Spartan Profiles: Lawrence T. Wong
JOCKEY CLUB CEO
Perhaps no organization in Hong Kong outside the government is as important as the Jockey Club. With a monopoly on horse racing, it boasts a yearly turnover of $12 billion, of which $1.5 billion is contributed in taxes - nearly 11 percent of Hong Kong’s annual tax revenue. In addition, the club donates about $130 million a year to worthy projects. For example, it funded construction of the $300 million Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, one of Asia’s most prestigious universities. In 1996, for the first time in its 114-year history, the Hong Kong Jockey Club selected an ethnic Chinese as its CEO - Lawrence T. Wong, Ph. D. ’70, who had worked 32 years with Ford Motors Co. as an executive and research engineer.
In his 11 years as president of Ford in Taiwan, Lawrence gained complete market dominance and was elected 'Taiwan Businessman of the Year' in 1994. Why, one might ask, would someone with that track record in the automotive industry shift to a horse racing operation? 'Well, you can say I’m still in the transportation business,' says Lawrence with a chuckle. 'That’s a very good question. When I was first approached, I thought, ‘This is a joke.’' But Lawrence reconsidered when he found out that the Jockey Club, with 20,000 employees and its $12 billion income, was a Leviathan - six times bigger than Ford Taiwan, and bigger than all the U.S. tracks combined. 'What really made a difference for me was the charity side,' he says.
He grew up in Happy Valley, where the club’s first race track was built in 1846 by the British, and actually used some parks and facilities built by Jockey Club donations. When Lawrence took over the Jockey Club, Hong Kong was suffering an economic crisis, and horse racing was losing popularity. Lawrence went to work to boost productivity, raising the work week from 38 to 44 hours, and increasing productivity by 14 percent. He also worked to enhance revenues via a 'total customer satisfaction' campaign. A component of his strategy was the use of information technology (IT) to make betting super easy. 'We have 100,000 electronic screens,' explains Lawrence. 'They are palm-sized computers that contain all the racing information you want. You can place bets and transfer funds by pressing a button. If you win a race, you press a button, and cash is electronically sent to your account. We’re the largest user of IT screens in Asia. The largest bank only has about 5,000 screens.'
A tremendous success by any measure, Lawrence looks back on his MSU days in the late 1960s as 'the best years of my life.' He was at Ford in Detroit when recruited to MSU by 'Mr. Ziggy,' one of the top experts on fluid dynamics. 'Back then, MSU had a tremendous national reputation in aerospace studies,' recalls Lawrence, who majored in mechanical engineering, specializing in gas dynamics. 'For a fellow who grew up in a huge metropolitan area, the MSU campus was a great environment. When I arrived, I said ‘Wow.’ 'MSU had a bunch of good engineering professors in aerospace,' he remembers. 'One was Mr. Ziggy. He was an expert in fluid dynamics. His name popped up in everything I read. He recruited me to MSU and offered me a research scholarship. Another professor, Mahlon Smith (now retired), was quite an inspiration. He was quiet, but smart and effective. He had a background in the real world and in the academic world and was quite a philosopher. We talked a lot about philosophy, and many of things he said - like 'always do more than your’re asked to,' and 'you control your own destiny' - are things I’ve remembered and applied all these years.'
Lawrence particularly enjoyed studying at MSU, taking breaks to watch basketball games in Jenison Fieldhouse. He looks forward to returning to MSU and 'getting goose bumps' from being on campus and watching the leaves change color. He would also enjoy going to a game at Breslin Center, where the Spartans’ rise in national prominence rivals his own in Hong Kong.