Skip to main content
Auto Show Preview Day

Register here to join us on Auto Show weekend for our Admissions Open House.

Norman E. Brinker

January 1, 1981

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Steak and Ale, Inc. Current: Chairman of the Board Brinker International (Deceased) – Dallas, Texas

Norman E. Brinker, who founded Steak and Ale, Inc. is credited as the strategic force behind the phenomenal growth of this organization from one location in 1966 to a chain of over three hundred restaurants with nineteen thousand employees today. In 1976 Steak and Ale merged with The Pillsbury Company and is presently operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of that company. Mr. Brinker serves as an officer and director of Pillsbury and on the board of Burger King, Inc. and as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Steak and Ale. An outstanding restaurateur, businessman and civic leader, he has demonstrated a model of entrepreneurial success which numerous others have sought to emulate. “I understand what young people can do when given the proper direction and the proper motivation …and Northwood is doing that.”