Darwin Deason transformed his life from humble beginnings to immense wealth by embracing one principle: “Hustle.”
He rose from humble beginnings on an Arkansas homestead to become a prominent billionaire in Dallas.
Deason passed away peacefully on December 2, at the age of 85, leaving behind a legacy that reminds everyone that with hard work, the American dream is achievable.
“His mantra, his ethos was ‘hustle,’” said his son, Doug Deason, to The Dallas Express. “He really, truly believed in Dallas.”
Deason bought the company that would later become Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), Doug said, adding that his father would grow the company into a Fortune 500 company with 85,000 employees worldwide.
“I would venture to say that a majority of those people had ‘hustle’ cards,” Doug said. “He passed out thousands and thousands of ‘hustle’ cards and ‘hustle’ books.”
ACS went public in 1994, and Deason eventually sold it to Xerox in 2010 for $6.4 billion, according to Forbes. The magnate ranked within the world’s top 2,500 billionaires.
“He is one of the many, many, many who came with absolutely nothing and became a billionaire,” Doug said. “You sacrifice, and you know you can make it.”
Rags To Riches
Deason was born on the dirt floor of the Deason Homestead in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1940, on the tail of the Great Depression, according to his obituary in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
His ancestors fought in the American Revolution and then moved west. Deason spent his early years in the small town of Rogers, in far northwest Arkansas. He graduated from Rogers High School in 1958.
Deason would move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he would work as a mail clerk at Gulf Oil, and then move into data processing.
“He wanted to get to Dallas as quickly as he could,” Doug said. “He came down a couple of times, looked around, and found a position at a startup company.”
Deason moved to Dallas in 1968 to join a small startup that would later become MTech, according to his obituary. He became CEO at age 29.
Deason would go on to build the company into a successful subsidiary of MBank and go public. He later sold to EDS. Doug said that at age 48, his father thought he would retire.
“That was his first payday, big liquidity event,” Doug said. “He was just going to retire. He played golf for three days, and he hated it. He got up the next morning, put on his suit early in the morning, because he worked hard. He stayed up late and got up early.”
Deason felt an affinity for now-President Donald Trump for “a lot of reasons,” according to Doug, one of which was their strong work ethic.
“He felt like he and Trump had a lot in common, because he doesn’t sleep and neither does Trump,” Doug said. “Dad could sleep four, five hours a night and be refreshed, and fired up, and going strong at 5:30 or 6 a.m.”
After deciding he wasn’t ready for retirement, Deason got on the phone and began calling investment bankers, according to Doug. Soon after, his dad bought a small bank data processing company in North Dallas, which he later built into ACS.
Deason adopted a merger and acquisition strategy – buying companies, growing them, and selling them, Doug said. He ultimately did this with more than 300 companies.
ACS became one of America’s first companies to focus on modernizing “back-office operations” for other companies, improving performance and helping other companies provide services efficiently, according to the obituary. Some of the company’s clients included E-ZPass, 7-Eleven, UPS, the City of Dallas, and state and federal agencies.
“They had McDonald’s, they had Brunswick Corporation,” Doug said. “A lot of them are listed, some of them aren’t.”
Investing In Others
After ACS, Deason kept working “because building was his nature,” according to the obituary.
He became chairman of Deason Capital Services and of the Deason Foundation, which supports Christian ministries, criminal justice reform, education reform, medical research, and free enterprise.
“The word hustle isn’t in the Bible, but Deason fully embraced Colossians 3:23, which commands ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart…’” the obituary reads.
Deason also engaged Dallas’ civic community, according to Doug. He would host law enforcement, firefighters, and other officials in a suite at the Cowboys stadium, which the family has kept for roughly 40 years.
“He was close with each mayor, the police chiefs,” Doug said. “We’d have ‘Dallas Law Enforcement Night,’ and we would literally invite the mayor, the police chief, and city council people, the fire chief… that was always a lot of fun.”
Doug said his father employed people, creating millionaires and multi-millionaires. If Deason were here today, he said, he would encourage people to work hard and find encouragement in others’ success.
“Never, ever feel threatened by the people around you. If they’re performing, let them perform,” Doug said. “Anything you want to do – no matter where you start – you can accomplish it in Dallas, Texas if you just work hard.”
