With a firm hand, John C. Lopez builds an empire and a legacy to be regarded.

 John C. López was born and raised in Glendale, Arizona, in a mostly rural community. He still clearly remembers Glendale Avenue, divided by language and ethnicity. Hispanics lived on one side of the avenue and the Anglos on the other. “Our side didn’t have paved roads, had no plumbing, and no basic necessities for survival. It was different on the other side of the street,” López recalls. His parents were rural workers, working on the fields all day. In his free time, his dad worked at a small grocery store. There he learned how to be a butcher, cut and sell meat. As time passed, his dad was able to purchase that same store where he used to work.

“Family ties are very important, one of my grandfathers owned a truck company, and he helped my dad start his own business,” says López. He was practically raised inside a small grocery store, and says he still remembers that little place. The business was located in front, and in the back there was a small room he shared with his parents and two brothers. “I always thought my father was a prosperous individual, and sure, I did not know what being a businessman was all about. I did not understand the ethnic animosity of those days either. We human beings tend to be a little prejudiced,” López adds.
When he began attending high school, he started to familiarize himself with the Anglo culture, and it was then he realized for the first time how the rest of the world lived, says López. “In those days my father was a businessman full of ambition, and he founded an organization called ‘La Junta Patriótica’. This organization had a mission of uniting the Hispanic community and help it grow, prosper, educate itself and provide basic necessities for survival,” López points out. This organization achieved many goals. It encouraged education, paved streets and built a recreational center, etc. The organization, of course, needed a leader, a hero, a voice before the government.

His father had only a sixth grade elementary school education, but he was very experienced as a businessman and was successful in communicating with his Latin people. During that time, he was elected spokesman for Hispanics, and represented the community before the City Council. He held that position for 10 years, and produced excellent results. López adds that all this taught him how important it is to be involved in the community, and to always be informed of what is happening. Once you reach a level of prosperity, you need to share with the community, invest in it.
Lopez still remembers when his father bought a small piece of land, it was adjacent to the store his family owned, and he converted that to a meeting center for the Hispanic community. It had an auditorium, drinking water and electricity. There they got together, talked and planned effective strategies to benefit the Latin community. According to his father, in those days, the city of Glendale, Arizona, was very interested in Latin themes and projects, but there was a leading minority that would not accept a Latin social agenda.

When he was 11 years old, the racial integration in Arizona started to take place, says López. He then attended a school called Unidad Una, on the other side of Glendale Avenue, with about a dozen Latin students. There he started to get to know and socialize with people of different ethnicity and social backgrounds. This change of surroundings encouraged him to learn English, something that he, until then, did not think was necessary. It was in this new school where his hunger for knowledge grew, he participated in sports, music, literature and science, which made it easier to assimilate the language and the American culture. But when it came the time to attend high school, the cultural and social assimilation was imminent, considering his community had only one high school for everybody to share. Unfortunately, many Hispanics were not able to adapt to the culture and language change, which turned them into yet another statistic of young high school Latino dropouts. His circle of friends was different though, they had ambition and determination. During his Senior year, he was captain of the football team and won the State Championship.

The following year, Lopez attended Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is Northern Arizona University today. After two years of college and at the young age of 19, he got married. Marriage presented a difficult situation to balance, and a year later produced a son. He had to quit school. But López was always a dreamer, and many times while day dreaming, he would in his mind score the winning run in a baseball game, or throw the football for that “come from behind” touchdown. That philosophy in life is what pushed him to win, no matter what situation it was, he was determined to always suceed.

“My mother was a great inspiration for me and my brothers, and she insisted that we got an education. One of my brothers is an educator, the other one is a banker, just like me,” López says. He adds that numbers are his favorite subject, ever since he was a little boy. When asked at what point his transition in life to a businessman started, he says that he never wanted to be a businessman, that he never wanted to work those long hours his parents had to endure. But it was practically impossible to ignore the success that his parents achieved.

Good experience for Lopez was his first job at a bank. He always imagined an 8 to 5 schedule, his own office, a suit and tie, plus a great deal of respect from the community. But what no one ever mentioned was the considerably low pay he was going to receive for his hard work. As his family grew older, he was forced to look for other jobs in addition to his bank job to be able to support them. It was then that he was able to understand the commitment and the long hours his parents worked everyday to be able to give their children the necessary tools to survive. “At the bank, I started as a cashier, with great ambition as always, I imagined myself as president of the bank. Unfortunately though, I realized that the majority of those who reach administrative positions in a bank have to have connections,” he comments.

His career in the banking and finance field began when he was 21, and ended when he turned 28. “It was then that in Phoenix, Arizona, I met a young attorney by the name of Armando de León, who was forming an organization called ‘Concilio Sureño de la Raza’, a support organization. It was financed by the Ford Foundation, and I worked for them as Director of Economic Development. It was then that I was able to utilize my vast experience as a banker to bring development programs to this organization,” López points out. He adds that when one has a ‘business’ predisposition, he has to be ready to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

López comments that no one ever goes to bed one night saying “tomorrow I will start my own business.” An almost animal instinct is needed, great ambition and dreams. According to López, you will not get far with ambition alone, you need financial resources, and the right associates to support you and work with you. “When I had the chance to work with Concilio Sureño de la Raza, which later turned into Concilio Nacional de la Raza (National Council of La Raza or NCLR) I was able to gain exposure on a daily basis at the national level. I worked on real estate, economic development, education and health projects,” López points out. All this experience took López to a position as director of Concilio Nacional de la Raza, in the Phoenix, Arizona, regional office. López was also fortunate enough to lobby in Washington, D.C. as part of this organization. “I can proudly say that the organization allowed me visit with Senators, Congressmen, Presidents and CEOs. I instinctively knew that I had the necessary tools to function around these social circles,” says López. He was about to find his enterprise.

His organization then founded a financial support arm for minority communities called MESBIC (Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Company). “I was privileged enough to create this financial vehicle, and get help from the SBA (Small Business Administration) and the Ford Foundation, which back then donated a million dollars to the program. It was during this time that I was exposed to the McDonald’s organization,” says López. As part of his job, he checked the applications for financial aid of many individuals, and the applications for McDonald’s franchises immediately grabbed his attention. In his opinion, franchises were the easiest way to become an entrepreneur. He, of course, felt that the more he studied about the necessary skills needed to operate a franchise, the more convinced he was he in fact possessed them. But there was something he lacked at the time, funds. His mind was made up though. It was a supreme sacrifice, more savings, a mortgage on his home, anything he could raise to provide the necessary funds to qualify.
It took López five years to become part of that McDonald’s franchise world. It took two years alone for the application approval. During that time, he was trained on the simplest task to the most complex, as part of the McDonald’s organization. Cooking burgers, french fries, cleaning, customer service, maintenance, a little bit of everything. “Considering my childhood, my youth working around this type of environment, the training from McDonald’s was extremely easy, I was well prepared. It was practically a blessing that I knew how to do different tasks and that I would do them gladly,” López adds. When he got his first franchise on Third St. and Broadway in Los Angeles, California, the heart of the Latin world back then, López says that he felt like he had just hit a home run with the bases full, a grand slam. But after a few years, his ambition was asking for more, knowing that other operators were very successful with 10 to 15 franchises.

It took López 14 years to acquire four McDonald’s franchises and he wanted more. It was then that he decided to get involved in the cooperative side of the company, which is where franchise owners invest their own money and participate in promotional campaigns to support the company, to promote, sell and advertise its product locally and nationally. “I had the privilege of being selected to represent the franchises on promotional campaigns and administrative operations at the national level,” says López proudly. He adds that there was no hesitation in his part to get totally involved in the administrative operations, and eventually was recognized by key members in the Company.

According to López, Hispanics within the McDonald’s system at the time were not very well organized. “It was then that I decided to be a part of an organization within the McDonald’s system called McDonald’s Hispanic Owners and Operators Association, and my main goal was that of encouraging Hispanics to get more involved with McDonald’s franchises,” López adds. According to López, the Company had no Hispanic representation at the time in its distribution operations, something that he wanted to change. Corporate then informed him of a decision to position a qualified Hispanic inside the distribution system, and that opportunity presented itself to López in Oklahoma City two years after becoming a part of MHOOA.

It was in 1990 that he had the opportunity to purchase a company called Normac Foods, Inc., subsidiary of Wilson Foods. The owners of the company were getting old, and McDonald’s saw this as a great opportunity for someone of Hispanic origin.

“But surely, this was not just going to be offered to anybody, the selected candidate had to have all the necessary requirements, experience, attitude and, of course, funds,” López points out. The first time he was contacted regarding this opportunity, he turned them down. He was very happy in California, had five children, and the two youngest were in college attending the University of Southern California. He played golf twice a week and his businesses were financially successful. But McDonald’s again insisted and López decided at that moment to at least take a look at the distribution operation. He analyzed the situation in more detail and decided to accept the challenge, which of course included the sale of all his franchises to gather the necessary funds, uproot his family and move to Oklahoma City. “It wasn’t an easy decision, I had to have the support of my family, analyze everything from a financial point of view and look at both sides of the equation,” López recalls. In 1991 he liquidated it all and on January 1st, 1992, he became owner of the distribution plant in Oklahoma City.

“There were no doubts, no regrets, but I was terrified at the time. I did not know anything about meat processing. I arrived at a community that did not know anything about Hispanics, surely good people, but I was not sure how the community was going to accept us,” says López. There was a lot of anxiety from being owner and operator of a company with more than 300 employees. To depend on accountants, attorneys, supervisors, to listen to their suggestions, make decisions that would affect so many people at the same time.

Above it all though, López says his family has been and always will be a part of all decision making regarding his businesses, and without their support, it would have been practically impossible to have come this far. His wife Pat is Secretary-Treasurer of López Foods, his son John Patrick López is assistant vice president of his facilities in Tennessee, son Dave López is Assistant Vice President of the Oklahoma City facilities. “My sons know much more about López Foods and its operations than I do. If they have attained administrative positions in the company it is because of their experience, because they started from the bottom, not because they are related to the owner. My three daughters are owner-operators of McDonald’s franchises in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, and they are López Foods customers,” he says. He adds that one of the essential parts of López Foods is the accuracy of its operations, quality and hygiene, to satisfy the Department of Health requirements, as well as McDonald’s, which has the highest quality standards in the industry. Every individual step is checked and inspected over and over, to guarantee our services. Every processing plant receives a merit report based on our requirements. “Something I can mention, that at any operation level, any business decision, I have always been surrounded by personnel with the most experience and education to take it all to a higher level. I of course still have the last word, the final decision is always mine,” López says.

Commitment and ties to community are strong for López. Locally, López Foods has been a strong and active supporter of Oklahoma City’s Latino Community Development Agency (LCDA) over the years and whose long list of programs range from domestic abuse prevention to day care.

When he turned 65, López admits he promised himself to spend more time with his family, enjoy life with his 16 grandchildren, and smell the proverbial roses. Today at 68, and even with a CEO, Eduardo Sánchez, in the driver’s seat of López Foods, he is busier than ever. Their clients: Wal-Mart, Sam’s Foods, Krogers, Costco, Sonics, Burger King, McDonald’s and many more, demand the best, and they give them the best. Satisfied with the growth of his company, López comments that he has decided to also invest in hotels. With a Management Development Agreement with Choice Hotels International, he will develop 5 Cambria Suites hotels, through a company fully owned by him called Sueños, LLC.

“I chose the name sueños (dreams), simply because I am a perpetual dreamer, but I also believe in the reality of being able to do things,” says López. He concludes by saying that he is a product of his Latin roots and a totally diversified community, and that his ambition has been, since then, to be able to give something back to the community through positive change. “Education is supreme, ambition is your best friend, but when that unique opportunity knocks at your door, you need to be prepared to answer it, because it may not knock again.”