You probably don't know Wayne Brown once owned 60 Taco Bell restaurants. You probably don't know he sold them a year and a half ago. You probably don't know he has since acquired three more businesses and built a 10,000-square-foot hangar at Aiken Regional Airport to house his private jet.

Likewise, you probably don't know about the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and in-kind contributions he has quietly made to local charities and organizations during the past few years.

That's because Wayne Brown doesn't issue news releases, speak at public events and, with the exception of sitting down to be interviewed for this story, generally shuns publicity.

"He doesn't look for fanfare," said longtime friend and business associate David Alalof, of ACHS Insurance. "He does great things very quietly in his own way."

The 47-year-old native of north Florida is as savvy as he is low-key. Mr. Brown has become a globe-trotting multimillionaire in the 20 years since moving to Augusta to manage a small group of fast-food restaurants.

In the west Augusta offices of his management company, Wayne Works LLC, he oversees a network of companies that range from a custom embroidery chain whose stores can be found in Wal-Marts across the country to a British-based luxury travel agency that can arrange private tours of centuries-old castles. Other business ventures, such as his upscale scuba-diving service, reflect the adventurous lifestyle that he leads with his wife and college-age children.

"His family means everything to him," said friend John Ray, the general manager of CBS television affiliate WRDW. "He spends a lot of time with his family, which I think is wonderful."

If there is a secret to Mr. Brown's success at such a young age, it is likely a mix of his razor-sharp analytical skills, his extraordinary focus and -- as his sale of his Taco Bell units just a week before the 2006 E. coli scare shows -- good timing.

"I would rather be lucky than good," is one of Mr. Brown's favorite quips. However, those who know his humble origins say he is nothing less than the embodiment of the American dream, and assert his achievements are solely the result of his self-determination and hard work.

"He's one of the best business people I know," said Bill Lavery, owner of Muzak franchise Carolina-Georgia Sound Inc. "Everything he touches turns to gold."

Homes & gardens

Make no bones about it -- Mr. Brown lives quite well.

He owns a vacation home in the North Carolina mountains. He drives a Bentley. He flies around the world in a Beechcraft 400A jet to go on African safaris, scuba excursions in the Pacific Ocean and deep sea fishing trips off the coast of Guatemala.

The life he lives today is far different than the one he left 30 years ago.

Mr. Brown grew up in a trailer outside Middleburg, Fla., a rural community 25 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

"There was one gas station, one restaurant," he recalled. "There really wasn't much there."

His father, a World War II vet who served with the 82nd Airborne Division, worked as a truck driver. The family grew its own vegetables and raised its own animals to get by on his meager salary. Mr. Brown and his two brothers and sister were up before dawn so they could feed the cows and hogs before the school bus arrived.

He was entrepreneurial at a young age, earning money by mowing lawns and baling hay for neighbors. He sold soft drinks and snacks from an old refrigerator to neighborhood children not wanting to make the seven-mile trip to town. As a teenage gearhead, he sunk most of his money in his 1966 Chevrolet Malibu.

Mr. Brown was sharp in math but was otherwise a high school underachiever, focusing more on socializing than his grades. He knew he didn't want to stay in Middleburg, but he also knew his family couldn't afford to send him away to college.

"The quickest way I saw to get out was the military," he said.

He joined the Air Force immediately after graduation in 1979 and was trained to be a medic at the Keesler Air Force Base near Biloxi, Miss.

Training included assisting civilian authorities on car crashes and other accident calls. While working one such call in 1980, he met his future wife, Dana, who was then a respiratory therapist in the emergency room of Howard Memorial Hospital. The two married in 1981, before he was assigned to the 2nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Rhein Main Air Base in Germany.

While there, Mr. Brown's unit would fly to medical assignments as far away as India. He was one of several medics who responded to the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon and the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847. In between those events, the couple's first child, Justin, was born. Mr. Brown said he enjoyed the adventure that military service provided, but said he grew frustrated by the regimentation and bureaucracy.

"Ask anyone who has ever been in the military, they know the term hurry up and wait," he said.

Mr. Brown had taken college business classes while in the Air Force and had decided that he wanted to work toward becoming an executive for a large corporation after his discharge in 1987. Less than a week after moving back to Jacksonville, Mr. Brown was in the regional offices for PepsiCo Inc., the beverage giant that also owned the Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC brands.

He was offered a job as an assistant manager at a local Taco Bell.

"I ate a lot of Taco Bell, so I thought I was well versed in it," he said.

He rose quickly through the company ranks and in less than two years became district manager of all Jacksonville area stores around the same time their second child, Ashley, was born. Mr. Brown had achieved his goal of becoming a company executive, but he still wasn't happy.

"I learned that working for a big company was just like being in the military," he said. "At that point I realized I probably needed to own my own business."

His opportunity came in 1988 when he met James A. Gregory, a Jacksonville businessman who owned a Taco Bell franchise on Amelia Island and was part of a duo that flew dogfight demonstrations at air shows around the country. The acquaintance was the first in a series of fortuitous events that led to Mr. Brown becoming one of the Southeast's largest Taco Bell franchisees.

Border Masters

In 1989, PepsiCo announced it was spinning off the restaurant businesses into a separate company called Tricon (now known as Yum! Brands). To generate cash for the company, it decided to sell off 60 percent of the restaurant locations to franchisees in order to flip the ownership structure from an 80 percent corporate to 80 percent independent.

That year, Mr. Gregory purchased two corporate stores in the Augusta market, one on Wrightsboro Road and the other on Richland Avenue in Aiken. To manage the locations, he turned to Mr. Brown, who had already established himself as a competent operator during his stint with PepsiCo.

The Browns and their two young children moved to Augusta to oversee the stores as well as additional locations that Mr. Gregory would open during the next three years on Peach Orchard Road and on Washington Road in Martinez.

The partnership was rocked, however, when Mr. Gregory was killed while flying his F-86E Sabre during an aerial demonstration at an air show in Santa Ana, Calif. in May 1993.

His widow had no interest in the Taco Bell business, so she and Mr. Brown, who at the time was in the process of opening more stores for Mr. Gregory, worked out a deal where he would buy out her ownership stake over time. Within four years, Mr. Brown owned 100 percent of the chain, which by this time had grown to 18 locations.

The expansion didn't stop there.

Mr. Brown learned that a 21-store Taco Bell territory stretching from Biloxi to Pensacola, Fla. was on the market. The go-go days of the 1990s economic expansion made financing the acquisition easy, Mr. Brown said, because banks and private equity firms were "throwing money" around. A year later, in 1999, he bought a 25-unit group in Jacksonville.

In less than a decade, Mr. Brown went from owning no business to owning more than 60 throughout the Southeast.

The restaurants he owned through his company, Border Masters Inc., were known for their cleanliness and quality of service.

"About the only way you can differentiate any company, I don't care what the product is, is service," he said. "The food is the food. It's the same day in and day out. Most people frequent restaurants where they know they're going to get good service consistently. The last person in the restaurant that night should get the same service as the first person who came in that morning."

Managing any restaurant, let alone a chain of fast-food restaurants, is not easy because of the long operating hours, high employee turnover and large potential for liability. The experience taught him to be a hands-on, non-nonsense boss.

"I learned a long time ago you have to be honest," he said. "I don't beat around the bush with anybody."

The extravagant family vacations he continues to enjoy grew out of rewarding himself for the long hours he spent ensuring his restaurant chain was top notch. He has been to the world's finest resorts, golfed some of the most exclusive courses and eaten gourmet meals in hotel suites the size of a home. However, he doesn't rank those among his most memorable travels. His favorite excursion was an African safari where he ate native food and spent nights sleeping on a cot.

"It isn't about the opulence, it's about the memories," he said.

By 2006, Mr. Brown's business was largely debt-free and was seeing strong cash flow from the average $1.2 million in sales per unit when he was approached by an Atlanta-based private equity firm Prometheus V, which was interested in acquiring the chain. After some consideration, Mr. Brown accepted the offer.

"Where most businesspeople make a mistake is when they become too attached to a business," said friend David Karangu, the former owner of Fairway Ford and Mercedes-Benz of Augusta. "Wayne didn't go out and say, 'Who wants to buy my Taco Bell business,' but he was able to recognize a deal and recognizing when it's time to move on."

The sale closed in November 2006, just days before an E. coli outbreak at Taco Bell restaurants in the Northeast caused a nationwide sales slump. Mr. Brown said sales at some Taco Bell locations fell 40 percent and are only just now beginning to recover.

Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Mr. Brown said he received more than a 15 percent premium on the restaurant's annual sales. Minus certain costs associated with the sale, the deal easily netted Mr. Brown tens of millions of dollars.

Friends say money hasn't changed his personality.

"Despite the amazing success, Wayne and Dana are still the same people I first met 11 years ago," Mr. Ray said. "I don't think he's ever forgotten his roots."

That might explain why the self-described car nut owns only one other vehicle beside the Bentley -- a 1957 Chevrolet pickup.

Business passions

Mr. Brown has a theory: Future generations of middle-aged people and retirees are going to remain active longer and spend increasingly larger amounts of money on recreation.

"I don't think we're ever going to see a generation again where they're doing nothing but sitting in a rocking chair," he said.

Mr. Brown has decided to stake his claim in the high-end of the leisure industry by acquiring companies that provide one-of-a-kind experiences to wealthy clients. Flush with cash from the Taco Bell sale, Mr. Brown's first purchase was Aggressor Fleet, a luxury charter service for scuba divers that has a fleet of 13 120-foot yachts docked around the world.

Mr. Brown had been a customer of Aggressor Fleet since taking up diving in 1999 with his then 16-year-old son. He purchased the company in April 2007 from a trust controlled by the deceased owner's seven children and two ex-wives for an undisclosed amount. Aggressor's yachts provide luxury accommodations for up to nine couples while they make day-long dives at hot spots such as Fiji, Palau and Belize

His next buy, London-based Latitude International, was also a company he first learned about as a customer. The luxury travel service, whose founders include a former personal aide to the Duke of Kent, uses its connections and experience in royal protocol to deliver first-class service, providing clients with entry to Britain's most exclusive golf courses and hunting clubs as well as after-hours tours of Royal palaces and museums.

The cell phone number for Britain's crown jeweler is on Mr. Brown's Blackberry.

"We do things that we just can't advertise," he said.

Latitude International's services are marketed solely by word-of-mouth. Mr. Brown first learned about the company from Aiken businessman Weldon Wyatt, owner of Sage Valley Golf Club, where Mr. Brown is a member.

Of all his acquisitions, the one with the most growth potential -- Hometown Threads -- has nothing to do with travel and leisure. The small chain of embroidery stores specializes in on-site custom lettering, bridging the gap between the garage-based seamstress and the large commercial outfits that only deal in high volume orders. All Hometown Threads are located inside Wal-Mart stores.

Mr. Brown's first experience with the company was when his wife had their initials embroidered on some towels at the Evans Wal-Mart location. He said he was impressed from the moment he walked into the store.

"I thought, 'what a great concept,' " he said.

After getting to know the Evans franchise owner, Mr. Brown learned that the chain's franchisor, Portrait Corp. of America Inc., which also operated Wal-Mart's portrait studios, was going through a bankruptcy reorganization after stumbling to adopt new digital photo technology. According to U.S. Bankruptcy Court records, one of Mr. Brown's limited liability companies acquired Hometown Threads for $500,000 in May 2007.

Mr. Brown said his goal is to add 60 to 80 stores a year to the chain, which currently has 37 locations, two of which are corporate-owned stores in Evans and Aiken that Mr. Brown uses as a test-bed for new products and services.

The second floor of Mr. Brown's office is a replica of a Hometown Threads store that is used to train new franchisees on how to run a store and operate the computer-controlled Tajima embroidery machines that are the company's backbone.

One of the smallest pieces of his conglomerate, an aircraft brokerage business called Wayne Works Aviation, evolved out of Mr. Brown's own passion for planes, of which he has owned many since obtaining his pilots license in 1990.

Because nearly all businesses are cyclical, Mr. Brown said he chooses to invest only in businesses that he is intimately familiar with to avoid unforeseen risks, or what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the "unknown unknowns," or the "things we don't know we don't know."

He acknowledges his airplane brokerage is unpredictable right now because the number of new planes in production has created a volatile market for used planes. However, he does not spend his nights worrying if the plane business, or any of his businesses for that matter, fail to become a runaway success. The Taco Bell sale has provided him with a thick cushion, and more than half of his net worth is invested in "safe" investments, he said.

"If every one of the business ventures went to hell, we could still travel around the world the rest of our lives," he said.

Can't sit still

One of Mr. Brown's more recent challenges is co-managing The Dana Foundation, a charitable organization named after his wife. The couple created it more than three years ago as they began to reap the rewards of the Taco Bell network that they had spent two decades building.

"We were doing very well and we decided we wanted to start giving something back," Mr. Brown said.

The foundation primarily provides charitable grants in Augusta and Banner Elk, N.C., where the Browns own a vacation home in the mountains. One of the foundation's biggest disbursements is an annual scholarship fund for area high school students who want to attend college but are ineligible for the HOPE Scholarship. It has awarded more than $300,000 since 2004.

Mr. Brown describes his wife as being even more shy than he is -- when evaluating scholarship applicants, she has him handle the in-person interviews -- but the two have developed a close circle of friends since moving to the area in the early 1990s. Included in their social network are motorcycle friends who accompany them on day trips, scuba friends who dive with them and fishing friends who angle with them for large mouth bass in Florida's Lake Okefenokee.

Neither Mr. Brown nor his wife were born or raised in Augusta, but they decided long ago to make it their permanent home.

"They really love Augusta," Mr. Karangu said. "The kind of businesses they are in, they don't have to live in Augusta. They could choose to live anywhere, but they choose to live here."

The couple's children will likely remain close by, too. Son, Justin, 23, is nearly finished with his studies at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville. Daughter Ashley, 19, is just beginning hers at Augusta State University. Both are majoring in business administration and Mr. Brown hopes both will come into the family business to help manage, and potentially take the helm of, his far flung companies.

Mr. Brown's friends marvel at his energy level and work ethic as he pushes 50.

"I think he works harder now than he did 10 years ago," Mr. Alalof said.

What makes a person who can afford to do nothing still come to work every day? In Mr. Brown's case, the answer is two-fold. One, his work is entwined with his personal passions, making his "job" more like a "hobby." Two, the personal ambition that led him to where he is today is not something he can simply turn off like a switch.

"I couldn't just sit around, I'd go crazy," he said. "I'm just not ready to go play golf four times a week. I still enjoy the challenge of business."

When Mr. Brown reaches the point where he no longer feels like overseeing the Wayne Works conglomerate, he plans to spend his "retirement" years running a pet project called Wine Works.

Right now, the company is little more than a Web site that sells a third-party DVD and video series for wine connoisseurs. Eventually, Mr. Brown would like to turn the Wine Works brand into a small chain of upscale wine shops.

The venture will likely be a success based on his business acumen. A little luck would help, too, but Mr. Brown doesn't appear to have a problem in that department.

"I would rather be lucky than good," Mr. Brown said. "But the harder I work, the luckier I am."

Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or damon.cline@augustachronicle.com