THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER Copyright 1995, The Charlotte Observer DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 By JIM MORRILL and NANCY STANCILL, Staff Writers AMWAY THE YAGER WAY DEXTER YAGER'S EMPIRE EMBRACES 1 MILLION PEOPLE FROM BRITAIN TO BRAZIL. HE'S AN EVANGELICAL CAPITALIST WHO WANTS TO SELL YOU SOAP -- AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE. BUT SOME OF HIS METHODS BUY CONTROVERSY In the gem-studded ranks of Amway, where Rubies aspire to become Pearls and Emeralds dream of going Diamond, Dexter Yager is a 24-carat celebrity. From Charlotte he sits atop half of Amway's global sales network of 2 million people. His distributors sold $2 billion worth of soap, cosmetics and other items last year -- an output greater than the gross national products of 39 nations. Distributors follow the Yager System, attend Yager rallies, read Yager books, listen to Yager tapes and recite the Yager story. They flock to hear the Yager pitch that wealth and success are just a dream away. He sells not only soap but an ideology and a way of life. Admirers speak of him with reverence, as if his next plateau of Amway achievement were sainthood itself. "He's just like royalty -- a crown prince of Amway," says friend Ty Boyd. Despite his renown within Amway, Yager remains little-known in Charlotte. But his influence is growing. Last year he helped Republican -- and Amway distributor -- Sue Myrick raise about $200,000 from distributors, the Yager family and employees, almost a third of all she got in winning her U.S. House seat. His network also raised money for other conservatives across the county. And growing real estate holdings make his family one of Mecklenburg County's largest noncommercial property owners and apartment landlords. For Yager, 55, success is not unblemished. A suit filed in Philadelphia last year alleges that he and his organization coerced distributors into buying motivational materials, charges Yager denies. Steve Butterfield, who wrote a 1985 book called ``Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise,'' says Yager profits twice from distributors by selling them tapes and books. "He sells the business as the American Dream,'' says Butterfield, a one-time distributor in the Yager network. "It might be for him, but not for the average distributor. It's more like a nightmare.'' Critics also attack what they call questionable sales tactics. Some say he preaches a "prosperity theology'' that bestows divine approval on materialism. Like the complex sales hierarchy of Amway Corp. -- the Michigan company whose products distributors like Yager sell -- his own world is as intricate as his web of overlapping business partnerships. Some ventures failed. And while embracing his Amway family, he's turned away from two siblings who say he's driven by money and changed for the worse since joining Amway 31 years ago. "I'm very hurt by what happened,'' Yager says. But relationships are what Yager says his Amway is all about. "If you work just for money, you'll reach a point where you may have enough and you'll let up,'' he once said. "We build relationships, and people don't normally quit on people who love them.'' To distributors hoping to move up the sales ranks to Ruby, Pearl, Emerald and Diamond, Yager nurtures the relationship with advice on everything from spiritual needs to sex. "I'm writing about things that made the difference in my life,'' he explains. '' . . . Everything in life is selling.'' * * "I've had people tell me I'm materialistic. I say you're either materialistic or you're a nudist.'' -- Success magazine interview with Yager, 1994 ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- The Pentagon of Yager's Amway army is a nondescript office-warehouse on Steele Creek Road in southwest Charlotte. ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Internet Services Corp. serves as headquarters and supply depot. It distributes millions of books, tapes and videos that are the motivational fuel for Yager troops in their fight against slammed doors and "negative people.'' They call their general the "master motivator.'' In the lobby, a portrait of Yager and his wife, Birdie, hangs over an open Bible. His bronze bust sits atop a display case. When Yager walks in, he looks like anything but a star. He's carrying a pack of Garcia Y Vegas cigars and wearing a leather fanny pack embossed with a red, white and blue flag. A blue corduroy cap hides his retreating hairline. A trim salt-and-pepper beard frames a round face atop a 5-foot-6, 185-pound frame. "I got a long body with no arms and legs,'' he explains in a gravelly voice. "If my body was normal size I'd be a midget.'' His right arm is partially impaired from a 1986 stroke. He gestures mostly with his left. His deep-set eyes seem always in motion as he offers up life lessons like so many cigars: (''I've been rich and I've been poor, and the one reason a lot of people get rich is they've been poor enough to hate it.'') He's not polished, and even takes a certain pride when stumbling over a word. "I purposely kept my vocabulary small,'' says the author of 12 books. "Most people with big vocabularies, I had to figure out what they meant. . . . So I've never increased it.'' Dressed casually, with cream-colored loafers and a burgundy pullover, Yager is unassuming. Except for the jewelry. Each hand totes a 10-carat diamond ring. A diamond-studded Rolex adorns one wrist. The other has a matching bracelet with "DEX'' spelled in diamonds. Such bangles aren't Yager's only bow to success. His fleet of cars, once numbering more than 50, is down to around 15. It includes three Rolls-Royces and four Mercedes. Then there are the four boats and the seven-seat Hawker jet, not to mention homes on Lake Wylie and in Florida. His Lake Wylie residence is a 15,000-square- foot, $1.6 million log showcase. Like books and tapes, they're all among the tools Yager uses to motivate distributors and encourage them to recruit new ones. "You've got to keep them dreaming,'' he advised last fall in "Dreambuilders,'' the network magazine. "Take them dreaming . . . so that they get hungry for the things they're not satisfied with, what they have won't do. . . . "We've got to keep them looking at houses, boats, planes, cars, vans, coaches, expanding and stimulating and fertilizing that powerful brain that God gave every one of them until they believe they deserve more, and they will go after it and they will get it.'' Yager estimates his income at "several million.'' Forbes magazine put it at more than $10 million a year in 1991. Before Amway, the man who now collects cars used to sell them. ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "Learn to associate with winners. If your best friend hinders you from reaching your goals, drop him. Sound hard? Maybe to some, but ironically that step will probably help not only you but help him as well.'' -- "Don't Let Anybody Steal Your Dream'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Dexter Royal Yager was born in 1939 in Fulton N.Y., just north of Syracuse and, as it happened, down the road from Dexterville. He was named for his mother, a Dexter, and his grandfather, Royal. Royal Yager was a plumber. So were four of his five sons, including Dexter's father. Soon the family moved to the mill town of Rome N.Y. Adelbert Yager remembers his nephew as "a born salesman.'' One day, he recalls, young Dexter was walking down the street with his mother when he stopped and talked to a girl. Moving on, his mother asked if he knew her. "He said, No, but I will the next time I see her,' '' says Adelbert Yager. In 1949, when Yager was in sixth grade, he earned money peddling soda pop. He'd buy bottles for a nickel a piece and sell them to construction workers for a dime. He soon raised his profits by buying them wholesale. School was never a passion for Yager. It still isn't. Neither he nor six of his seven children ever went to college. One daughter went a year. A headline in a Yager book may sum up why: "Myth: Education = Good Job = Success.'' After graduating from high school in 1957, Yager took a series of sales jobs. He sold Sears tools, Ford cars and Utica Club beer. "It got to the point,'' he once wrote, "where I was drinking up to two cases of beer a day.'' When a relative pitched Amway in 1964, Yager got hooked fast. "Amway became my top priority,'' he said once. "I ate, slept and breathed the business seven days a week.'' Then as now, he didn't sell soap as much as "the plan,'' Amway's blueprint for success. In lines and circles, it maps the way toward geometric growth of your "downline,'' that is, people you enlist to buy and sell Amway products and those they recruit in turn. Today Amway distributors rarely trek door-to-door. Instead, they're encouraged to use Amway products themselves and find others to do the same. Sales by those in your downline chain help determine your income. Because the drop-out rate is high -- more than 50% - distributors keep hustling. Yager did. He showed the plan virtually every night. In 1969 he moved his growing family and business to Charlotte, where he had a growing distributor base. On weekends he'd pile his family into a Winnebago and go to rallies. In between he'd show the plan. He was a millionaire by 30 and, over the next decade, pioneered the support network of motivational books and tapes. Eventually that became Internet Services, now a $35 million a year business. Today Yager is one of only two people in America perched at Amway's "Crown Ambassador'' level. He's still on the road some 46 weekends a year. At rallies he bounces onstage to upbeat music such as the theme from "Rocky.'' Middle-aged distributors leap to their feet and clap and scream as if he were a rock star. "This is almost like going to Graceland,'' newsman Mike Wallace once observed after watching Yager's admirers. "He's kind of like the Will Rogers of the Amway business,'' says Florida distributor Dewey Tobias, 47. "He says things very simply that have a profound truth in them. . . . It took 168 college professors to teach me how to get a job, and Dexter taught me how to really live effectively.'' Some former distributors see it differently. Bruce Roeser, 37, of Stone Mountain, Ga., attended many Yager rallies during 13 years as a distributor. He says promoters would save Yager and other key speakers until 2 or 3 a.m. "Is your brain going to be slightly more receptive when you're tired? That to me is programming,'' he says. '' . . . It got weird. The speaker would deliver the message, they'd put on the music and dance all around. The weekend would cost me $500 and I'd come out feeling depressed because I couldn't maintain the standard.'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "You've got to keep 'em dreamin' a lot. Then you've got to build a relationship with him and make him hungry for you. . . . If I can get his wife and him lovin' Birdie enough also, that stretches the (relationship) even more.'' -- Undated message on Amway voice mail ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Jody Victor of Akron, Ohio, is an Amway success. But even as vice president of the Amway Distributors Association, he still relishes "counseling'' sessions with Yager. He comes to Charlotte and enters Yager's nocturnal world. They're likely to embark on a 2 a.m. tour of what Victor calls "Dexter's route.'' "You're probably going to drive by a car dealership or you'll drive by a new home,'' says Victor, 47. The point: to "keep us mentally broke.'' "Mentally broke is a term Dexter uses to say that if you have a dream maybe a little bit out of your reach . . . maybe it will keep you hungry and driven to move onto the next step in Amway.'' Yager's advice flows freely. Sometimes it's through "Amvox,'' the Amway voice mail system, where "Dits from Dex'' filter down the network. Often it comes wherever Yager happens to be. Dewey Tobias, then an Amway neophyte, was getting gas at SouthPark in 1975 when he spotted Yager doing the same. "He talked to me for an hour and a half,'' recalls Tobias, who became a successful distributor in a different network. "He took a total stranger who could have no effect on his future income . . . (and) took the time to encourage me.'' But because distributor bonuses depend on sales down the chain, there's clear incentive to nurture their success. And because attrition is so high, Yager offers an all-embracing support group to fight any distractions that might snuff out the fire to sell. That's why to his Amway distributors, he's more than a business consultant. He's a family friend and self-help guru. He's part Miss Manners (''Loose, wrinkled clothes suggest . . . a lack of ambition''); part Ann Landers (''A good self-image will keep you going when circumstances say STOP!''); and part Dr. Ruth (''Not all sex will be a mountaintop experience.'') He freely shares thoughts on gender roles: "A man needs to be the head of a home to feel like a man,'' he once said. '' . . . A real man wants to go out and conquer and achieve for the gal he loves.'' "We learn quickly in networking that products don't move people, people move products,'' says Brig Hart, 43, another Florida distributor. "Dexter's whole system is created to make you aware of who you are and help you to rise to your full potential.'' Ty Boyd, a longtime WBT and WBTV personality and motivational speaker himself, understands the appeal. "Everybody would like to have more positive world in which to live,'' he says. "So it has less to do with building a huge business for many of them and just as much to do with being positively reinforced.'' Three years ago Wade Cowart, a Florida distributor, was honored at a Yager rally at Rock Hill's Winthrop Coliseum. He'd just left the stage when he was informed his father had died. Yager, then a casual acquaintance, walked out to Cowart's motor home. "Dexter . . . sat down with my wife and me 30-45 minutes and helped me to understand and feel better about the fact that my father had died,'' says Cowart, 47. "He's not just talk, he lives what he teaches.'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "As our goals change, so do our relationships. This might sound cruel, but accept it as part of life's maturing process.'' -- "Don't Let Anybody Steal Your Dream'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- The harmony in Yager's Amway family doesn't always extend to his own. He's estranged from his brother Leonard Yager and sister, Lillian Peck. He remains close only to brother Richard. "When he got money he changed,'' says Peck, 51, who lives in the back row of Tuxedo Trailer Park in Rome, N.Y. "They moved down there and he got into Amway and all of a sudden I didn't hear any more from them.'' Says Leonard, 57: "If you were involved in Amway he spent the time with you. If you weren't involved in Amway, he avoided you.'' Of his sister, Dexter Yager says: "Lillian is a sweet person, but when . . . I moved to Charlotte, how much am I going to see people back in Rome? I love her.'' His relationship with Leonard broke over a failed business venture. Leonard Yager moved to Cabarrus County in 1986 to run a construction company with his brothers. By 1989 the partnership soured. Leonard Yager was fired. He says his brothers fought efforts to gain unemployment compensation and remains bitter. He also blames them for preventing him from visiting their mother in a Charlotte nursing home. A 1991 letter signed by Dexter and Richard Yager and their mother warned Leonard that any attempted visit would be considered "willful trespass.'' Gertrude Yager died last July. Dexter Yager says the warning was his mother's idea. As for Leonard's firing, he says, "Sometimes when you're trying real hard to help somebody else it doesn't work out -- and you're the bad guy. . . . "I have a hard time with the breakdown in the relationship,'' he adds. "But I feel that's family and it's personal and there is no gain for me to attack someone.'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "The road to success is not well paved.'' -- "Don't Let Anyone Steal Your Dream'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Yager's experience with his brother Leonard hasn't stopped him from doing business with his own family -- or his Amway one. A series of family ventures includes the Dexter and Birdie Yager Family Limited Partnership and Dexter Yager and Family Enterprises. Son Doyle is CEO of Internet; Jeff, president, and Steve, a vice president. A fourth son, Dexter Jr., provides security for rallies. Brother Richard Yager's company builds Yager's apartments. Members of the Amway family also have become business partners. At one point Yager was involved in at least 30 partnerships, according to Mecklenburg County records. Most involved real estate. Alone or with others, he owns at least 590 acres in Mecklenburg and York County, S.C. The total tax value is $45 million. After two Mecklenburg businesses in which he had minority interest went bankrupt, Yager began to pare his partnerships. "If it ain't family, if it ain't the kids, nobody's going to take care of your house like you do,'' says Yager. Don Hevener, a partner once sued by Yager, suggests Yager can play hardball. "Unfortunately, a lot of very successful people are very headstong people,'' he says. "And he's certainly that.'' A few years ago, Yager joined some Amway friends in a group that acquired interests in an Ohio hotel, a bank, a travel agency, a Miami- area resort hotel and a chain of "Dexter's'' sub shops. All were eventually dumped. "We learned that we should stick with the goose that laid the golden eggs,'' says investor Jody Victor. "I think we found that our area of expertise was the Amway business, not the banking business.'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "We believe there's a God in heaven that wants us to achieve.'' -- An undated motivational tape ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Brig Hart had just joined Amway when he went to a Yager rally years ago. That Sunday he found his way to its optional religious service. "It wasn't like any church I'd been to,'' says Hart. "I saw people professing their faith in Jesus Christ and not ashamed. . . . I didn't see one person who reached high levels who didn't acknowledge the Lord and give him credit for the success.'' Yager displays his religion as openly as the Christian flags that flutter outside Internet offices. He runs a Christian camp for children of top distributors. Since 1991, the nonprofit Yager Freedom Foundation spent $212,000 on religious services at rallies. Yager once wrote: "The best hug you can give your children is a relationship with Jesus Christ.'' Yager donated royalties of an early book to PTL Television Network. And when Jim and Tammy Bakker fell on hard times, he leased his home as a broadcast center. Gerald Harteis, an Amway distributor from Pennsylvania, says "a strong faith and belief in God and the principles of our founding father'' is, along with following your dream and supporting your associates, a tenet of the Yager System. "What we do is try to make it available,'' Harteis, 48, says of religion. "I don't think we're attempting whatsoever to force this on people.'' Amway Corp. CEO Tom Eggleston says company guidelines guard "against any implication that certain views are required for success.'' But Craig Branch of the Watchman Fellowship, a national Christian counter-cult ministry, calls Yager's brand of religion "prosperity theology.'' He calls Amway "cultic'' with its highly emotional meetings and efforts to control the lives of its distributors. "God wants you to be rich and healthy and all you've got to do . . . is to claim it with positive thinking,'' Branch says. "God is a celestial bellhop.'' Admirers say Yager is simply professing what's worked in his own life. "Being around Dexter is seeing a sermon rather than hearing one,'' says distributor Dewey Tobias. "Wouldn't you rather see the biblical principles of how to treat people and how to get along with people practiced rather than talked about?'' ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- "If you really understand business, you're either working hard to move forward or you're sliding back.'' -- Observer interview ---------------------------->Box<---------------------------- Dexter Yager has little time for rest. A few years ago he took a reporter on one of his nocturnal excursions. At 2 a.m., they hopped into Yager's custom 4-wheel drive, spotlights mounted on the side panels, and went looking at real estate. Last month he flew into Charlotte aboard his private plane for another interview, and then flew on to Rhode Island for another Amway event. He's a workaholic, as consumed now with selling dreams as he once was selling soda, cars or beer. "It's the only life I know and I love it,'' he says. '' . . . You can't succeed in something (if) you haven't made up your mind that you're going to pay the total price, whatever it is, to succeed.'' For Yager, the total price is always one more recruit, one more rally. "I plan to run as hard as I can 'til the day I die,'' he once said. "And maybe the day after.'' ------------------------------------------ NEXT STOP, CHINA: GLOBAL REACH FUELS SALES Chances are good that you've sold Amway, bought Amway or heard an Amway distributor's sales pitch. Amway Corp., is the Michigan-based granddaddy of network marketing. Its 400 products -- mostly household and personal care items -- and 6,500 catalogue items are not sold by stores, but by vast networks of distributors. Its grass-roots marketing strategy -- distributors recruiting friends, relatives and acquaintances into endlessly expanding circles of salespeople - has built a global army of 2 million distributors known for their fervor and high-energy sales conventions. The successful formula has opened lucrative foreign markets in recent years and pushed retail sales last year to a record $5.3 billion in 60 countries. Last month it moved into Chile. Next month it opens China. Much of Amway's sales activity is rooted in Charlotte, where a key distributor, Dexter Yager, has built a worldwide network of 1 million independent salespeople and a huge motivation-building sideline. And more than 12,000 "Amwaynians'' will rally in four events this month at the Charlotte Convention Center. They'll talk about expansion, especially in China, where Amway will enter two provinces containing 95 million people. Foreign growth -- especially in Japan and South America -- has pushed sales from $2 billion to $5.3 billion in just four years, said Tom Eggleston, the corporation's chief operating officer. But closer to home, Amway still faces some image problems. Since its founding in 1959, the corporation has fought regulatory and legal battles stemming from its network marketing techniques and some of its sales practices. The Federal Trade Commission investigated whether Amway's recruiting of layers of salespeople constituted an illegal pyramid scheme. The federal agency eventually ruled in 1979 that its sales to retail customers keep Amway a legal venture. Promoters of pyramid scams get money from recruits instead of sales. The Amway Corp. and its Canadian subsidiary pleaded guilty in 1983 to charges of defrauding the Canadian government of more than $22 million in customs duties and was fined $20 million. In 1989, the corporation paid $48 million to settle civil penalties in Canada stemming from the same case, said Colette Gentes of Revenue Canada. An Amway official said the corporation has good relations with the Canadian government and healthy growth in Canada. The FTC also investigated Amway's sales pitches, alleging that it was disseminating misleading information to recruits. In a 1986 settlement, the corporation paid a $100,000 civil penalty and agreed to disclose information on average earnings to new recruits. Amway's sales and marketing plan says average monthly income for all active distributors is $65. About 920,000 are deemed active. The plan also says only about 1% of all active distributors reach the direct distributor level, the starting point for incentive bonuses. Direct distributors buy their products directly from Amway in Michigan, pay commissions to groups of 75 to 300 recruits, and can earn $40,000 or more a year, said officials. The great bulk of Amway distributors -- who pay about $135 for a starter kit - simply earn commissions on the products they order for themselves and customers. At a recent meeting in Charlotte, the $65-a-month average earnings was not mentioned. Instead, the speaker focused on new cars, vacation homes and other possibilities from large incomes. Some do succeed, but many others get discouraged and drop out fairly quickly. Dexter Yager estimates the dropout rate at 50 percent. Some Amway distributors invite prospective recruits to meetings without telling them they're going to hear an Amway presentation, a tactic that corporate officials say they have tried to discourage. "We strongly encourage distributors to disclose that the business opportunity is with Amway,'' said Eggleston. "When we receive reports of a failure to be truthful, we have imposed penalties following repeated warnings.'' In 1991, Procter & Gamble obtained a $75,000 judgment against two Amway distributors for spreading false rumors that its trademark is linked with Satanism. In recent years, Amway has become more visible in its marketing. Current advertisements in magazines like Newsweek show families in rooms filled with Amway products to emphasize the breadth of its sales offerings. Some former Amway distributors argue that most Amway products are consumed by the sales force, which Eggleston says is difficult to prove or disprove. He said the corporation has "high retail penetration'' for its catalogues that sell Amway products and other brand-name items. But because distributors order products for themselves and their customers, he said it's difficult to pinpoint who's consuming them. "It continues to be a relationship selling business, not one of cold calling, which we discourage,'' he said. "Most distributors spend four hours a week on Amway.'' The corporation was founded by Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel of Ada, Mich., whose worth is estimated by Forbes at $4.5 billion each. The Amway Corp. is still led by Van Andel and DeVos' son, Dick. It's a privately held company with publicly traded sister companies, Amway Japan Limited and Amway Asia Pacific Limited. * AMWAY WHAT IS IT? Amway Corp., short for American Way, is one of the world's largest direct selling companies. Founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos, it's based in Ada, Mich. HOW BIG IS IT? Amway $5.3 billion in products in 1994, an 18 per cent increase from 1993. It markets more than 400 home care, health and fitness products mad by Amway and 6,500 other brand-name items in its catalogue. WHO SELLS AMWAY? 500,000 in the U.S. and 500,000 in other countries, including Britain and Australia. HOW MANY ARE SUCCESSFUL? Amway's sales and marketing plan shows that the average monthly gross income for active distributors is about $65. About 1 per cent of all the active distributors reach the rank of direct distributor, the first level for incentive bonuses. Direct distributors have as many as 300 distributors in their network, generating about $15,000 monthly in product sales. WHAT DOES IT OWN? Amway rewards its top distributors with vacations to Peter Island Resort and Yacht Harbor, a secluded resort it owns in the British Virgin Islands. It also owns a 160-foot yacht, the Enterprise V. -------------- DEXTER'S WORLD As the head of Amway's biggest global network of independent distributors, you'd think Dexter Yager would have enough to do. But he's also found time to be an author, developer, motivator, self-help- guru and political fund-raiser. "Everything in life,'' he says, "is selling.'' And he's proved that if you sell enough, you can also buy a few things. --His home on Lake Wylie The $1.6 million log home has more than 15,000 square feet -- not to mention 2,400-square feet of garage space. --His transportation fleet 15 cars, including three Rolls Royces, four Mercedes and a '66 T- Bird. "Freedom Special,'' a $350,000 motor home Four boats One seven-seat Hawker jet --Real estate Owns at least $44 million worth of property in Mecklenburg and York counties. Includes: Coffey Creek apartments on N.C. 49 Esprit apartments off W.T. Harris Boulevard Hamilton's Bay apartments on S.C. 49 --Religion Dexter leased a home to Jim and Tammy Ministries. --Dexter's Amway connection Oversees more than 1 million distributors around the world Responsible for $2 billion in annual sales -- more than a third of Amway's total. Sits on the executive committee of the Amway Distributors Association Board. --Amway support Pioneered support system of motivational tapes and books. Owns two companies that distribute motivational materials. Internet Services Corp. Located on Steele Creek Road, distributes $35 million worth of materials a year. ICCA. Manufactures tapes -- and has a satellite broadcast service --at its South Boulevard plant. --Dexter the writer Author or co-author of 12 books including: "Don't Let Anybody Steal Your Dream.'' "Millionaire Mentality.'' "Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Heros.'' --Other businesses Brother Richard Yager runs Yager Construction. Dexter Yager has had multiple partnerships, and once had interest in a bank, travel agency and hotel. --Politics Helped raised $200,000 for Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. Also helped a handful of other GOP candidates, including Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Arranged for notables like George Bush to speak at Amway rallies. --Yager Freedom Foundation Run by the Yager family, it raised $563,000 in contributions from 1991-93 and made $18,000 in grants. Also spent $212,000 on religious services for Yager rallies. Foundation owns 34 acres along Lake Wylie (continued...)