Ewing Kauffman

In 1942, Kauffman joined the military and served in the U.S. Navy as a signalman.[3] He served in both Europe and the Philippines;[4] after his discharge in 1945, he returned to Kansas City.

In 1947, Kauffman became a commissioned salesman for Lincoln Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company based in Decatur, Illinois.[7] Kauffman earned a 20 percent commissions on his sales, and eventually earned more than the president of the company. Kauffman became angry with the company and left in 1950 after it decreased his sales territory and cut his commission.[4]

After leaving Lincoln Laboratories, Kauffman formed Marion Laboratories with a $5,000 investment. The company was originally run out of his house, and there were four employees, consisting of Kauffman and his close friends.[7] He reportedly chose to use his middle name, rather than his surname, in order to not appear to be a one-man operation.

With Kauffman as chairman, Marion Laboratories had revenues of $930 million in 1988, the year before it merged with Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals to form Marion Merrell Dow. Kauffman became chairman emeritus of the new company.[1] The company sale created more than 300 millionaires.[1]

Kauffman established the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation[8] in the mid-1960s with the same sense of opportunity he brought to his business endeavors, and, with the same convictions. Kauffman wanted his foundation to be innovative – to fundamentally change people's lives. He wanted to help young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, get a quality education that would enable them to reach their full potential. He saw building enterprise as one of the most effective ways to realize individual promise and spur the economy. Today, the mission of the Kauffman Foundation follows his vision by focusing its grant making and operations on two areas: advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth.[9]

Kauffman with Royals general manager Cedric Tallis, 1968

After thirteen years in Kansas City, the Athletics moved to Oakland following the 1967 season. Kauffman established the expansion Royals, bringing major league baseball back to the city in 1969. Shortly before his death, Kauffman set up an unprecedented complex succession plan to keep the team in Kansas City.

On November 8, 2007, he was nominated to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the 2008 class;[10] but was not elected. He was later nominated and elected to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.[11]

In 1988, Kauffman launched Project Choice to the Westport High School Class of 1992. Project Choice promised to fund post-secondary education to all students who stayed in school, did not use drugs, did not become pregnant, and were committed to being an upstanding citizen in the community.[12] To be eligible for the program, parents also had to agree to be involved in their child's education by attending meetings and participating in parent/teacher organizations and other activities. The program remained active until 2001. During those years, it expanded to five other high schools in the Kansas City metro area.[12]

At a time when other cities were building cookie-cutter, multipurpose sports facilities, Kauffman went against the trend to build a home for Kansas City's baseball team: Royals Stadium, and it was decades ahead of its time. The stadium was the only baseball-only facility built in the major leagues between 1966 and 1991. Fans in one of the sport's smallest markets responded by filling the stadium, topping the two-million attendance mark a total of ten times and seven seasons in a row.

The stadium opened on April 10, 1973, as part of the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City.

Designed by Kivett and Meyers architects in Kansas City, the stadium incorporated the best of the recently built Dodger Stadium and Anaheim Stadium, with 40,793 seats, all facing second base and arranged in three tiers.

A construction strike delayed the opening of the new stadium, so Kauffman added money to make sure it would open in time for the 1973 season and the All-Star Game in July.

The stadium's prominent features include water fountains beyond the outfield fence and a ten-story-high scoreboard shaped like the Royals crest, topped by a gold crown.[2] The 322-foot-wide (98 m) water spectacular is the largest privately funded fountain in the world. The stadium featured artificial turf for its first 22 seasons, which was replaced with natural grass in 1995.

Kauffman made his last public appearance at the stadium on May 23, 1993, when he was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame. Six weeks later on July 2, a month before his death, the twenty-year-old facility was officially renamed in his honor in a ceremony at the stadium; it is the only ballpark in the American League named in honor of a person.

Suffering from bone cancer, he died, age 76, at his home in Mission Hills, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.[1] His remains are interred at the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden next to the remains of his wife, who died in 1995.[13]