Early Life
Francisco Anthony “Frank” Lorenzo was born in Queens, New York on May 19 1940, as the son of Spanish immigrants Olegario, the owner of a local hair salon, and his wife Ana (née Mateos), a hairdresser at her husband’s salon.
Growing up in a modest apartment that sat under the approach path for LaGuardia, much of Frank’s childhood was spent watching the various aircraft from dozens of airlines come in to land.
Interestingly, one of those airlines whose aircraft Frank used to watch coming in to land was Eddie Rickenbacker’s Eastern Airlines. An airline Frank would later work at and acquire.
Attending Forrest Hill High School, Frank excelled in mathematics and upon graduation in 1958, enrolled at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1961 with a degree in economics.
Unlike many of his classmates who came from wealthy families, Frank worked at varying times as a Macy’s department store salesman, Coca-Cola truck driver and member of the Teamster’s Union to pay for his education.
Following graduation, Frank attended Harvard Business School where he received his M.B.A in 1963.
Combining his love for aviation with his business/economics background, Frank joined TWA as a Senior Analyst immediately following graduation before leaving to join Eastern Airlines as its Manager of Financial Analysis.
In 1964, Frank spent a brief six months in the US Army reserve before returning to his civilian job in New York.
Together with Robert Carney, a fellow graduate of Harvard Business School that he’d met whilst at Eastern Airlines, Frank established Lorenzo, Carney & Co., a financial advisory firm focused on the aviation industry, in 1966.
From their offices in the Pan Am building and the $2,000 the pair had put in to start the business, Robert and Frank helped to establish Universal Airways, which quickly folded due to poor management, and with the refinancing of British West Indian Airlines (BWIA).