See highlights of Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale The strong-willed Mr. Fuhrer purchased a small South Side beer distributorship in 1982 and built Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale into the country's 17th-largest wholesaler. In the process, he thumped hometown brew Iron City, stood up to the Busch family that founded Anheuser-Busch and became one of the region's larger-than-life executives. With exclusive rights to distribute Coors products in a nine-county region and Anheuser-Busch in six counties and part of a seventh, Fuhrer sells 13.2 million cases of beer annually, ringing up sales of $160 million.

Armed with an MBA that was his father's idea, not his, Mr. Fuhrer went job hunting in 1951. A three-month stint with the merchandise manager at the former Joseph Horne Department store ended with him being fired. Mr. Fuhrer lasted just as long at H.J. Heinz before being shown the door.

On his way out, a high-ranking member of the ketchup and pickle dynasty gave him this advice: "You're not cut out to work for anybody. You belong in your own business."

"That's a best advice I ever got," says Mr. Fuhrer, laughing at the memory -- and perhaps at the fact that it took him so long to figure out what competitors and employees learn in short order.

Friends, business associates and those who have locked horns with Mr. Fuhrer, who turned 80 this month, describe him as competitive, hard-nosed and savvy, someone who's not afraid to pay top price to get what he wants. That includes paying employees well, but expecting a lot in return.

"Your [job] was on the line and if you didn't do it, you were gone," says former Pittsburgh Brewing executive Mike Graham, who turned down a job offer from Mr. Fuhrer in the mid-'80s because of Pittsburgh Brewing's dominance of the market at the time.

Mr. Fuhrer is a "my way or the highway" guy. Just ask Senior PGA star Fuzzy Zoeller, who was not invited back to play in Mr. Fuhrer's Family House Invitational golf tournament after ignoring the organizer's strong suggestion to wear a tie to dinner.

His involvement with three professional sports teams -- the Pittsburgh Pirates, The Pittsburgh Triangles of World Team Tennis and the Pittsburgh Spirit of Major League Indoor Soccer -- prompted one scribe to opine that Mr. Fuhrer "was Steinbrenner [New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner] before there was a Steinbrenner."

Opinions of Mr. Fuhrer are larger than life in both directions. While he is widely admired for his philanthropy, including the Family House tournament that's raised $2.5 million, one amateur golfer who played in tournaments sponsored by Mr. Fuhrer called him "one of the most miserable SOBs God ever made." Yet Mr. Fuhrer's recent speech at a fund-raising dinner for cancer victims deeply moved the Rev. Robert Duch, pastor at St. Scholastica in Aspinwall, where Mr. Fuhrer attends Mass daily.

"He spoke about his own bout with cancer and how he put his trust in God," Father Duch says. "He said his faith was deepened and he said he owed his cancer-free life to the Lord."

Compared to his personality, Mr. Fuhrer's office is modest and cozy, adorned with memorabilia of celebrities, mostly sports stars. There are autographed golf bags from PGA stars Jack Nicklaus, Ernie Els and Fred Couples; photos of him with professional golfers; a plaque commemorating legendary Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne. There are tributes to two non-sports figures: John Wayne and U.S. Gen. George S. Patton.

The East Brady native had a different gift to God in mind after graduating from Allegheny College in 1948. Mr. Fuhrer had wanted to attend the school whose football team he follows fanatically: Notre Dame. But his parents wanted him closer to home, hoping to see him as often as possible before he was drafted for World War II.

At Allegheny, Mr. Fuhrer played football, basketball, baseball and soccer. His academic career was interrupted by two years in the service , returning to college in 1947 and graduating the following year. His father owned a men's clothing store in East Brady and Mr. Fuhrer's initial post-graduate work was not demanding.

Without his knowledge, Mr. Fuhrer's father registered him at the University of Pittsburgh's business school. He told his son, "If you don't go, hit the bricks. You're out of here." So Mr. Fuhrer went, graduating in 1951.

After failing at Horne's and Heinz, Mr. Fuhrer sought work as an insurance salesman. Everywhere he applied, he asked his prospective employer who their top three competitors were. The name Northwestern Mutual kept coming up, so that's where Mr. Fuhrer got a job.

Mr. Fuhrer went back to East Brady when his father died in 1956, figuring it would take no more than six months to sell the family store. He ended up staying eight years, converting the business into more of a department store. When the town's industry-based economy turned sour in 1964, he sold the store and returned to insurance.

A business trip to Atlanta two years later led Mr. Fuhrer to his fortune. During the trip, he learned about credit insurance: policies sold by consumer lenders to make sure payments continued if the borrower died or was disabled. Banks and car companies that sold the policies didn't share premiums with auto dealers, but dealers would get a piece of the action by doing business with Mr. Fuhrer.

The firm offering him a job selling the new policies gave Mr. Fuhrer two choices: a $50,000 salary and 5 percent commissions or straight commission at a 10 percent rate. He chose the latter, calculating how much more he would make if he sold $10 million in premiums. Four months later, he had yet to sign a customer when he made a pitch to No. 1 Cochran founder Robert Cochran. When Mr. Cochran asked his how many customers he had, Mr. Fuhrer didn't lie.

Before long, Mr. Fuhrer had more than a handful of customers. He earned enough commissions to invest in other businesses: hair care products, chemicals, Lincoln Mercury cars and car care products.

"I didn't know anything about the businesses I ever owned, but I think they all run the same way," Mr. Fuhrer says. "If you don't sell value, you're not going to be long-term."

Mr. Fuhrer's chance at the beer business came one night in 1982 while he was in Froggy's, the defunct Downtown bar. He was there with another big sports fan, fight promoter Joe Litman.

Mr. Litman owned S&S Distributing, which distributed Stroh's in the Pittsburgh market. He told Mr. Fuhrer the Maracini family was selling the right to distribute Anheuser-Busch in about 75 percent of Allegheny County. At the time, the St. Louis brewer was selling only about 650,000 cases annually in Pittsburgh, giving it about a 5 percent share. That was far behind Pittsburgh Brewing's 45 percent share and Stroh's 25 percent share.

Anheuser-Busch liked using sports stars backed by savvy businessmen as distributors. Mr. Fuhrer says he was bidding against a group that included St. Louis Cardinals slugger Stan Musial and NBA Hall of Famer Dave DeBusschere. When the Maracini family told Mr. Fuhrer their asking price, "I said 'That doesn't sound like too much to me.' ... In a half hour, I bought it," he recalls.

He expanded in 1988 by purchasing the nine-county distributorship for Coors, another marginal player in Pittsburgh that would benefit from Mr. Fuhrer's attention. Coors Light has been the best-selling beer in Pittsburgh since the early 1990s, a big reason for the decline of Pittsburgh Brewing.

The alliance with Coors didn't sit well with the Busch family. They wanted their wholesalers devoting 100 percent of their effort to Anheuser-Busch products. The St. Louis brewer's demands means it's rare for an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler to also have rights to another major brewer in metropolitan markets, industry officials say.

Relations were further strained by market changes. Americans began drinking less beer. Even in a beer-drinking town such as Pittsburgh, the market was shrinking as people left for better jobs elsewhere. "Most of them are young people and they're the beer drinkers," Mr. Fuhrer says. The only chance to grow was to expand into other territories, something Anheuser-Busch wouldn't let him do.

In 2000, Mr. Fuhrer announced he was selling his Anheuser-Busch distributorship. His plan was to purchase Wilson-McGinley Co., Miller's Pittsburgh wholesaler. But Mr. Fuhrer never completed that deal and there were no buyers for his Anheuser-Busch business. After promising to expand his South Side operation to include a separate warehouse for the St. Louis brewer's products, Anheuser-Busch agreed to let him expand.

At the same time, Pete Wast, Anheuser-Busch's distributor in Westmoreland County, wanted to expand. He had a verbal agreement to purchase the Anheuser-Busch wholesaler for Fayette County when Mr. Fuhrer came calling. Despite his plans, Mr. Wast agreed to sit down and talk with Mr. Fuhrer, who said he was willing to pay whatever it took.

"The negotiations went from there and it got to the point where it made sense for me to sell," says Mr. Wast, who owns the Pepperwood Grille restaurant near Westmoreland Mall.

But come Jan. 1, he will turn over his chief executive officer title to one of his sons, Frank Fuhrer III, 46, a top-rate amateur golfer who gave the PGA Tour a try in 1984.

In the past, industry observers expected the crown would go to his other son David, formerly president of the South Side operation but no longer with the company. David Fuhrer is trying to purchase an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler north of Pittsburgh and "I'm trying to help him get it," Mr. Fuhrer says, denying rumors their relationship is strained.

Mr. Fuhrer will remain chairman, and if past is prologue, he will be an active one. Expanding into new territories remains the best way to grow, he says. Son Frank says the industry is responding to competition from beer alternatives such as Smirnoff Ice by developing new products, new containers such as the aluminum bottle and new marketing campaigns, including one promoting the health benefits of drinking beer.

His old-school father says new products and advertising are gimmicks. Mr. Fuhrer's always been big on image, something he learned from his days selling insurance and a lesson he believes would benefit the industry. For him, it comes down to whether beer companies are people consumers want to do business with, which is not the feeling many women get when viewing beer commercials that rely on scantily clad women.

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