The Business Management class had a guest speaker this week by the name of John Cooke, who was a former McDonald’s vice-president and ombudsman.  John was hired on by Ray Crok the founder of McDonald’s in 1967. He worked directly for Ray for 2 years and continued to work for McDonald’s for 30 years in Chicago before retiring and moving to Galena. He shared with the class his experience working for Ray Crok and the vision that he had when starting all of the McDonald’s franchises. John built the first corporate office building in Oakbrook IL. He explained to the class how the franchising works and the rules that need to be followed. When the licensee’s had a problem John was the one that they contacted.

The class really enjoyed John coming in and talking with them about his experience working directly for the founder of McDonald’s. We have been discussing in class different topics such as entrepreneurship and financing your business so it was nice to have John come in and share his story!