Boca Raton resident Robert Campbell, who made his fortune in the footwear business,
embraced the idea of philanthropy early in his career. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Chris Felker
Robert “Bobby” Campbell has mastered the art of bootstrapping.
He has advanced in the philanthropy arena step by step, just as he lifted himself up by his own bootstraps in the business world.
Boca Raton’s Lynn University will be building a home for its Fighting Knights soccer and other sports teams that will bear his name because last spring, he gave $1.2 million toward the expected $2.6 million cost to build Bobby Campbell Stadium.
In recognition of that gift — and Campbell’s other substantial giving toward Palm Beach County and other charities — he was the recipient of one of five 2013 Outstanding People and Leaders Awards bestowed by the Boca Raton Rotary Club during a gala Jan. 19 at Boca Pointe Country Club.
(See other OPAL winners in Celebrations, Page 12).
Campbell, of coastal Boca Raton, was raised in Pittsburgh by a “very hard-working single mother,” he said. “We were very, very poor.” When he was 15, the family moved to Detroit, where as he took a job at Kinney Shoes, then a prominent chain.
“First, I worked part-time as a stock boy and then had the chance to also sell, and wound up making $35 the first week,” Campbell said. After high school he started full-time with Kinney and, before long, had been promoted several times, up to manager for all Kinney Shoes stores.
“I kept going up, and I was a very lucky guy to go up the ladder, and then I realized that it’s better to give back a little bit than to just receive,” he said.
He got involved with the Two Ten Footwear Foundation in New York in the late ’60s.
“I really saw the great work they did, helping so many people and families that really were going through very tough times, as well as their program that gave scholarships to kids who were smart but couldn’t afford college,” he said. “I never had an opportunity like that when I was young.”
Campbell had been promoted to Kinney’s parent company, F.W. Woolworth, but decided to act on an entrepreneurial dream. “After nine years of not enjoying the corporate structure, I left and started my own company, BBC International, in 1975,” Campbell said.
Though he started small, he built the company into a worldwide leader in the children’s shoe market, and BBC took off when in 1991 he partnered with LA Gear and produced a line of lighted footwear called L.A. Lights.
Campbell, 75, is single and has one daughter, two sons and three grandchildren. His younger son, Seth, is following in his footsteps and is co-founder and chief brand officer of a company called Isaay.
He moved the company to Boca Raton in 1998 and has given to Boca Raton Regional Hospital (where he was treated for prostate cancer three years ago through chemotherapy), the Boca Raton Historical Society, the Wellness Center in Boca Raton for Parkinson’s disease patients and the Arc of Palm Beach County.
He says young people today have much greater opportunities than he did growing up and need to seize them.
“They have to work very very hard on their ambitions — to prove yourself. When you do that, corporations will recognize it. It’s work habits: The harder you work, it helps you perform better than what they expect you to perform.”
Campbell emphasized his passion for philanthropy. “I think receiving is not as good as giving back. So as I went on and kept getting more successful — I like charity, I love children, and I got very much involved in places like the Arc for children with problems — and so I just made myself a lot of money and thought, ‘Why should I keep it all?’ I’d rather give back than give it to the government, anyway.” Ú
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