Bill Carter thought he would follow his dad in the automotive parts business in Memphis.
But at age 21, with his new wife pregnant in 1947, he got a better offer and has never looked back.
“At the time, I was making $48.50 a week selling auto parts, but I got an offer of $50 a week selling beer, and I needed that extra dollar and a half a week,” Carter recalled.
At age 85, Carter is still selling beer and running the business he founded more than a half century ago – “at least on the days I’m not playing golf.”
Carter, who sold only 59,000 cases of beer a year when he opened his beer distributorship in Chattanooga in 1959, now sells nearly 2.7 million cases of beer every year. Most of that growth came from the marketing prowess and promotional activity from Miller beer after the brand was bought by Philip Morris in 1969 and advertising and the introduction of the first major light beer – Miller Lite – propelled sales.
Carter credits much of his success to longevity.
“I’ve outlasted most of my competitors and am one of the last still standing,” he said. “We hung on until we were the winner.”
Fifty-two years ago when Carter sold his interest in a Clarksville, Tenn., beer distributorship, Carter picked up the franchise for Miller High Life in Chattanooga and started Carter Distributing Co. when there were eight other competitors in town. Today, only three major distributors remain in Southeast Tennessee – Budweiser of Chattanooga, Carter and Tennessee Crown.
Last month, MillerCoors honored Carter with one of its top honors – the Legends Award – for more than a half century of distributing the Miller brand. Among more than 2,000 Miller distributors, fewer than two dozen have won the company’s Legends Award.
“No matter how hard times got, it never occurred to me that we would not be successful,” Carter said. “I always did the best I could and kept going, and it’s never seemed like work to me.”
So two de-cades past the legal retirement age, the elder Carter still regularly comes to his Broad Street warehouse to work, although he does keep a rocking chair in his office to relax while he works and entertains guests.
Competition and Cooperation
Budweiser displaced Miller as the top selling brand nearly a quarter century ago and Bud outsells its nearest rival nearly two to one today in Chattanooga. But Carter’s son Blair, who serves as president and chief operating officer for Carter Distributing, brags that Carter is the No. 1 beer distributor in Chattanooga since former Budweiser franchise owner Bob Beasley moved the Budweiser distributorship to Soddy-Daisy more than a decade ago.
“That’s why our answering machine says we’re the No. 1 beer wholesaler in Chattanooga,” the younger Carter quipped.
The rival beer distributors once shared the same warehouse where Carter now distributes its beer, soft drinks and other brands across its nine-county region.
“In 1975, we all needed a new warehouse, and I talked three other distributors into going in with me to build this warehouse, which we split up four ways,” Carter said
The 80,000-square-foot warehouse was divided into four equal sections for each distributor and was built on property the railroad sold to help ensure the beer wholesalers were on their Norfolk Southern line. Two of the distributors sold out, and Carter took over the rest of the warehouse when Beasley moved to Soddy-Daisy.
Political career
While building his beer business, Carter was active in the Jaycees and the campaign of former Congressman Bill Brock in the 1960s. He turned that activism into his own political career in 1970 when he was elected as a Republican to the state House of Representatives from Chattanooga. Bill Carter shared the same name as the Spring City, Tenn., Bill Carter. The two sat next to each other in the state House in Nashville and actually shared campaign signs in some of their campaigns.
“From Ninth Street up to Soddy-Daisy, we had signs to elect Bill Carter and it worked in both districts,” Carter recalled.
Carter’s career as an elected official ended in 1976 when he was defeated in his bid for the state Senate by Bill Ortwein, a Democrat who cut into Carter’s GOP stronghold in some socially conservative areas by calling Carter “beer Bill.”
Carter lost the 1976 race by 72 votes.
“I’m the only Republican to ever lose Highland Park,” Carter recalled.
But his electoral defeat came as Miller was gaining market share as a beer brand and Carter was able to turn his full-time attention back to building his beer distributorship.
“It took me a long time to get over that defeat, but in hindsight it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
While other beer distributors are selling out to larger chains, Carter says he’s eager to keep his beer distributors in his family.
“I’ve got two sons, a son-in-law, a grandson-in-law, a great grandson – it’s a family enterprise,” he said. “I tell people the secret to success is to raise your own help. They work cheap.”