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Despite his 5-ft. 7-in., 132-lb. size, he be came at 23 the youngest battalion commander in the Corps. Reluctantly mustered out at war's end, he began running his family's Kansas City interests (an auto agency, small loan and real-estate operations). Not until 1953, when his stepfather, Jules Stein, founder of MCA, asked Oppenheimer to buy him land and cattle as a tax shelter, did the ex-Marine find a new field to conquer.
Music Man Stein's call must have sounded like tunes of glory. "We consider our entire firm to be a general staff," says President Ronald Jarvis Jr.. a reserve Marine colonel who helped Oppenheimer build the company. "The ranches and the herds are the regiments and divisions." The top echelon of the 99-man staff is largely recruited from the military, because Oppenheimer believes that soldiers "know how to act in a crisis." They Certainly ought to know the routine. Oppenheimer requires bimonthly inspections o_£ ranchers, using Marine fitness reports.
"Any day of the week," he declares, "I'd rather have a Marine officer handling a roundup than a farmer." He is just as tough with his clients. Those who visit Oak Hill, Oppenheimer's 600-acre spread outside Kansas City, are usually invited to jump, crawl and clamber through an obstacle course not unlike the one at the Marine training base at Quantico.