Robert W. Woodruff

Robert Winship Woodruff (December 6, 1889 – March 7, 1985) was the president of The Coca-Cola Company from 1923 until 1954. With his enormous Coke fortune, he was also a major philanthropist, and many educational and cultural landmarks in the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia, bear his name.

Woodruff was born in Columbus, Georgia, the son of Ernest Woodruff, an Atlanta businessman who, among other things, was leader of the group of investors who bought The Coca-Cola Company from Asa Griggs Candler in 1919.

After graduating from the Georgia Military Academy he attended the Oxford, Georgia campus of Emory University (see Oxford College of Emory University) for one term before giving up on education. Spurning his father's work offers, he began work as a laborer at a foundry then as a machinist at General Fire Extinguisher where he worked his way into sales. He then accepted a job offer from his father at Atlantic Ice and Coal Company but left after differences with him. Woodruff parlayed his love of early automobiling into a sales position at White Motor Company based in Cleveland, Ohio, and quickly rose to become vice president of that company. During World War I, Woodruff joined the US Ordnance Department where he promoted a truck design that only White Motors could fulfill, giving the company huge war-time sales.

When Coca-Cola got into financial difficulty, the board elected Robert Woodruff as president at the age of 33. Woodruff built Coca-Cola into an international company, establishing a foreign department in 1926. He stepped down as president in 1954, but remained on the board of directors until 1984. He died in 1985 and was buried at Westview Cemetery.

In 1979, Woodruff and his brother gave $105 million to Emory University and would eventually give a total of $230 million dollars. Several buildings on the Emory campus are named for him and members of his family. He also gave large sums of money to other area colleges and universities and to Woodward Academy (formerly Georgia Military Academy) in College Park and the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. A boy scout camp in Blairsville, Georgia named the Robert W. Woodruff Scout Reservation which is run by the Atlanta Area Council was built following major donations from the Woodruff Foundation and Coca-Cola. Atlanta's largest cultural institution, the Woodruff Arts Center benefited from his gifts and is named for him, as is Woodruff Park. (Woodruff Dam is "not" named after him, but rather for Jim Woodruff.)

References

*Allen, Frederick, "Secret Formula", HarperCollins, 1994. ISBN 0-88730-751-5.
*Pendergrast, Mark, "For God, Country, and Coca Cola", Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0-465-05468-4.

External links

*New Georgia Encyclopedia [http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1954]

Preceded by:

President of The Coca-Cola Company 1923-1954

Succeeded by: