Reginald F. Lewis was born on December 7, 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland and described his neighborhood as “semi-tough.” When he was only ten years old, he got his first job delivering the local Afro-American newspaper and kept all his money in a tin can called “Reggie’s Hidden Treasure.” The tin can was a gift from his grandmother who taught him his first financial lessons about saving a portion of all of his income. Reggie later sold his newspaper route for a profit. 

At Dunbar High School, Reggie excelled academically and athletically. He was elected Vice President of the student body while his good friend and classmate was elected President. On nights and weekends, Reggie worked with his grandfather who was a headwaiter for a local restaurant. Reggie also played quarterback for the football team, shortstop for the baseball team and forward on the basketball team. He served as captain on all three teams. 

In 1961, he received a football scholarship to attend Virginia State University, where he majored in economics. Despite losing his football scholarship due to an injury, and struggling academically in his first year, he graduated on the Dean’s List. He also became a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.
 
Once he lost his scholarship, Reggie stayed on his hustle by working at the local bowling alley and as a photographer’s assistant to help finance his college expenses.
During his senior year, opportunity came knocking! In an effort to introduce black students to legal studies and occupations, the Rockefeller Foundation funded an education program for black students that would allow them to attend summer school at Harvard Law School. 

Once the program ended, Reggie was invited to attend Harvard Law School – the only person in its 148-year history of Harvard Law to be admitted before applying. He came to Harvard Law with only $50 in his pocket. During his third year, he discovered the future of his career while taking a course on securities (stocks, bonds etc,) law.  He wrote his third year paper on corporation takeovers. Reggie graduated from Harvard Law School in 1968 and went to work for  Paul & Weiss, a prestigious law firm in New York. 

After working for Paul & Weiss for only two years, Reggie decided to start his own Wall Street law firm, which became the first Black American law firm on Wall Street. Although he focused primarily on corporate law, he also assisted minority owned companies to secure business loans and venture capital by using corporate foundations that invested in a venture capital fund called Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Companies.

With a strong desire to bypass the corporations and make profits from the deals himself, Reggie created TLC Group L.P., a venture capital company, in 1983. His first major corporate takeover was a deal worth $22.5 million to buyout a textile business called McCall Pattern Company. The deal was a leveraged buyout, in which TLC Group would use McCall’s assets as collateral to obtain loans to pay for the purchase of the company. 

Reggie gave McCall a complete makeover within one year. He turned the company around by selling some of its assets such as building and machinery, finding a new use for machinery during downtime by manufacturing greeting cards and recruiting managers from rival companies. By cutting costs, improving quality, beginning to export to China, and emphasizing new product introductions, McCall enjoyed the two most profitable years in its 113-year history. In 1987, Reggie and TLC Group sold it for $90 million and made a $50 million profit. 

Later that same year, Reggie bought Beatrice International Foods from Beatrice Companies for $985 million, and then renamed it TLC Beatrice International, a snack food, beverage, and grocery store conglomerate. The deal made TLC Beatrice the largest black-owned and black-managed business in the U.S. In order to reduce the amount needed to finance the deal, Reggie came up with a plan to sell off some of the company’s assets simultaneously with the takeover. As Chairman and CEO, he moved quickly to reposition the company, pay down the debt, and vastly increase the company’s worth.

When TLC Beatrice reported revenue of $1.8 billion in 1992, it became the first black-owned company to have more than $1 billion in annual sales. Reggie was soon traveling back and forth between his company’s offices in New York and Paris, primarily because most of its business was conducted in Europe. 

In January 1993, at age 50, Reggie’s remarkable entrepreneurial career was cut short as he died of brain cancer. In 1996, TLC Beatrice International Holdings Inc. hit a company record with sales of $2.2 billion and was number 512 on Fortune magazine's list of 1,000 largest companies. 

Reginald F. Lewis lived his life according to the words he often quoted to audiences around the country: “Keep going, no matter what.” 

The Black Economy strives to inspire Black Americans to become financially intelligent and we tell these stories to inform you that other Black Americans were successful before Bob Johnson and Oprah Winfrey became billionaires. We must not forget the strong brothers and sisters who dealt with slavery, Jim Crow and continued discrimination, and yet still became millionaires. Now it’s your turn to at least make a financial attempt at creating wealth.

Create Wealth, Enjoy Life!
James "Bird" Guess
President & Founder

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