What makes Temple and Central Texas great
By Drayton McLane Jr.
My Central Texas roots shaped me into the person and businessman that I am today. My grandfather, Robert McLane, was the oldest of seven children on a cotton farm in Abbeville, South Carolina. He decided to strike out on his own and moved to Central Texas.
In 1883, he went to work on a farm near Cameron, eventually opening a small rural grocery store in town. Around 1894, my grandfather opened a small wholesale grocery in Cameron.
My father, Drayton McLane Sr., started working for his father when he got out of college in 1921. He was a dedicated, hard-working man who still came in the office every day well into his 80s. Both of my parents were strong Christians. I had two older sisters, JoAnn and Kate, and my parents certainly educated and cultured us. But the most important thing they taught us was to be devout and bold in our Christian faith.
When I graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to move to Waco, attend Baylor University and be out on my own. Friends I met at Baylor were from all over Texas and the United States. I emulated many I admired and learned from them. I still look back on my time living in Martin Hall and learning from professors at Baylor as some of the defining moments of my young life.
After graduating Baylor, I attended graduate school at Michigan State University. I was 22 years old when I graduated from Michigan State.
I returned to Central Texas and started my business career with my father in McLane Company. My vision was that I was going to have a desk near my dad’s and start out in the office. When I asked him where my office was located, he replied, “No, you’re going to start by loading trucks and working on the third shift at night. You’ve got to learn this business from the ground up.”
As I worked and learned about McLane Company, I kept thinking about how rapidly the retail grocery market was changing. We would need to modernize if we were going to grow in the wholesale grocery business. In 1963, I approached my father and said, “Dad, we’re in an old distribution center. We should build a modern distribution center, and we can’t do it here. We can’t be competitive, and big customers don’t want to depend on us with this size of an operation. I want to build a modern distribution center.”
I explained that we really couldn’t build a significant-sized logistics business in Cameron because it is such a small town and not on a major highway. I explained that we needed to be in either Waco or Temple.
This is what brought us to Temple. It was easy to see Temple should be the headquarters for McLane Company, and in 1966 we opened a very modern distribution center, which propelled us forward. I’ve discovered we’re in the perfect place, because I can go to the East Coast or the West Coast, traveling either direction on roughly a two-hour flight, plus we were positioned right on Interstate 35. We learned that if we were not in a large city, we had an identity and could recruit good employees, providing those people with a better wage scale. We located the centers in small communities and delivered into the big cities, so we had lower operating costs and better working relationships with our employees. I understood small towns.
In 1990, we were doing about $9 billion a year. Walmart was an important customer, and I had grown to be close friends with Sam Walton, the entrepreneur who founded Walmart and Sam’s Club and was at that time the wealthiest man in America. Sam called me one day and said he wanted to come see me. He said, “I have a big idea for you.”
We came to an agreement for Walmart to acquire McLane Company. I remained as CEO of McLane Company and Vice Chairman of Walmart for six years. But I am an entrepreneur at heart, and I decided it was time to move on to something else. This is when our family purchased the Houston Astros. The next 19 years I worked building the team and bringing them to their first National League Championship and the World Series.
But our home and business headquarters always remained in Temple. Why? Because Central Texas has always been home, but also Temple is a great hub for doing business in Texas. Right on Interstate 35, Temple’s Central location and easy access bring a very diverse business community and great dedicated employees. From big corporations like Walmart and Pactiv, to a great healthcare system in Baylor Scott & White. There is such a variety that employees are drawn from all over to come here. Temple is a great place to work, but also a great place to live.
It is easy to live in Temple and Central Texas. We don’t have the hustle and bustle of Dallas, Austin or Houston. We have great education opportunities in our public schools as well as Temple College and UMHB. The extracurricular activities bring opportunity for recreation and entertainment. Our city parks system is terrific. The hike and bike trails give us the opportunity to get out in the open spaces, fresh air and exercise. With Belton and Stillhouse Hollow lakes so close by, there are many opportunities for relaxation and recreation.
Central Texas is a great place to live. It’s safe and people really respond to helping others. There are many opportunities to be involved in charitable organizations helping the less fortunate in our community. There is also a strong, diverse religious community where you can discover and find your own place to worship.
Basically, Central Texas has it all. I can’t think of a better place to be in business and to live with high values and unlimited opportunity.
