DeSantis
Carl DeSantis has perfected the art of turning adversity into advantage, with dazzling results, since he was four years old.
"Losers have decided they're going to lose," DeSantis said from his office in Boca Raton, where he is founder and chief executive of Rexall Sundown Inc., a giant vitamin corporation. "There's nothing I don't think I can do."
Sparked by a 1997 invitation to tell Florida State business students the secrets of success, DeSantis, 58, has decided to establish a center at the College of Business to train corporate executives.
"I genuinely want to get around young people," he said. He has pledged $2 million toward the Carl DeSantis Center for Executive Management Education, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the state.
The contribution will create at least three new professorships for Florida State's business college.
DeSantis wants his role in the center to be more than his name on a building. He hopes the potential executives who train there will learn his background and think the name DeSantis represents a way to turn setbacks into success.
"My legacy is, 'It's wonderful to be alive,' " he said.
Life seemed less than promising for DeSantis at an early age. His father died when he was four, and his mother had to uproot her children in Boston and move to Miami to be near her family.
DeSantis showed early entrepreneurial talents. He sold copies of the Miami News, making two cents on every nickel paper. Later, he invested $12 in a parakeet aviary and sold it for $250.
He graduated from Jackson High School and moved to Tallahassee to attend FSU.
Despite his intelligence (he nearly set the curve on the initial biology exam), DeSantis left Florida State, and went to work in a Walgreen's store.
But he was quickly a manager and turned the store in North Carolina into one of the most profitable. From there, he and his family returned to the Miami area, where he worked at a Super X.
Instead of climbing through the Super X ranks, DeSantis and a pharmacist friend created Sundown suntan lotion. In 1976, he spotted a demand for vitamins, bought out his partner, and launched a vitamin business that is approaching $400 million in sales this year.
Today Rexall Sundown Inc. distributes vitamins, nutritional supplements and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals in 30 countries.
In addition, DeSantis has begun a new venture in Como, Italy, making and marketing classic Italian neckties.
Melvin Stith, FSU's business dean, said entrepreneurs like DeSantis thrive on challenge.
"DeSantis remembers the entrepreneurial days," Stith said. "He is truly an entrepreneur."
-Dana Peck