J. Willard Marriott

Marriott maintained extensive business connections within his LDS Church heritage and membership. A prominent associate was Michigan Governor George W. Romney, father of U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2012. The family friendship is trans-generational as evidenced by Bill Marriott donating $1 million personally to Restore Our Future, a Romney PAC. Mitt Romney's first name is Willard, after John Willard Marriott.

Marriott's restaurant chain grew, and the company went public in 1953. In 1957, he expanded his business to hotels, opening the first Marriott hotel—actually a motel, the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The company became Marriott, Inc. in 1967. Two large chains were added to the group, the Big Boy family restaurants in 1967 and Roy Rogers Family Restaurants in 1968.

Marriott served for many years, in the late 1940s and 1950s, as president of the LDS Church's Washington Stake, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

In 1935, Marriott was diagnosed with lymphoma and given between six months to a year to live. However, he survived to live until 1985.

In 1927, he secured from A&W Root Beer the franchise rights for Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; and Richmond, Virginia; he then moved to Washington to open a nine-stool root beer stand there with his business partner, Hugh Colton. They opened on May 20, 1927, at 3128 14th Street, NW. He returned to Utah two weeks later and married Alice Sheets on 9 June 1927. With the approach of cooler Autumn months, and with the addition of Mexican food items to the menu, the stand became The Hot Shoppe, a popular family restaurant. In 1928, he opened the first drive-in east of the Mississippi, and the business was incorporated as Hot Shoppes, Inc. in Delaware in 1929. During the Second World War, the business expanded to include the management of food services in defense plants and government buildings, such as the U.S. Treasury.

Marriott graduated from Weber College (now Weber State University), where he served as student body president, with an associate degree in June 1923 and from the University of Utah, where he affiliated with Phi Delta Theta, with a bachelor's degree in June 1926. After Marriott earned his bachelor's degree, the president of Weber, Aaron Tracy, who had assisted Marriott to enroll there by helping him make up secondary education credits missed due to the Marriott family's ranching efforts, employed him at the school in Ogden. Marriott soon felt the urge, however, to be his own boss. He heard about a cousin's A&W Root Beer franchise and, remembering his experience seeing so many people suffer through the brutal summer heat of Washington, D.C., he decided to look into a venture there.

At the age of 19 and as a participating member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), he undertook a mission for two years, being assigned to New England. After completing his mission, he passed through Washington, D.C. on his way home during the sweltering summer months of 1921. While there:

John Willard Marriott, Sr. (September 17, 1900 – August 13, 1985) was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the founder of the Marriott Corporation (which became Marriott International in 1993), the parent company of the world's largest hospitality, hotel chains, and food services companies. The Marriott company rose from a small root beer stand in Washington, D.C. in 1927 to a chain of family restaurants by 1932, to its first motel in 1957. By the time he died, the Marriott company operated 1,400 restaurants and 143 hotels and resorts worldwide, including two theme parks, earned US$4.5 billion in revenue annually with 154,600 employees. The company's interests also extended to a line of cruise ships.