of Richard Burke, the founder of Trek Bicycle Corporation, written by his son John.

    Richard Burke, known to many as “The Big Guy,” was a legend. With his friend Bevil Hogg, he founded the Trek Bicycle Corporation in 1976 and then went on to establish the company as one of the leading bicycle companies in the world. He was a man who called his son, John, his best friend. Indeed, they did many great things together: ran the Boston Marathon, followed the Tour de France throughout France, and later ran Trek together. In March 2008, he passed away after complications of heart surgery. The Big Guy touched people’s lives in countless ways, and his passing was deeply emotional for many. Now John (current president of Trek Bicycle) has written a powerful tribute to the incredible life his father led and the ways in which he was an inspiring businessman, leader, and person.

    Taking readers deep into the history of Trek, John shares how his father taught, trained, and instilled in him the confidence and desire to be a leader. A portrait of a great man, the book culminates with John telling his father on his deathbed of their twenty greatest moments together. This is an intimate portrayal of a father-son relationship filled with poignant experiences and lessons on how to get the most out of life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFree Press
    Release dateNov 13, 2012
    ISBN9781476711645
    One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy
    Author

    John Burke

    John Burke and his wife, Kathy, founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, in 1998. Since then, Gateway has grown to over 3,000 people, 70 percent of whom are in their twenties and thirties, and consists mostly of unchurched people who began actively following Christ at Gateway. Burke is also the author of No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture in the Church.

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    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Lovely, inspirational story of a good man who gave much in his life and how he dealt with death written lovingly by his son and revealing much about the greatness of the son too. Not particularly well written and repetitive, but many good themes on family, giving back for the gifts we're given, and leadership. Worth reading as we age and face our eventual death and how we want to deal with it.

    Book preview

    One Last Great Thing - John Burke

    The Big Guy and JB at Trek World 2004 in deep discussion over a beer.

    title

    Contents

    Preface

    Prologue

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Epilogue

    Acknowledgments

    Photographs

    Photo Permissions and Credits

    About John Burke

    This book is dedicated to:

    My kids, Richie and Courtney.

    May you remember the lessons of your grandfather.

    Fran, The Big Guy’s nurse

    who took the best care of my dad

    My wife, Tania, who is my best friend

    and was my rock for those eighty-eight days

    Dr. Lilly, who fought like a warrior

    to save my dad’s life

    My mother, Lainey. I have learned as much

    from my mother as from my father.

    The Big Guy,

    who taught me the lessons of life

    I want to be remembered as someone who was fair and made a difference.

    —Dick Burke, May 2000

    Preface

    My father died in March 2008 after an eighty-eight-day stay in the ICU of Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee. My dad was a legend and his last eighty-eight days added to the story of an incredible life. His life was filled with so many great lessons that in the end I decided that I should write a book for my two children, Richie and Courtney. I wanted to make sure that they had a chance to learn as much from their grandfather’s life as I have.

    As I pounded out the book in my spare time over the past couple of years, it became clear to me that the story might be good enough that others might enjoy reading it. This book takes you through a great relationship between a father and a son. It takes you through the building of Trek Bicycle, and most importantly it tells the story of how my father and how our family dealt with his fight for life, and ultimately how my father and how our family dealt with his death. Death is a destination that we all share and yet there is little written about it and so many people are unprepared to deal with it. My father amazed me throughout his life, but he saved his best act for last. The way he dealt with his death is a story that should be of some help to any family facing this most difficult time.

    Thomas Jefferson once said that the greatest skill a man can have is using one word instead of two. I try to write by that rule. This is a book that can be read in a night or over a weekend. It is a short read and right to the point. My father was that kind of a guy and so am I.

    I am planning to contribute all the money I receive from the publication of this book to charity. One of my father’s lessons was to whom much is given, much is required.

    At his seventieth birthday party my father made two predictions: one was that he would do one last great thing. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he had one in him. I believe that his last great thing was the way he died, and the lessons he left behind.

    I hope that you enjoy the book.

    JB

    Prologue

    Bevil Hogg and Dick Nolan, Trek’s first two employees.

    When I was twelve years old my father came home from work one night and proclaimed that we were going to buy bicycles. He and I were going to go on a bicycle trip. Okay, Dad, I told him. The only bike I had was my old red Schwinn single-speed with a silver banana seat and a slick tire in the rear. That bike was my transportation—to the football field, to friends, to the tennis courts, and to school. My red Schwinn was also my vehicle to the new and exciting world of danger. I grew up in the days of Evel Knievel, and as a big fan of TV’s Wide World of Sports I would always tune in when Evel Knievel was on. After the show, I would head out to our quiet road and set up a jump. There was a nice downhill on the road so I would place the jump at the bottom of the hill. I would always try and clear something, just as Evel Knievel did. Evel jumped trucks and canyons; I jumped garbage cans. I know I jumped two, but I don’t know if I ever cleared or even attempted three. What I do know is that I never really crashed, which probably means that I never pushed the envelope too far.

    As we drove down to pick out bicycles, my dad told me that he had met a guy named Bevil Hogg, a South African who owned a bicycle store in Madison, Wisconsin. Bevil was looking for someone to invest in his store. I had my mind on a new bicycle and didn’t really pay any attention. We bought two bicycles that day. I remember that my dad bought a yellow Fuji, and while I cannot remember what I walked out with, I do know that it was an upgrade from the Schwinn. We bought some Eclipse bicycle packs and a few maps, and my dad announced that the following week we would be riding from Beaver Lake up to Fond du Lac and back. It is a beautiful ride through the hills and valleys of the Kettle Moraine region. I don’t think that I had ever ridden my bike more than ten miles in one crack and now we were going to ride seventy miles in a single day. I don’t remember much about this trip, with the exception that I crashed going over some railroad tracks, and that we were on a really busy road for the last few miles of Day 1 when a semi came past me and almost blew me off the road. On the second day of our two-day journey, we stopped at a bar outside of Monches. I drank root beer, and my dad had a couple of beers before we got back on the bikes and headed home.

    We had a great time, my dad and I. He would always say that I was his best friend. He liked spending time with me, and I liked spending time with him. We played football in the drive, we played golf and tennis, we went to ball games, and lastly and most importantly, we played Ping-Pong. He loved Ping-Pong and we played thousands of games over the years listening to Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops or his favorite album of Irish songs. We were best friends.

    Not long after the bike ride, my dad told me that he had bought a bike store in Madison with Bevil named Stella Bicycle Shop. My dad loved business and was always looking for great opportunities. After he graduated from college, he took a job with Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, where he was a credit manager. That only lasted a couple of years and soon he was in Madison working for Mautz Paint, again as a credit manager. In 1959 he left Mautz and returned to Milwaukee, where he had attended school at Marquette, to become the credit manager at Roth Distributing.

    My dad had been at Roth for two months when Mr. Roth dropped dead of a heart attack. Red Schmalzer, the sales manager, asked my dad if he wanted to become partners. Did he have any money? My parents had saved up $10,000 over the previous few years by spending only the money my mom earned working full-time as a secretary, while putting my dad’s paychecks in savings. My dad also asked both his parents and my mother’s parents for a loan of $5,000 each. This was a big deal at the time, yet they both came through with the cash.

    Life was good. Red was the ultimate salesman, and my dad was Mr. Operations. They ran a good business and it grew and grew. By the mid-1970s they had taken a small distributor located in Milwaukee and acquired operations in Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Denver. Yet my dad was always looking for more. When serendipity led to him meeting Bevil Hogg on a plane one day, my dad decided to pursue his interest in bicycles. After beginning with one store in Madison, they opened a second Stella Bicycle Shop in Champaign, Illinois. My dad always thought big, and his idea was to set up a nationwide chain of bicycle stores in college towns. One problem, though. It didn’t work. The stores lost money and my dad and Bevil closed them in the fall of 1975. My father and Bevil learned that in order to succeed, they could not just sell any brand; they needed something special. None of the good brands were available to purchase, so Bevil’s solution was to create their own brand of bicycles. No one was building really good bikes in the United States. Bevil thought that instead of being a retailer, they should manufacture high-end bikes built in the United States. Schwinn sold a lot of low-end bikes and kids’ bikes and there were some high-end European brands, but nothing from the middle price points all the way to the top that was made in America. It was a unique idea, something completely different. The Big Guy had spent his life selling and distributing

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