GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — After almost two days of being everywhere he was needed before anyone could ask for him, Dan Cathy is missing.
Since touching down in Colorado, the Chick-fil-A president has been unstoppable. He went for a run immediately after the nearly four-hour flight from Atlanta. He beats everyone to the morning paper. He checks voice mail while others are wiping sleep from their eyes.
But at this moment, the Chick-fil-A staff is frantically searching for its seemingly tireless leader.
"Have you seen Dan?" company spokesman Mark Baldwin asks, surveying the carnival-like atmosphere in the parking lot of a soon-to-open Chick-fil-A in this city of 50,000.
Moments later Cathy appears, straightening his starched shirt and tie adorned with Chick-fil-A cows, brushing back his graying hair.
He had slipped into the children's playground — with a lulling soundtrack of singing birds and crickets — to take a nap.
After starting his day before the rooster crows for two mornings to make back-to-back media interviews and visit area Chick-fil-As, the chief operating officer of the Atlanta-based chicken chain had finally taken a break.
Cathy, 52, is simultaneously opening restaurants in Grand Junction, a small desert town on Colorado's border with Utah, and Castle Rock, a suburb of Denver four hours to the east.
And he's doing it in the hands-on tradition of past corporate titans, including Wal-Mart's Sam Walton, Home Depot's Bernie Marcus and Marriott hotels' Bill Marriott. He's on a mission to meet customers face to face and spread Chick-fil-A's mix-business-and-God message.
"Dan is passionate about interacting with customers," says Ken Bernhardt, Georgia State University's regents professor of marketing. "He loves it. It energizes him."
Pre-opening sleepovers
It's a strategy that is working. Chick-fil-A is the No. 2 fast-food chicken chain in the country, behind KFC. It opened 88 stores last year and plans an additional 78 this year.
The openings are not simple ribbon-cuttings. Cathy holds a dedication dinner during which he and other company leaders wait on new employees and Cathy explains Chick-fil-A's tenet — to serve people as Christ serves humanity.
And then there's the sleepover.
Beginning last year, Chick-fil-A offered the first 100 customers at its new stores a free combo meal each week for a year. Committed fans and the curious lined up hours in advance, setting up tents, lawn chairs and even mattresses in the parking lot to ensure a place in line.
"I tried to stay in the hotel with the hot water and the warm rooms," Cathy recalled during an interview with AM 91, a Christian radio station in Denver. "But I wasn't sleeping very well. I said I might as well be out there with them."
He camped out at 26 openings last year.
Building a buzz
To much of the nation, privately held Chick-fil-A has become a household name through its spelling-challenged bovines — an idea born of creativity on a tight marketing budget. On interstate billboards, they leapfrog over one another or pose with jackhammer in hoof to drive business to the company's 1,200-plus stores.
"They have built a buzz and grass-roots business through their quirky cow campaign," says Kenneth Hein, a senior editor at fast-food industry magazine Brandweek.
Truett Cathy, Dan's father, built the chain from a lone location at southwest Atlanta's Greenbriar Mall into a giant with stores in 38 states and 2004 sales of $1.74 billion.
Though Truett Cathy is still the company's chief executive officer and chairman, he leaves the day-to-day operations to his son, who is overseeing a westward expansion, especially into California and Arizona, and broadening the company's business to include catering and other offerings.
Company has evolved
Dan Cathy uses marketing aggressively. While his father's challenge was to get the company on the map, his is to make it a destination for customers.
When the elder Cathy was building the company, it was small enough for him to bond with all the store operators and their employees, Georgia State's Bernhardt says. Today, Dan Cathy uses an executive team to help him manage those relationships.
"The company has gone from an entrepreneurial company with one decision-maker to a professionally managed company that makes decisions by consensus," Bernhardt says. "It's a lot more complex today than it was when Truett was in charge."
But some things are the same. Chick-fil-A remains a stickler for service. The stores are unusually clean for the fast-food industry, and cashiers are cheerful "It's my pleasure" has become a company trademark.
Christian values remain at the heart of the company's operations. Restaurants are closed on Sundays, a mandate from Truett Cathy. He insisted his heirs sign a contract promising never to open stores on Sundays.
"We think our food tastes better on Mondays because we're closed on Sundays," Dan Cathy is fond of saying.
But operating a fast-food chain according to more than business principles has come at a cost, Bernhardt says. The company is losing millions by closing its doors on one of the most lucrative days of the week for dining out. And, he says, Chick-fil-A has been shut out of some malls that insisted on Sunday openings as part of lease agreements.
"But they don't care," Bernhardt says.
What is of concern to the Cathys is transferring the family's Christian values and business traditions to the next generation. Dan Cathy and his two siblings have 12 children, ranging from the early teens to late 20s.
About 13 percent of third-generation heirs to a family business hold onto the company, says Ron Braund, who for the past three years has been paid by the Cathy family to groom the next generation to take over.
Braund is president of Atlanta-based Transitional Family Services, which helps families plan wealth management strategies. He spends time with each Cathy family member to discuss their ideas on the company, its values and how they fit into its structure.
As the number of heirs to a company increases, so does the possibility that someone will want to sell or make changes that go against the founder's wishes, he says. If you throw in the influence of spouses, that likelihood mushrooms.
"The thing that's been good for the second generation (of the Cathy family) is how supportive their spouses have been," says Braund, who accompanied Cathy on the Colorado trip to get a better idea of how he works. "The critical element is going to be the marriages of the 12 grandkids."
Eager to serve
At Plum Tree Country Club in Castle Rock, the candlelight flickers softly, casting shadows along the wall of windows overlooking the golf course.
This is the dedication dinner for Chick-fil-A's new restaurant. The guests are its staff — register operators, food prep team, cleanup crew — and restaurant operator Joe Schneller.
The waiters are Chick-fil-A franchise owners and trainers from all over the country — and Cathy. They are in five-star restaurant attire: white tuxedo shirts and black bow ties. They serve from the left, clear from the right and leave no glass unfilled.
After dinner, Cathy tells the crowd that serving fellow humans is like serving Christ. He pulls out a worn, pocket-sized Bible and reads Scriptures that relate to the company's mission, a practice he repeats often during the trip.
"Wasn't it fun to serve other people?" he asks enthusiastically, flashing a big grin that reveals the dimple on his right cheek. "The idea of service is a gift."
While most executives keep religion at arm's length, Cathy markets faith alongside sandwiches. He prays with corporate staff, restaurant cashiers and customers.
Cathy is fond of describing Jesus as the ultimate waiter because he nourishes people spiritually.
And so does Cathy, many of his employees say. He inspires them because he serves them as much as they serve him. It's not unusual for Cathy to clear the tray of a dishwasher who has just finished a meal or to carry a staff member's luggage off a plane.
"It starts at the top," Schneller says. "It can't work with someone who doesn't live the values he espouses."
Excitement builds
As the sun sets, the parking lot of the Grand Junction store has turned into a campground. Tents, lawn chairs and sleeping bags are everywhere.
It's Wednesday, and more than 100 people showed up before 6 p.m. Shirtless teens from the local college out for spring break are throwing Frisbees while a basketball swooshes through a net in another part of the parking lot.
A water pipe — something like a bong — has made it onto the property. Guys sit around it taking puffs from its many tentacles.
People play cards, crank up video games and listen to music. Cellphones ring and cars whiz by on the busy highway that soon will carry traffic to the store.
"I'm a chicken fanatic," says Dan Thornton, a 6-foot-8, 300-pound former newspaper truck driver who is first in line. "Growing up, my mom would cook two chickens, one for me and one for everyone else."
Thornton arrived at his spot at 6:25 a.m., 24 hours and five minutes early for the opening. He wears a yellow wristband signifying he is one of the first 100. If he leaves the premises, he must go to the end of the line, a rule the chain instituted to be fair to those who stick it out.
He has come prepared with a cache of non-Chick-fil-A chicken meals: six chicken sandwiches, chicken chili, chicken biscuits and chicken spread. That's in addition to the Chick-fil-A sandwiches being supplied to Thornton and the others in line.
He's got a lawn chair, a tent, three books, a radio and a newspaper.
"I prepared all day yesterday to get down here," he says.
The big night
In the winter, Colorado's weather can be erratic. One minute it's sunny and in the 50s, the next it's spitting snow with winds above 25 mph.
It also can vary vastly depending on which side of the Rockies you're on.
In Grand Junction, the night feels perfect for sleeping under the stars. The Chick-fil-A staff traveling with Cathy gently suggest they stay here.
Cathy smiles but says it's time to fly over the mountains to Castle Rock. He's made a promise to bunk there and intends to keep it.
In Castle Rock, instead of T-shirts and shorts, everyone is in sweaters and long pants. Heat lamps warm the crowd.
Cathy isn't bothered.
"I like it best when it gets down into the 20s," he says.
He has swapped his shirt and tie for a running suit and is relishing the party, which is in full swing, with a costumed cow leading line dancers through the electric slide and the Macarena.
At midnight, the throng of about 110 make their way into the restaurant for a hot-cocoa party. Ana Schmitt, who lives in Denver, claps enthusiastically when Cathy, in welcoming remarks, says the company's purpose is to glorify God.
Before then, she wasn't as inspired to camp out as her mother, Olga Azor.
"This speech made it more worth it," Schmitt says. "This speech just turned me around."
An hour later everyone is ready for bed, and Cathy is among them.
It's been three days of interviewing, smiling, checking restaurant-opening details and running a billion-dollar company 2,000 miles away from headquarters.
Shortly after he crawls into the tent he is sharing with staffer Baldwin and family counselor Braund, the winds begin. They howl. They kick. Even though the tent is pitched in the restaurant's drive-through and held down by sandbags, its sides begin to flutter.
Early the next morning, Baldwin and Braund complain of being awake all night.
Cathy slept through it all.