Will Keith Kellogg: The Breakfast King

In 1894, Will K. Kellogg was experimenting with a more digestible form of wheat for patients at his brother John’s Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. Will mixed a wheat paste and accidentally let it stand overnight. In the morning he took the tempered remains, put them through a roller, and each grain emerged as a wide, thin flake. The flakes were a big hit with the patients -- C.W. Post, a future cereal tycoon, among them. This was the seed from which one of the largest food empires on the globe evolved, the Kellogg Company, with sales in 2008 of $12.8 billion. The two uber successful Kellogg brothers fought over the rights to the cereal and the use of the Kellogg name and ended up in litigation. Will prevailed in the internecine battle; the two men severed their relationship and only acknowledged each other at family gatherings. Will K. Kellogg's story is one of great achievements; his prowess in sales and marketing and his philanthropic efforts. However, as award-winning author Daniel Alef tells the story, Kellogg was not so successful at home or with his children. Kellogg is an iconic American name and the biographical profile of Will Keith Kellogg is the quintessential American story. [1,434-word Titans of Fortune article].