From the Mines to the Stars
A bi-coastal '59er also hangs out in Kentucky
After ten successful years as a Wall Street stockbroker, Donn Chickering '59 decided he wanted to try life on the operating side. Unpredictably this led him from the canyons of Wall Street to an abandoned strip mine in eastern Kentucky, and in 1973 he went into the coal mining business. As owner and president of Branham and Baker Coal Company, Chickering has made a success of an operation at a time when most coal companies are in the pits economically.
So unusual is his success story, in fact, that the winter issue of Best of BusinessQuarterly featured Chickering's company as a bright spot in an otherwise dismal mining world. His mine even looks different. The modern plant is well landscaped with shrubs, trees, flower-beds, and a duck pond. There's a health-and-fitness club complete with hot tubs.
The keys to his success have been his ability—and willingness—to cut costs, employ new technology, and conduct effective labor relations.
"Early on I had labor problems, as everyone else does," Chickering told Best ofBusiness Quarterly. "I asked myself, 'How can my company perform better than my competitors?' If I was not sitting at my desk but in a bulldozer, what would I want? I realized that my workers have the same motivations that I have. They wanted a job with a wage that would make them prosper, with their family's well-being guaranteed through good health insurance, job security, and a good retirement plan." Chickering provides all this and more, including a profit-sharing scheme. Furthermore, he is careful to keep work flowing to his subcontractors and that, he says, has resulted in a "return in extra loyalty and productivity, all of which is the only difference between us and our competitors."
Chickering is now creating successful impressions in another world, too. Last November he bought Lion Share Recording Studios in Beverly Hills from Kenny Rogers. Among its clientele are Barbra Streisand, Chicago, Julio Iglesias, and Michael Jackson. "It provides an interesting contrast, to say the least, to mining coal in eastern Kentucky. It also plays to my long enduring love for music," he explains. Chickering's wife, Beverly, produces movies, so they spend a lot of time in Santa Monica. "The resultant commuting between New York, which we call home, Kentucky, and California affords me a lot of time to ponder life at 20,000 feet.
"Often, when I am traveling and am momentarily lost in the beauty of the land or of the sunset sky, I mutter to myself my personal prayer: 'Thank you, God, for making it all so interesting.' "
