Lee R. Sollenbarger*

Lee Sollenbarger was born in 1912, in Hugo, Colorado, the seventh of 14 children. The family had moved there from Kansas after a wave of cholera wiped out their purebred hog business. On a small farm outside Denver, they started over again and raised cows, chickens, hogs, and garden vegetables.

Sollenbarger remembers life being very basic on the farm. "We all had chores to do," he says. "If we didn't do our work, we didn't eat." One of Sollenbarger's first jobs was milking goats. He milked up to 100 goats and then herded them to and from the pasture, earning 75 cents for a 12-hour day. He also worked as a caddie at a local country club.

After graduating from high school in 1930, Sollenbarger worked at a variety of jobs to support himself. He was an assistant lab technician in a flour mill, drove a car for a traveling salesman, and worked in a grocery store. He took a correspondence course in transportation, which led to a job as a rate clerk for the Denver-Chicago Trucking Company. He worked his way up from that job and became executive vice president and director.

After 23 years with the company, Sollenbarger left to join Transcon in El Segundo, California, as executive vice president for operations. Eventually, he became president and CEO, and then chairman. He retired in 1983. Under his direction, Transcon's annual sales rose from $22 million to $283 million.

Following retirement, Sollenbarger devoted much of his time to the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He helped negotiate a contract with the Southern California Golf Association to build two golf courses and a lodge on part of a 3,400-acre tract of land owned by the Boy Scouts. His work with Scouting earned Sollenbarger the council's highest honor, the Silver Beaver Award.

Sollenbarger believed success is not measured by the accumulation of material wealth. Instead, he said, it is "how you lived and whether you left the world better for your having passed by." He advised youth to "work hard and intelligently, be honest and sincere, and be prepared for the next step up. Make the most of what you have, and help others along the way."

Honored to be part of the Horatio Alger Association, Sollenbarger said, "This award has meant a great deal to me. The work the Association is doing to support deserving youth is commendable."