As one of the men to introduce the Golden Arches to Canada, George Cohon has made enough cash to float a battleship.
For now, he's content to sail his yacht by Amanda Lang
The only frivolous thing about George Cohon's boat is its name. The McHappy--emblazoned across the teak stern--sounds more like a McDonald's menu item than the handle for a 38-foot, custom-built cruiser outfitted for deep-sea fishing. Trivial or not, however, the name fits: The 68-year-old Cohon was the man behind the Big Mac's debut in Ontario; and whether his approach to life is innate or circumstantial, Cohon is one happy guy.
The cruiser--his treasured toy--is tied up at a private pier behind the Palm Beach mansion he and his wife, Susan, retire to each winter to avoid Toronto's deep-freeze. On board, he has kicked off his leather boat shoes (the teak deck is pristine, and the photographer, his assistant and I follow suit) and begun to happily explain the dials and buttons for the sonar and GPS systems. Then he starts the engine and eases the McHappy from its mooring into what's known locally as Lake Worth, the lagoon that runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean and splits West Palm from Palm Beach's Billionaire's Row.
There are few other boats to worry about this morning; the sea is calm, though a light rain has begun to fall. Cohon props his lean, six-foot-plus frame against the captain's chair and chats casually as he steers a course parallel to the shore. He has a generous smile, which lights up not only his greeny-blue eyes but also his whole face. When he's genuinely amused, his laugh comes as a quick bark.
Cohon confesses to having "a butterfly for a mind," one that flutters between subjects rapidly and lightly. One of the joys of owning the boat is that, at the helm, he must stay focused on the task at hand: "I respect the water," he says. Though he does still manage to maintain a running commentary.
"That's President Kennedy's boat, the Honey Fritz," he says, pointing to a beautiful wood-constructed yacht moored on shore, then makes sure we take note of the back of the legendary Italian Renaissance-style Breakers hotel. When we cruise along a stretch of shoreline dotted with Gatsby-era architectural gems, he tells me about a recent party at the Moorish-Gothic mansion to our right, attended by both the president of NBC and Donald Trump. "You should have seen how Trump behaved," he says, laughing. "It just goes to show that it doesn't matter who you are, everyone has a boss."
Farther along is the boatyard where he bought his yacht, and where, shortly after, it was showcased in the Boat Yard Ball, a society event all of Palm Beach attends. Cohon, with all of seven hours sailing under his captain's hat, was forced to answer questions about his latest acquisition, something he did with difficulty, since the guest list boasted many of Palm Beach's most committed boaters. But Cohon has always been able to think on his feet.
He was a newly married young lawyer in Chicago in 1967 when he helped a client with a McDonald's franchise agreement. At that time, there were no Golden Arches in Canada. So Cohon, mortgaged to the hilt, bought the licence to Eastern Canada for $70,000, and moved his wife and two sons to Toronto. When the first restaurant was unveiled in London, Ontario, Ray Kroc, McDonald's founder, flew up to join in the celebrations. Perhaps realizing for the first time that Canada had massive potential, Kroc offered to buy back Cohon's licence on the spot for a cool million. "I didn't think twice about the offer," says Cohon. Well, maybe he did think twice. "It was an awful lot of money at the time." In the end, he turned Kroc down--Cohon knew he had a gold mine on his hands.
He has been generous with his wealth and connections over the years, famously helping to save Toronto's Santa Claus parade in 1982 when Eaton's relinquished the lead sponsorship. But he will also withhold that generosity if he feels that he's been crossed or wronged in some way. He admits, for instance, that the rudeness a Pepsi executive showed him helped ensure that the cola company never got a foot in the door at McDonald's.
Cohon's most marked characteristic is his curiosity--about things in general, but especially about people. He may be intimate with political leaders like Bill Clinton and business tycoons like Jack Welch, but he's also intensely interested in everyone he encounters, including, today, the photographer and his assistant: Are they a couple? If so, how serious, and did they meet on the job? (In an aside later, he will ask me if the assistant's shorn head indicates a brush with cancer. Five years ago, Cohon had his own scare, prostate cancer, from which he made a full recovery.) Palm Beach is a place where, if you wanted to, you could spend every night at a black tie event. Cohon and his wife may be the right age and in the right tax bracket for this enclave, but their attitudes about life tend toward the prosaic rather than the posh. In fact, lunch for the Cohons is as likely to be at a nearby McDonald's as at a trendy place around the corner on Worth Avenue. (Later, when we do have lunch at McDonald's, Cohon makes a point of returning unused condiments: "This is a penny business," he says.)
Cohon remains passionate about McDonald's, though he stepped back from day-to-day operations of McDonald's Canada--which he'd grown to some 1,000 franchises--a few years ago, and had sold his ownership in the subsidiary back to the U.S. parent years before that. Of all his business accomplishments, though, he is most proud of introducing McDonald's to Russia, a task that required thousands of hours of negotiations with the Soviet leaders at the time (Mikhail Gorbachev is still a friend). He opened the first restaurant in Pushkin Square in the dying days of Soviet communism, bringing to Moscow not just high-paying jobs but a powerful symbol of the capitalist world. (In the garden opposite his Palm Beach home stands a statue of that potent communist icon, Vladimir Lenin.)
We have cruised the length of one of America's most monied neigbourhoods, but as Cohon pulls the high-powered, high-priced yacht back into its moorings behind his house, it's still the simple things that give him pleasure: "Look at that," he says with a grin, "not a bump on either side."
ET CETERA...
What was your first job? At age 12, counting plumbing fixtures in my grandfather's store on the south side of Chicago
Who's the smartest person you know? Alexander Yakovlev, the intellectual force behind perestroika
What's your hidden talent? Changing diapers--first for my children, then my grandchildren
What's your guilty pleasure? None of your business--I'll never tell
What job, besides your current one, did you like best? Being a Fuller Brush salesman
What were you afraid of when you were a kid? The bully who lived on our block. When I got bigger, I straightened him out
Where would you like to go that you haven't been? To the Bahamas on my boat
What time do you go to work every day? It varies--I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me