Harry Wayne Huizenga Sr. (; December 29, 1937 – March 22, 2018) was an American businessman. He founded AutoNation and Waste Management, Inc., and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, Republic Services, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL), the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Miami Marlins (formerly Florida Marlins) of Major League Baseball (MLB).
Harry Wayne Huizenga was of Dutch descent. His grandfather, Harm Huizenga, came to the United States from the Netherlands. Starting with a horse and wagon, Harm Huizenga built a trash hauling service, Huizenga & Sons Scavenger Co. in suburban Chicago in 1894. Wayne Huizenga's parents, Gerrit Harry Huizenga and Jean Huizenga (née Riddering), a home decorator, grew up in the Dutch community in Chicago and were strict members of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Huizenga was born at Little Company of Mary Hospital, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on December 29, 1937, the first child in a family of garbage haulers. In 1940 when Wayne was two, the Huizenga family were listed as living in an apartment building in Berwyn, Illinois. He had one sister, Bonnie, who was five years younger. He attended Chicago Christian High School in his sophomore year. In 1953, the Huizenga family moved to the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. His father became a building contractor.
The remainder of Huizenga's high school years were spent at Pine Crest School, where he was a member of the football team and senior class treasurer, graduating in 1955. In 1956, he moved back to Chicago where most of his friends, grandparents and other relatives lived, and enrolled at Calvin College, a liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but he dropped out after three semesters, before finishing his sophomore year. For approximately five years after graduation, he took on low-wage jobs and in September 1959 enlisted in the United States Army Reserve and spent six months on active duty.
In Fort Lauderdale, Huizenga started a waste management business, as his grandfather had done in Chicago in 1894.
According to a civil suit filed in November 1961 by Thomas Millwood, a self-employed electrical engineer who refused young Huizenga's offer to haul the trash with his Pompano Carting venture, and "after using abusive and profane language to both Millwood and his wife, the defendant Huizenga attacked Millwood in a fit of anger and without provocation ... striking him on his face and body, using great force and violence, thereby inflicting great bodily harm and mental shock." The altercation left Millwood with a "ripped shirt, broken sunglasses, and abrasions" on his face. Most painful, noted the lawsuit, was the "permanent injury to the testicles and genital area as a result of grabbing and twisting by the defendant." The matter went to trial, where the jury awarded Millwood $1,000 in damages.
In 1962, he started the Southern Sanitation Service by borrowing US$5,000 from his father and convincing a rival trash hauler to sell him used trucks. Beginning with one garbage truck in 1968, he created Waste Management, Inc. Huizenga purchased many independent garbage hauling companies; by the time of the initial public offering of the company in 1972, he had acquired 133 small-time haulers.
In 1984, he left Waste Management, Inc. and soon again bought companies including suppliers of portable toilets and water bottles for home coolers.
Huizenga repeated the process with Blockbuster Video, acquiring a handful of stores in 1987, with the company becoming the leading movie-rental chain in the United States by 1994.
In December 1992, Huizenga became a member of the Non-Group (a civically influential group of Miami-Dade business elites).
In 1995, Huizenga invested $64 million of his own money and raised an additional $168 million to acquire Republic Industries and became its chairman; it completed the corporate spin-off of Republic Services in 1998 and was renamed AutoNation, which became the nation's largest automotive dealer.
In October 2004, he sold Boca Resorts, owner of hotels including The Hyatt Pier 66 Hotel and the Radisson Bahia Mar Hotel & Marina in Fort Lauderdale, The Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton, Florida, and several others in Naples, Florida, and Arizona, to The Blackstone Group for $1 billion; Huizenga netted $192 million from the deal.
In 2010, Huizenga along with Steve Berrard, former CEO of Blockbuster Video and AutoNation, took a majority stake in Swisher Hygiene, after paying $8.1 million to founder Patrick Swisher and his wife, Laura. The company became a public company but did not do well and was acquired by Ecolab.
Huizenga was notable for introducing baseball and ice hockey to the South Florida area as the creator and initial owner of the Florida Marlins and Florida Panthers. Also, he bought the cable television channel SportsChannel Florida (now Bally Sports Florida) in 1996 to air his teams' games in the region.
He was criticized for naming the two teams for the state of Florida rather than the city of Miami. As an advocate for the city of Fort Lauderdale, he explained that his goal was to include Broward County and Palm Beach County in his teams' fan base.
In 1990, during a period of financial hardship for the franchise, Huizenga purchased 15% of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and its stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Founding owner Joe Robbie had recently died, and his surviving family found it difficult to keep the team afloat. In turn, Huizenga bought the remaining shares of the team for $115 million to obtain full ownership in 1994. He sold the naming rights of Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) to Fruit of the Loom brand Pro Player for $2 million per year for 10 years.
In February 2008, Huizenga sold 50% of the team and 50% of the stadium for $550 million to Stephen M. Ross, chairman of The Related Companies. Huizenga remained the managing general partner of the franchise until January 2009, when he sold another 45% of the team and as much of the stadium to Ross. Thus, Ross became managing general partner with 95% ownership of the Dolphins and the stadium, and Huizenga retained a 5% share of both club and stadium. Huizenga remained the proprietor of 50% of the land.
In the early 1990s, Huizenga served a two-year probationary period with the National Football League as an owner, with the stipulation that he not buy another team.