Blake Mycoskie
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Intro:'
Blake Mycoskie (born August 26, 1976) is an American entrepreneur and author. He is best known as the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes.
Early Life
Blake was born in Arlington, Texas to Mike Mycoskie, an orthopedic surgeon and former Texas Rangers team doctor, and Pam Mycoskie, author of the best-selling cookbook, Butter Busters. He is the eldest of three children, including his sister Paige and his brother Tyler.
As a teen, Mycoskie attended James Martin High School in Arlington, Texas before transferring to St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin. In 1995, he was accepted into Southern Methodist University on a tennis scholarship. During his sophomore year, Mycoskie suffered a career-ending injury to his Achille’s tendon. It was while he was recovering from this injury that Mycoskie had the idea for his first business, EZ Laundry, a door-to-door laundry service targeting his fellow students. After growing to a total of 40 employees and eight trucks, Blake sold the business to his partner. He would go on to start four more businesses before founding TOMS.
Entrepreneurship
In 1999, Blake created his second business, Mycoskie Media, an outdoor billboard company based in Nashville, Tennessee, that he would later sell to Clear Channel Communications. Following his stint on the CBS reality show, The Amazing Race, Mycoskie sought to create an all-reality cable TV network called Reality Central. Reality Central was covered by CNN and featured on the front page of Variety, but ultimately folded when Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox Reality Channel. After Reality Central, Blake partnered with the founders of TrafficSchool.com to create Drivers Ed Direct, an online drivers education service and in-the-car training school featuring hybrid cars and SUVs.
Amazing Race
Blake and his sister Paige competed as a team on the second season of CBS’ The Amazing Race. In one of the closest finishes in the show’s history, Blake and Paige finished just four minutes short of winning the $1 million dollar grand prize. The Mycoskie siblings finished third overall.
TOMS
While vacationing in Argentina in 2006, Blake spent a day volunteering with a local non-profit organization delivering used shoes to children in the villages outside of Buenos Aires. Blake’s self-described epiphany moment came when he realized that he could start a for-profit business, not a charity, to continually give new shoes to children in need. He would do so by selling an updated version of the alpargata, a shoe worn by farmers in South America for over 100 years.
Blake created the One for One business model, which provides a new pair of TOMS shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased. Blake originally called his company “Shoes for Tomorrow,” but later shortened the name to “TOMS Shoes.”
TOMS Shoes is a for-profit company with a simple business model: “With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One.” Since the company began in 2006, TOMS has given more than two million pairs of new shoes to children in need through its giving partners around the world.
In 2011, TOMS Eyewear was launched using the One for One model. For every pair of glasses sold, people in need would receive prescription glasses, sight-saving surgery or medical treatment.
Personal Life
According to Blake’s blog, his favorite hobbies include writing, traveling, sailing, fly fishing, surfing, polo and golf. He counts Richard Branson, Ted Turner, Sam Walton, Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau as his biggest influencers. Mycoskie has never been married and has no children.
Since 2006, Mycoskie has lived on a sailboat in Marina Del Rey, California.
Awards and Recognition
In 2007, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi presented Mycoskie and TOMS with the "People's Design Award" sponsored by Cooper Hewitt, the National Design Museum in New York City.
In October 2007, Mycoskie and the band Hanson were presented with the key to the city of West Hollywood. In 2008, Mycoskie was nominated for GQ's "The Better Men Better World Search" competition. In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Mycoskie and TOMS with the "Award for Corporate Excellence" (ACE). Since 1999, the Secretary of State has conferred the ACE on U.S. businesses that meet a diverse set of needs, in various communities throughout the world. In February 2009, Mycoskie gave a talk at the prestigious TED Conference in Long Beach, California. Also in February 2009, Mycoskie was invited by President Clinton to speak on the opening plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative University conference in Austin, Texas. On the panel was actress Natalie Portman, Paul Bell, President of Dell Global Public, and Mambidzeni Madzivire, a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering. On November 16, 2009, Mycoskie rang the New York Stock Exchange Bell (NYSE) alongside rapper Cordozar Calvin Broadus (aka "Snoop Dogg").
In 2010, TOMS was named “Brand of the Year” by Footwear News. Mycoskie was presented the award by actress Jessica Alba at the 24th Annual Footwear News Achievement Awards in New York City.
Citations:
Time Magazine - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582305,00.html
Wall Street Journal Online- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204632204577131031031671906.html
Huffington Post – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-mycoskie
WebMD – http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/features/blake-mycoskie-starts-something-that-matters
Fast Company – http://www.fastcompany.com/1776334/toms-shoes-ceo-blake-mycoskie-on-social-entrepreneurship-telling-stories-and-his-new-book
Inc.com - http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080301/my-place-blake-mycoskies-cozy-cruiser.html
Footwear News – http://www.wwd.com/footwear-news/brand-of-the-year-toms-shoes-3391402
ACE Awards – http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/dec/133351.htm
New York Stock Exchange: Investor Relations - http://ir.nyse.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=129145&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1356038&highlight=
Go Go Gala – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/blake_mycoskie/
Key to West Hollywood – http://www.hanson.net/site/postings/5860?section_id=17
Cooper Hewitt – http://peoplesdesignaward.cooperhewitt.org/2007/
CGI U –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCN0MJHmfDg