IN THE SPOITLIGHT: Sons in the Shadow, a new book by 

Roy H. Park Jr.

In his new book, Boca Grande resident Roy H. Park Jr. has chronicled the ups and downs of being the son of a television and media baron. The book, “Sons in the Shadow” is subtitled “Surviving the Family Business as an SOB,” or Son of the Boss.

Park Jr. comes to the island each year; he and his late wife Tetlow began coming here when his daughter was working in Tampa, and they wanted a place nearby. Their home is in Ithaca, N.Y., where Park Outdoor Advertising is located, which owns over 1,500 billboards in New York and Pennsylvania, and has multiple offices.

“It’s nice and peaceful,” said Park Jr., of his time in Boca Grande each year. “We love this place down here.” 

Park’s father, the first Roy Park, had multiple careers, both as a media baron, with Roy H. Park Communications, and Hines-Park Foods. The father worked his way up from being a copy boy in North Carolina, to one of the Forbes 400. His early masterstroke, one of many, was asking Duncan Hines to lend his name to packaged food products, what became Hines-Park. The company was later sold to Procter & Gamble. 

The elder Park’s business journey began during the Great Depression, for $100 a month. “I just thought it was worth writing about him and the 17 years I spent working for him,” Park Jr. said. The book includes all aspects of his career, as well as some psychology, on being the child of the boss.

“It’s thicker than the Bible at this point,” said Park Jr., who stopped by the Beacon to say hello to staff. The book is written with commentary by John B. Babcock. “Really it’s all about what it’s like to work for a powerful person,” said Park Jr. about the book. “And what it’s like for a son. And it’s hell.”

It is not just a biography or story of his work, and his father’s. It is about how the children relate to parents, particularly powerful fathers who were very successful entrepreneurs. “Every psychiatrist who has written about that, I got quotes from in the book,” Park Jr. said. 

“It will be helpful to anybody who is the son of a boss. Or whether you want to become one or not.”

The learning with his father, and in the business sphere, was all trial and error. “I did learn what to do and what not to do, put it that way,” Park Jr. said. 

Part of the impact of the book was on the many people who worked with his father, of which there were thousands, as he owned radio stations, newspapers and television stations that once covered 25 percent of the U.S. This was major reach, especially in a time when Park did not own the television networks, and cable had not reached all of the U.S. His father later became the first broadcaster to own seven TV and radio stations, when ownership limits were increased by the Federal Communications Commission. The company later went public. His father died in 1993, leaving a large legacy. 

The comprehensive book is endlessly fascinating for those who like business history, the media and trivia. It carries the full story of Duncan Hines. While today he is known for his cake mixes, the company was born as a series of food guides that food connoisseur Hines recommended around the country. 

Park Jr. shares all of his father’s eccentricities, including the fact that he did not like square rooms. Some of it is actually quite funny. His father was an impressive man, both in his money and his physical stature, as he had extremely large eyebrows. “Woe to the barber with any gardening experience who sought to take a brush cutter to those bushes,” Park Jr. wrote. There is wisdom in the book, as Park Jr. was able to carve his own path with his successor company and the Triad Foundation, which supports millions in causes. The family split the foundation his father founded into two parts after his father’s death.

There are some tough things in the book. His father liked to schedule meetings on the Friday after Thanksgiving. And those meetings could be brutal. “Everybody else wanted to put their heads down,” Park Jr. said. “Because they knew they could be next.”

The Parks came to Boca Grande after their daughter came to Tampa to work with a bank. Roy Park Jr. lost his longtime wife, Tetlow, known as Tet, in 2021. She was a native of North Carolina, and they met on a blind date. They have two children, Elizabeth and Trip, who both are directors of the Park family’s philanthropic arm, Triad Foundation. 

“We come back every year,” Park said.