The nuclear physicist who parlayed a US$1,000 loan to a family friend into a billion-dollar fortune as a co-founder of the Subway sandwich chain, Dr Peter Buck, has died at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, U.S. He was 90.
Subway announced his death but did not specify the cause.
Buck, who designed nuclear reactors, was at a barbecue in 1965 when 17-year-old Fred DeLuca asked for advice on how to pay for his education at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.
"I thought, 'He's doing well. I'm going to ask him if he has any good ideas for college,' kind of really hoping he's going to reach in his pocket and pull out a big stack of $100 bills and just give them to me," DeLuca told CNBC years later.
Instead, Buck, who was 34 at the time, suggested that DeLuca open a sandwich shop like one he recalled from his youth in Maine. He and his family had often visited a shop called Amato's, which served Italian-style hoagies. He drove to Maine with DeLuca to visit Amato's, bought a sandwich and took it apart in the car.
Buck and DeLuca became business partners and in 1966 formed Doctor's Associates, which became the Subway holding company (at the time, DeLuca was planning to become a doctor).
In 1968, the shop's name was changed to Pete's Subway and, ultimately, just Subway. They began to launch franchise restaurants in 1974 and within a few years had hundreds of locations nationwide. DeLuca, who was the company's chief executive, died in 2015.
Buck and his second wife established a charitable foundation that has given tens of millions of dollars to a hospital and other institutions in Danbury. It also purchased thousands of acres of forestland in Maine for preservation.
In 2004, Buck gave a 23.1-carat ruby to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in memory of his late wife. It is called the Carmen Lucia Ruby and is on display near the Hope Diamond. Buck, who was a member of the Smithsonian's board of directors, also donated a 1785 letter written by George Washington to the National Museum of American History.
"Just don't say anything like, 'And this is Dr. Buck's way of giving back,' " he told The Washington Post in 2009. "I never stole anything! So I'm not giving anything back!"
