Frank H. Murray

Frank Hardart Murray (born 1953) is an American business executive. He is Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of InterTech Media and Zocle Media. In the 1990s, Murray was the Chairman and CEO of Goodman Manufacturing Company who engineered Goodman's purchase of Amana Corporation from Raytheon and initiated Amana's successful brand-revitalization campaign.^[1] Under Murray, Goodman moved up Forbes' list of 500 Biggest Private Companies from #405 to 66.^[2] Murray has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an A.B. degree in mathematics and economics from Ohio Wesleyan University.^[3]

Early life

A native of New York, who grew up in Connecticut, Murray came from a family of entrepreneurs. He is named after his maternal great-grandfather, Frank Hardart, co-founder of Horn & Hardart, the company known for the Automats - the self serve cafeterias popular in Philadelphia and New York. His great grandfather on his father's side, Samuel J. Murray, revolutionized the manufacturing of playing cards through the United States Playing Card Company. ^[4]

Career

Early in his career, Frank Murray was a partner in the Beacon Group, a managing director at Merrill Lynch and a vice president at Dillon Read. He first came into contact with Goodman Manufacturing, the largest privately held heating and air conditioning company in the United States, as a financial adviser to Goodman's founder, Harold Goodman. When Harold Goodman passed away in January 1995, the Goodman family asked Murray to take his place as Chairman and CEO at the company's headquarters in Houston, Texas, the following year.^[5]

At the time, Goodman was the number four heating and air conditioning company behind Carrier Corporation, and reaching market saturation. Murray saw Amana as "an opportunity to expand into new product lines with a well-known brand."^[1] The sale of Amana to Goodman was announced July 14, 1997. The deal included Amana's home appliance, commercial cooking and heating and air conditioning business, but not Raytheon's commercial laundry business.^[1] Amana was headquartered in Amana, Iowa, and had 5,500 employees.^[5]

In keeping with his promise to "enhance the Amana brand,"^[5] Murray initiated a $20 million brand revitalization campaign for the long dormant Amana brand, by DDB Worldwide's New York branch. The ads, with the tag, "Built Better Than It Has To Be," featured female comedians, including Mad TV's Deborah Wilson, on a bright pastel-colored background, talking about mishaps with refrigerators, ranges and washers and dryers and how Amana features can solve them.^[6]

Murray left Goodman in 1999 to return to his Connecticut roots and in 2000, launched InterTech Media.^[7] InterTech "is the world's fastest growing provider of Internet-based services to media companies. With more than 1,200 client radio and television station clients."^[8]

References