LIVE TO EAT: My friend Jeff Mease on Papa John, independent local business values, and the ideology of the cancer cell.

Strictly speaking, Jeff Mease isn't a hometown boy made good. He came to Bloomington, Indiana from Ohio to attend Indiana University, never left, and the rest is history.

Jeff and I were aware of each other for a long time, and chatted here and there, but it was only when he was a director on the Brewers of Indiana Guild that we had time to form a closer acquaintance. I have deep respect for what he's accomplished in Bloomington.

One World Enterprises is the umbrella for the local businesses pictured above, and to my way of thinking, Jeff and the folks who work for him are a wonderful, living example of independent small business success.

Today on Facebook, Jeff commented about the "Papa John" Schnatter situation. To me, it's an important and insightful riff, so with the author's permission ...

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Back in the early 90's I was upgrading some pizza dough equipment. There weren't many companies that produced the sort of mixers that make hundreds of pounds of pizza dough at a time. 

As it happened, the salesman that I ended up dealing with was an expert in the field, had spent his career in baking equipment sales and had sold the same sort of dough equipment I was looking for to Papa John's, which John Schnatter had started in Southern Indiana a couple years after I'd started Pizza Express in Bloomington. 

Having jumped into franchising early on, Papa John's was already a large and fast growing company. My curiosity about Papa John's meteoric growth was piqued during my conversations with the salesman, and near the end of a series of meetings I had the chance to ask the question I'd been forming.

"Bob," I said, "You've visited my company in Bloomington, met most of my key people and have gotten to know me a bit, tell me, what are the key differences you see between me, running this small and successful restaurant company and John Schnatter?"

"Oh sure," was his answer. "John Schnatter is ruthless. There's nobody in that company that was there at the beginning. I doubt there's anyone at corporate who's been there more than a few years." Bob's words from nearly two decades ago have always stuck with me.

Obviously, there are lots of customers who like what the papa does. But here in Bloomington, I've watched those franchises change hands numerous times. Their store management positions are a revolving door and there is no culture that I can sense, just branding, pressure and dollars, as is typical of the genre. 

Contrast that to Pizza X in Bloomington -- Papa John's most direct competitor. Our people are paid well and taken care of, and our managers hardly ever turn over. Each year at our manager awards dinner we're handing out service awards to managers and staff for 5,10, 15, 20 years of employment. One of our manager's is going on 30 years with the company. 

Pizza X employs over 100 people in Bloomington, 46 of whom are full time. We've had a first rate health insurance plan for our staff for many years (more than a decade before Obamacare) and it costs us less than 30 cents per pizza--WHAT AN INCREDIBLE VALUE. 

While none of us are getting rich, together as an organization we've created a great deal of customer value and through that a lot of good jobs, where good people can excel, and where all of us continue to learn about the value of service almost daily. 

I'm not trying to blow our own horn so much as to say this: There are different ways to do things, and the more conscious we ALL are about where we spend our money, the better world we'll create. Institutions and companies need to grow, we all need aspirations and inspiration, but do some things get too big too fast? Cancers and explosions come to mind. 

Visiting a friend in Freiburg, Germany a few years ago, I spent a beautiful fall afternoon at a farmers market that happened every day of the year but one, just as it has since 1514. At the center of the market was a cathedral that took 300 years to build.

Mike Moore banishes Papa John Schnatter as an amazed Deaf Gahan keeps both eyes on the money.

Cry me a river. John Schnatter has those millions to keep him warm. Still, I'm surprised at the speed by which Mike Moore distanced the city from the pizza mogul.

You can't even imagine Deaf Gahan displaying resolution like this, can you?

By the way, can someone remind Gahan that his signature human rights commission remains in the down-low garage, up on blocks, and as moribund as the New Albany mayor's summer reading list?

Verily, there's a better chance of locating an edible Papa John's pizza than Gahan's pulse when it comes to real-world civil rights: "Dixiecrat ingredients, Dixiecrat governance: Papa Jeff's."

Papa John's hometown takes his name off gym after he admits racial slur, by Morgan Watkins (Louisville Courier Journal)

The mayor of John Schnatter's hometown removed the Papa John's founder's name from the city's basketball gym Wednesday after he admitted using a racial slur.

"The city of Jeffersonville represents a very diverse community," said Mayor Mike Moore, who added that he knew Schnatter when they were both growing up and considers him a friend. "It was a tough decision, but I believe it was the right decision."

Forbes reported Wednesday morning that Schnatter used the N-word during a May conference call with a firm that had been hired to help him avoid public relations problems. Schnatter had previously been criticized for comments he made about NFL players who were taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice ...

Papa John, Charles Koch and higher education. This does not compute.

In this instance, I have refrained from leaping aboard the social media bandwagon. Honestly, I like Steve Gohmann, who has been chosen as the "Free Enterprise" center's director, as much as I dislike Papa John and the Kochs.

Here's the story in three links.

March 10: Papa John, Koch brother give multimillion-dollar gifts to U of L, by Stephen George (IL)

The University of Louisville today announced a combined $6.3 million in gifts from Papa John’s founder John Schnatter and the Charles Koch Foundation, a philanthropic offshoot of the prominent conservative brothers, to support an expansion of the university’s economics and entrepreneurship programs.

The gifts — $4.64 million from Schnatter’s family foundation and $1.66 million from the Koch Foundation — are intended to fund the creation of the John H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise at U of L’s College of Business. The funds will be distributed over seven years and support the hiring of two tenure-track professors and two visiting professorships, according to the university, as well as an outreach director and an administrative assistant.

Stephan Gohmann, the BB&T Professor of Free Enterprise in the school’s Department of Economics, will be director of the new center. Gohmann is a 26-year veteran of the university who said the funding will enable him to expand current offerings while providing “different points of view” for students, including expanded lectures, seminars, symposiums, and an annual keynote speaker with a national profile.

And ...

March 16: Agreement details proposed budget, salaries for new U of L Free Enterprise Center, by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

In December, The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting cited concerns from unidentified U of L faculty members and supporters that the donation might be a way to wield influence over hiring and curriculum at the university to espouse conservative political views held by Charles Koch, a businessman and philanthropist from Kansas who is the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries.

The agreement states that the money donated can be used only for educational purposes, meaning it can not be used to influence legislation or the outcome of a political election. The money also cannot be used to advance a political campaign or carry out voter registration drives, the agreement states, or for "any other purpose that would jeopardize the Donor's tax-exempt status."

Finally ...

March 18: Contracts for Schnatter-Koch gifts could leave U of L on the hook, by Stephen George (IL)

The proposed John H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise at the University of Louisville will be built on the concepts of academic and entrepreneurial freedom, supporters say. But the contracts to create it allow its two donors — Papa John’s founder Schnatter and the Charles Koch Foundation — the freedom to walk away at any time, leaving U of L on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to pay tenure-track professors hired expressly for the center. That de facto veto power gives the donors broad — though indirect — influence over the shaping and execution of the new academic program.

But of course Papa John shovels money in the general direction of the Koch Brothers.

The original Mother Jones piece has lurid details of the Koch network of money-engorged white males (a random sprinkling of widows of monied white males illustrates required diversity).

There's one main rule at the conservative donor conclaves held twice a year by Charles and David Koch at luxury resorts: What happens there stays there.

The billionaire industrialists and their political operatives strive to ensure the anonymity of the wealthy conservatives who fund their sprawling political operation—which funneled more than $400 million into the 2012 elections—and to keep their plans private.

Of course he is. It's what fascists do: Papa's crooning: "Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."

Terry Boyd nicely connects the dots.

Mother Jones: John Schnatter part of Koch Brothers’ conservative donor network
by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

Liberal muckraking mag Mother Jones has a story about an errant Koch Brothers doc falling into the public domain after a big conservative California powwow.

It seems the Wichita, Kan.-based brothers — who used their Koch Industries empire to finance conservative super-PACs such as Americans for Prosperity and black money campaign efforts — left behind a list identifying who they met with in Palm Springs, Calif.

In their story, Mother Jones reporters Andy Kroll and Daniel Schulman focus on one particular pizza chain mogul in the Koch donor network by the name of John Schnatter ...

Papa's crooning: "Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."

Papa's back in the house. Spinning. I'm tossing, though not pizzas.

The Real Scoop on Papa John's and Obamacare, by John Schnatter (Huffington Post)

 ... Many in the media reported that I said Papa John's is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare. I never said that.