Fred De Luca

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Fred DeLuca (born 1948 in New York City ^[1]) is the co-founder of the Subway franchise of sandwich restaurants. DeLuca is an alumnus of Central High School in Bridgeport, CT and the University of Bridgeport.

When DeLuca was seventeen years old, he borrowed $1,000 from family friend Peter Buck to start his first sandwich shop. He was trying to raise money to pay for college. He chose a mediocre location for his shop, but by noon on the first day of the opening, customers were pouring in. On the radio advertisement they had promoted the name as "Pete's Submarines", which sounded like Pizza Marine, so they changed the name to "Pete's Subway", eventually it was shortened to "Subway", as it is known today. As of 2006, the company counts over 25,000 franchised locations in 84 countries and produces US$ 9.05 billion sales every year. In 2007, Forbes magazine named DeLuca number 242 of the 400 richest Americans with a networth of 1.5 billion dollars. ^[2]

Fred is rumored to have never purchased a new car, instead always purchasing second hand cars. Whenever he flies he only ever purchases economy class tickets. Fred pays close attention to money spent by the company. He is reported to be always looking to increase sales, decrease costs and increase profitability.