June Martino

Martino retired from McDonald’s in 1968, but continued to serve as an Honorary Director of the Board of Directors until her death. She died in the early morning hours of January 29, 2005 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Martino played a critically important role in balancing the diverse viewpoints of McDonald’s strong-minded managers, especially when Kroc and Sonneborn found themselves at odds over the direction of the business. For two years before Sonneborn resigned in 1967, the two men never talked to each other, communicating instead exclusively through Martino.

Thus, when McDonald’s went public in 1965, Martino cashed in $300,000 of her holdings (equivalent to $2.3 million in 2018) and her remaining holdings were worth $5 million (or about $39.8 million in 2018). When McDonald’s was listed on the New York Stock Exchange the following year, Martino became the first woman to be a guest in the all-male NYSE directors dining room since Queen Elizabeth.

Martino, a native of Chicago, was married to Louis Martino, who owned and operated an early McDonald’s restaurant in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, established the company’s original research facility in Addison, Illinois in 1961 and preceded June in death. The Martinos had two sons, John and Joel.

Many of McDonald’s early employees had their first screening as prospects by June Martino. Kroc hired Jim Schindler, McDonald’s first construction engineer and equipment designer and his second corporate office employee, on Martino’s direct recommendation. Other times, Martino was more subtle. When two life insurance salesmen, Robert B. Ryan and Richard Boylan, walked into McDonald’s office in 1957, Martino recognized their potential after learning they both had law degrees and had been accountants with the IRS. So she got them in the door with Harry Sonneborn, Kroc’s finance manager, by telling him they were IRS agents and, after interviewing them, Sonneborn hired them both. Robert Ryan served as McDonald’s treasurer and Richard Boylan retired in 1983 as senior executive vice president and chief financial officer. Martino also liked the attitude of a college friend of one of her sons and hired him as a part-time worker in McDonald’s mail room. Mike Quinlan would ultimately rise through the ranks to become McDonald’s third Chief Executive Officer, serving from 1989 through 1998.

By 1955, Martino was doing double duty after Kroc opened his first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois – running his Prince Castle sales operation for multimixers as well as the fledgling McDonald’s Systems office. When a young man dropped by the office selling bibles, Martino instead converted him and his wife into McDonald's franchisees. Thus, Sandy and Betty Agate became successful franchisees in Waukegan, Illinois, whose operation was soon a model for others to follow.

Having moved their family to a farm in Wisconsin when their parents grew ill after the war, June returned to Chicago to look for work in 1948. That’s when she met Ray Kroc, who was looking for a bookkeeper to help handle his growing Multimixer milkshake business.

June Martino (August 10, 1917 – January 29, 2005) was an American businesswoman who became Ray Kroc’s bookkeeper in 1948 and ultimately rose to Corporate Secretary, Treasurer, Director and part-owner of McDonald’s Corporation.