Stephen Marcus, chairman of The Marcus Corp., will be the recipient of the 2010 BizTimes Bravo! Entrepreneur Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marcus will receive the award at a luncheon at the sixth annual BizTech Conference & Expo on Thursday, April 29, at Wisconsin State Fair Park.
Marcus guided his family’s company to unprecedented growth over several decades.
Today, Milwaukee-based Marcus Corp. is a global leader in the lodging and entertainment industries. Marcus Theatres is the seventh-largest theatre circuit in the United States, with 668 screens at 54 locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio, and one family entertainment center in Wisconsin. The company’s lodging division, Marcus Hotels and Resorts, owns or manages 19 hotels, resorts and other properties in 10 states. In Milwaukee, the firm’s properties include The Pfister Hotel, the Intercontinental Milwaukee and the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.
Marcus Corp.’s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and the company is included in the Standard & Poor’s SmallCap 600 Index and the Russell 2000 Index.
The company has 5,900 employees and is celebrating its 75th year in 2010.
The firm was founded by Marcus’ father, Ben Marcus, in 1935, with the purchase of a single movie theatre in Ripon, Wis. Today, the company is led by Marcus’ son, Gregory Marcus.
Stephen Marcus joined the company in 1962. He served as president from 1980 to January 2008 and as chief executive officer from 1988 to January 2009. He was elected chairman of the board in 1991.
Marcus continues to be active in the community, serving as a director for the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC), the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), the Wisconsin Center District Board and Variety-The Children’s Charity of Wisconsin.
He previously held leadership positions for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, the United Way, the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Alverno College, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon, the March of Dimes Telethon, the United Performing Arts Fund, the NAACP Annual Freedom Fund Dinner, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the MECCA, Summerfest, the Citizens Government Research Bureau, the Honorary Council of the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project Inc. and the Southeastern Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Advisory Board.
Marcus resides in River Hills with his wife, Janice. They have three sons and nine grandchildren.
Marcus will be the sixth recipient of the Bravo! Entrepreneur Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients have included: Richard Pieper Sr. of PPC Partners Inc.; Harry Quadracci of Quad/Graphics Inc.; Joseph Zilber of Towne Realty Inc.; Robert Kern of Generac Power Systems Inc.; and George Dalton of Fiserv Inc. and Novo 1 Inc.
To register to attend the event, visit www.biztimes.com/bravo.
