Dennis M. Jones

Dennis M. Jones (September 12, 1938 – September 20, 2016) was an American businessman and pharmaceutical magnate, best known as the founder of Jones Pharma and Dennis M. Jones Family Foundation.

Early life and education

Jones was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1938,the son of a farm equipment dealer and a registered nurse. The family moved to Marshall, Illinois, population 3,000, when he was a young boy. As early as age 10, Dennis was helping out with the family business, sweeping floors and dusting the sales barn at his father’s farm implements dealership. By high school, Dennis was earning about 25 cents an hour, or $15 a week, and paying his parents $12 a week for room and board, leaving him $3 per week to buy school lunches and enjoy 75 cents of spending money. He considers these valuable learning experiences about business and the value of money.

As a teenager, Dennis’ father often took him to St. Louis for trade shows, where he experienced first-hand the polished side of business and the art of salesmanship. It was his early exposure to business that whetted his entrepreneurial instincts. He also read books about business and success, including Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Dennis wasn’t a particularly good student, and after graduating from High School in 1956, college was not an option because his parents could not afford it. He worked for a year at Ford Motor Company in Chicago Heights, Illinois, and then enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He considers his stint in the service as his substitute for college – where he grew up and matured.

In 1958, a year after enlisting, he married his High School sweetheart, Judy Pearce, who was from a more affluent area. Dennis wanted to run in her social circles and eventually provide her with the lifestyle she was accustomed to. Dennis and Judy began their married life in a trailer home, which, at the time, suited them quite nicely. Dennis knew he wanted to start a career in pharmaceutical sales early on. He thought because of his farm equipment sales exposure, sales would be the best way to provide for the family.

Realizing without a college degree, a career in pharmaceutical sales would be a long shot. So, upon his return to the States in 1961, he applied for two positions – one selling encyclopedias and the other selling insurance. He ended up with Rockford Life Insurance Company, where he stayed for three years, eventually becoming the youngest district sales manager in the company’s history. It was at Rockford Life where he mastered his sales technique. During that time, he happened to meet a man from Marion Labs who had just started his own company, which Jones remembers as his “lucky day”. Jim O’Neal was impressed with Jones and hired him in sales for his upstart pharmaceutical company, Sig: Laboratories. After a few years, O’Neal sold the company to a subsidiary of Revlon. What followed was O’Neal and Jones forming OJF Pharmaceutical Sales company, which in 1978, was acquired by Chromalloy American Corporation.[1] After this merger Jones decided it was time to go it alone.

Jones Pharma

Recognizing a business opportunity in pharmaceuticals that no one had yet undertaken, Dennis and Judy Jones gathered their entire savings, $100,000, along with an additional $200,000 from friends, and founded Jones Medical, later renamed Jones Pharma with an idea, on March 16, 1981. The idea was to purchase products and companies, eliminate duplicate overhead, and make profitable acquisitions.

Jones Pharma looked for products large companies didn’t have time to promote – successful products that, with some aggressive marketing, could prove to be extremely profitable. In the process of starting Jones Pharma, Dennis is credited with creating a new business model: the emerging specialty pharmaceutical group which has since been copied by other companies.

In the beginning, Jones Pharma consisted of Dennis and Judy Jones and one other employee. Within two years, two of his brothers joined (they later left for other ventures), and the company began making acquisitions. At its pinnacle, Jones Pharma employed 600 people in five plants located in Phoenix, Arizona, St. Petersburg, Florida, Canton, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin, and St. Louis, Missouri.

By 1999, they had made 19 acquisitions. Jones acquired a product named Thrombin USP, which is a hemostat that acts as a clotting agent in surgery. They tenaciously marketed the product and it wasn’t long before sales of Thrombin surpassed similar products at Parke Davis and Johnson & Johnson, eventually driving both out of the market. The company completed its initial public offering in 1986, trading under the ticker symbol JMED on the NASDAQ. For a decade in the 1990’s, with Dennis as the Chairman and CEO, Jones Pharma’s return to investors was the largest of any pharmaceutical company and the second largest on Wall Street.

In the summer of 2000, the Joneses decided to [2] sell the company to King Pharmaceuticals, based in Bristol, TN for $3.4 billion, an all-time record price for a company with annual sales of $200 million. [3] According to public filings, the vast majority of the company sales proceeds were realized by the company’s 600 employees and other public shareholders.

Business philosophy

As a businessman, Dennis Jones’ priority was to attain financial security for himself and his family, as well as, every man and woman who worked at Jones Pharma. His employees considered him a very generous and considerate man, who cared about everyone at the company and ran Jones Pharma like a family business. Jones knew people on a first-name basis and was accessible to everyone regardless of position.

Dennis considers one of his greatest satisfactions in building the business was building the financial success of the employees and shareholders. He initiated one of the first employee stock option programs in the pharmaceutical industry, a move that resulted in creating a lot of wealthy people when the company was sold. Other stockholders also reaped benefits from their investment. Early investors who purchased $10,000 in stock and hung on to that stock, discovered their investment was now worth $45 million. Dennis Jones has been quoted as saying “If Jones can do it, anybody can do it”.

Post business life

Since selling Jones Pharma, the Joneses settled nicely into retirement with lot of time to “stop and smell the roses”. They built the home of their dreams, an estate in Ladue, a suburban St. Louis community. They traveled the world in search of the perfect furnishings for the home, which is surrounded by lush gardens, where one often finds Judy clipping and pruning, a hobby she’s pursued for many years. Both Dennis and Judy love to travel, and delight in spending more time with their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends. In 2014, Dennis and Judy Jones ordered the build of a $34 million, 164 ft. motor yacht – D’Natalin IV [4] - by U.S. yacht builder, Christiansen Yachts which positively affected the lives of 200 new workers. He died in St. Louis, Missouri on September 20, 2016. [5]

Philanthropy

Dennis and Judy Jones believe hard work, strong values, and believing in oneself will result in success… and success has given them the opportunity to give back. Philanthropy is an important part of their lives and they seem to have as much fun sharing their good fortune as they did amassing it. The Dennis M. Jones Family Foundation is a St. Louis, Missouri-based foundation with a mission to support initiatives which empower individuals to succeed in life, with a focus on providing scholarships to underprivileged students. It was founded in 2000, and since then, more than $35 million has been contributed to charitable causes including civic organizations, education, Marines & Veterans, fighting homelessness, fighting poverty, and many others. [6]

The largest cumulative donations include $4.8 million to Connections to Success which helps ex-offenders develop job skills and land interviews, $3.8 million to Junior Achievement, $2.5 million to the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, $2.2 million to Forest Park Forever, and $2.0 million to the [[St. Louis Zoo][7]. The foundation is focused heavily on promoting the growth and education of underprivileged children mainly through scholarships. It has contributed heavily to Saint Louis University, the Roman Catholic Foundation, and Ranken Technical College.

Two recent programs include a group of youngsters known as the Jones Scholars, 76 children who received full scholarships to attend four inner city Catholic schools (administered by the Roman Catholic Foundation and the Today and Tomorrow Educational foundation), and Ranken Technical College. The foundation was funded with 1,000,000 shares of King Pharmaceuticals and converted into cash through the public sales of the shares at $52 per share. Dennis delights in the fact that the Foundation received the highest sale price of any members of the family.

Recognition

Dennis Jones has been recognized throughout his life for achievements in business and civic involvement. Some of these awards include:

• [8] EY Entrepreneur of the Year] (2006) which recognizes the endeavors of exceptional men and women who create the products and services that keep the worldwide economy moving forward
• [9] Variety the Children’s Charity of St. Louis Man of the Year (2004) which recognizes St. Louis philanthropists who play an active role in shaping the local community
• [10] Junior Achievement St. Louis Business Hall of Fame Laureate which highlights the lives of St. Louis businessmen and women, who through their success in business and life have made St. Louis an outstanding community.
• [11] Jones Pharma recognized as one of best performing stocks of the decade of the 1990’s - Los Angeles Times.
• [12] Dennis Jones rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on August 30, 2000.

References

• Gannon, Niall (2010). "Investing Strategies for the High Net Worth Investor", p. 233-245. McGraw Hill, New York. ISBN 978-0-07-162820-4
• Socha, Rudy & Darrow, Carolyn (2003). "Above and Beyond: Former Marines Conquer the Civilian World", p. 110. Turner Publishing, Paducha. ISBN 1-56311-949-8
• King Pharmaceuticals merging with Jones Pharma in $3.4 Billion Deal thepharmaletter.com
• St. Louis Business Journal: He’s a multimillionaire who never went to college, yet within 20 years built Jones Pharma into a business that was acquired for $3.4 billion [13]
• New York Times: Seeing a Supersize Yacht as a Job Engine, Not a Self-Indulgence [14]
• Wall Street Journal: Vonnegut: When It's Time to Discuss Charity [15]