More steps towards the separation....

It's 1976 and Regal 8 Inns is beginning to face the problem of what to do? Do we continue in the manner in which we got where we are - growing, making good money but putting most of it back to continue the growth? With six years growth, the principals have received no cash return on ownership. Margaret and I are doing very well with salary and bonus (approx. $85,000), but all the company profit was being expended on expansion.

We finally hit the big time early 1975 when "Motel/Hotel Journal", a monthly magazine devoted to the motel business, contacted us and sent out a reporter. We ended up with a photograph on the cover and approximately a five page article, extolling our virtues and success, with pictures. This got us a lot of national attention, and we suddenly had large national companies coming to us. Most of these companies wanted to take us public with stock issues and we would be off and running. We even had interest from the Howard Johnson chain that was considering having a budget division in their company, but that didn't go anywhere.

The owners, Don Geary, Bob Reeves, Margaret and I flew to Philadelphia and met with Butcher and Shearer (now known as Butcher and Singer), one of the country's largest financial/accounting companies. They specialized in taking companies public. They had spent a week some time prior doing an audit of the company and getting a 'feel' of our procedures/management. The result was that they recommended that we go public and be a stock company. But we left undecided. None of us really felt we understood exactly what the outcome would be for us and what control any of us would have over the future of the company.

In the meantime, Don himself was beginning to push us to sell one-half of the company to a Springfield, Illinois insurance company that he (Don) held stock in. He was very good friends with the owner and was on their board of directors. Don was also involved with the CW group that owned and operated under franchise to us, about ten motels at that time. Margaret and I realized that this shift would put Don as THE major stockholder, and we did not feel that this would be good for the other partners - namely, Bob, Harold and of course ourselves.

So the company's future was up in the air - and none of us knew where it was headed. Margaret and I spent a lot of time discussing our position and we finally knew that we wanted out of the picture so we made a proposal to sell our ownership in the company. We came to terms and for our shares we received the Regal 8 Inns in Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota; plus the one being built in Billings, Montana, plus the franchise rights to the seven north western States and $50,000 in cash. The two existing motels were already great money makers. We formed Topper, Inc. as our new company and we felt we had a true personal success story.