Golden opportunities After working their way up, two local McDonald’s franchisees now define themselves as small-business owners

As young men in the 1960s, Gary Eckmann and Doug Quagliaroli applied for what they thought might be temporary work toasting buns and flipping burgers at a new drive-in chain called McDonald’s. To their surprise, it was the beginning of two long and lucrative careers in a restaurant business that soared unlike any other.

“I got ketchup in my veins,” Eckmann said in a recent interview in his Hancock Street office in Bangor. Eckmann, a 60-year-old Hampden resident, rose through the ranks of McDonald’s and now owns seven restaurants in Bangor, Dover-Foxcroft and Brewer.

Quagliaroli, 64, of Hampden also climbed the McDonald’s ladder to ownership. Today he and his wife, Linda, own five restaurants in Old Town, Ellsworth, Bucksport, Machias and Belfast.

These franchise owners want customers to view their local McDonald’s not as a branch of a major corporation, but as another hardworking “mom and pop.”

“People see the corporation, but they don’t see the faces behind it,” Doug Quagliaroli said in a recent interview in his State Street office in Bangor.

Quagliaroli acknowledged that he and his wife owe a great deal of their success to operating under one of the world’s most widely recognized brand names, but said the pressure to provide consistently good food and service to thousands of customers every day keeps him working as hard as the next small-business owner.

“I would definitely say 10-hour days are average for us, especially because our locations are spread out,” Linda Quagliaroli said.

As owner-operators, Eckmann and the Quagliarolis are not employees of McDonald’s, but they follow the corporation’s complex and formal operating and employee training systems. In addition, they pay rent and a monthly service fee – about 4 percent of monthly sales – to McDonald’s.

When describing how his “small business” works, Doug Quagliaroli calls it a “three-legged stool” consisting of the owner-operator, supplier and the McDonald’s Corp. Each entity provides the support or services necessary for the restaurants to function. Each McDonald’s restaurant employs 35 to 55 people and brings in, on a national average, about $2 million in annual sales.

“Some of my employees have been with me for close to 30 years. Many of them have college degrees,” Eckmann said.

A clear path to upward mobility is part of the reason Eckmann, Doug Quagliaroli and some of their employees have chosen careers with McDonald’s.

After managing restaurants in Beverly and Peabody, Mass., and becoming an area supervisor in New York and New Jersey, Eckmann spent most of the 1970s working directly under McDonald’s franchise founder Ray Kroc at the company’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. There, Eckmann oversaw new product development.

“As opportunities presented themselves, I kept moving up,” Eckmann said.

He traveled almost constantly and in 1979 decided to find a more stationary position. He bought three stores in Enid, Okla., then in 1986 found out McDonald’s was selling its 20 company-owned restaurants in Maine. He sold the Oklahoma restaurants and bought four in Bangor.

Eckmann’s wife, Beth, and their six children have all worked in the family’s restaurants at one time or another. Son Marty Eckmann, 34, is director of operations for the seven restaurants and is a qualified owner-operator.

The Quagliaroli family life has also revolved around its fast-food business. Doug Quagliaroli began at a McDonald’s in New Britain, Conn., in 1968 after completing his service in the Air Force. He was quickly promoted to management at other area McDonald’s and then to a corporate office in Westwood, Mass., where he oversaw operations throughout New England. In 1985 he became anxious to own his own restaurant and remembered his brief time stationed at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.

“I felt the quality of life here was good,” Quagliaroli said. He and his wife, who has also completed owner-operator training, bought the McDonald’s on Stillwater Avenue in Old Town and gradually acquired their other restaurants.

Neither owner considers the other his competition. Both describe an obsessive effort to maintain cleanliness, attentive customer service and inexpensive, high-quality food in their restaurants. Consistency is paramount – if a customer has a bad experience at one restaurant, that customer is likely to avoid other McDonald’s, Eckmann said.

Eckmann and the Quagliarolis are graduates of Hamburger University at the company’s headquarters in Illinois. McDonald’s is the only restaurant whose management training programs are recognized by the American Council on Education. For example, ACE recommends colleges and universities grant up to three college credit hours for McDonald’s crew training manager and shift manager courses. Eastern Maine Community College accepts such credits toward its business degree.

McDonald’s recently received scrutiny from the film “Supersize Me,” whose director argued that most menu items are overloaded with fat and sugar. But the film didn’t hurt business, Quagliaroli and Eckmann said.

“The basic quality of our products is very high, whether it’s the hamburger or the potatoes or the salad,” Quagliaroli said. “We make [nutrition information] available to our customers.”

Quagliaroli said he and his wife eat two meals a day at their restaurants and Eckmann said he eats at least one. They all appear to be in good shape.

McDonald’s has made efforts to buy its ingredients locally. French fries and hash browns in restaurants from Bangor to Philadelphia are made from Maine-grown potatoes, which are processed by McCain Foods in Easton. As one of Maine’s top 10 largest employers, McDonald’s pays $50.4 million in payroll, taxes and local services such as landscaping and utilities each year, according to the corporation.

A fair share of McDonald’s profits are donated to charitable causes. Maine owner-operators collectively pledged $250,000 toward an addition to the Ronald McDonald House in Portland, which houses families with hospitalized children. Another Ronald McDonald House is located in Bangor across from Eastern Maine Medical Center.

The Quagliarolis and Eckmann speak about McDonald’s with the same pride and enthusiasm many other small-business owners exude when describing their ideas and innovations. On his right hand, Eckmann wears a large black ring with 14-karat-gold arches, a gift from the corporation for his 25th year of service. It’s certainly not something most other small-business owners receive for their efforts, but both men assume an unwavering loyalty to McDonald’s.

“I could count on one hand the number of days I didn’t want to go to work,” Doug Quagliaroli said.