Lamar Advertising Company—a leading outdoor advertising company currently operating 152 outdoor advertising companies in 44 states, logo businesses in 21 states and Ontario, Canada, and 39 transit advertising franchises in 14 states—traces its roots to an unlikely source: a vaudeville opera house in Pensacola, Fla., and the flip of a coin.

The Associated Bill Posters of the United States granted a charter to J.M. Coe of the Pensacola Amusement Company on March 5, 1902, creating the Pensacola Advertising Co., a small poster company involved in promoting the coming attractions of the Opera House. In 1905, Charles W. Lamar Sr., then the president of the American National Bank of Pensacola, entered into a partnership with Coe. In 1908, when Lamar and Coe decided to dissolve their partnership and divide their assets, a coin flip was used to determine who would get the poster business and who the opera house, which was the more lucrative business of the two. Lamar lost the flip, and Coe got the opera house, which was later damaged by hurricanes and torn down. Lamar took control of the poster company, and Lamar Advertising was born.

Lamar changed the name of the small company to Lamar Outdoor Advertising and began to operate it as a sideline business. As time went by, however, the business became more and more profitable, and in 1926 Lamar and his two sons, Charles Lamar Jr. and L.V. Lamar of New Orleans, purchased the Baton Rouge Poster Advertising Co., which became the Lamar Advertising Co. of Baton Rouge. When Charles Lamar Sr. died in 1944, Charles Jr. and his two sisters took over the management of the Louisiana and Florida operations of the now prosperous and growing family business.

In 1958, a third generation of the family took up management of the company—represented by Kevin Reilly Sr., who had married Charles Lamar Sr.'s granddaughter, Ann Switzer Reilly. Reilly oversaw the company's steady growth into a series of new states and regions over the next 15 years. His uncle-in-law, L.V. Lamar, and later L.V.'s son Albert, managed the Lamar offices in Jackson, Miss., and Panama City, Fla. During the 1960s, Reilly acquired additional offices in Alabama, Florida and Louisiana. In 1973, a management company, The Lamar Corporation, was formed to facilitate management of the operating companies, and in 1979, the corporate headquarters was moved to its current facility on Corporate Boulevard in Baton Rouge.

Members of the Lamar family have continued to contribute to the Lamar success story over the years. Robert Switzer, the great-grandson of Charles Lamar Sr., started with the company in 1976 and now is vice president of operations. His two brothers also worked for Lamar. Charles Lamar III became the company's first general counsel in 1982 and retired in 1998. Kevin Reilly Sr.'s three sons have also been key players for the company: Wendell was chief financial officer from 1985 to 1989; Sean is the current vice president of mergers and acquisitions; and Kevin Reilly Jr. is now the president and CEO.

Sample Logo Sign

The business founded by Charles W. Lamar Sr. in 1908 has retained a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship throughout its transformation from family business to industry leader. Since the beginning, the company has responded to the needs of customers by expanding into strategic markets and diversifying its products, a strategy that has built Lamar into the premier outdoor advertising company in the markets it serves. Since 1989 the company has entered a new phase of growth and diversification, including its expansion into the interstate logo business. Lamar is now the nation's largest operator of logo signs, which provide information about available services at highway exits. Lamar has continued to seek new approaches to help advertisers reach their best potential customers, including transit advertising, located on bus shelters, benches and buses, and the use of geodemographic technology to reach each advertiser's ideal audience.

Kevin P. Reilly Jr. President and CEO

Since his appointment as Lamar's CEO in 1989, Kevin Reilly Jr. has guided the company through its most successful period of growth to date. He has overseen Lamar's development from a fourth-generation family-owned enterprise into a publicly traded company that is one of the industry's largest operators. A new Delaware corporation, Lamar Advertising Co., was formed in 1991 to assume 100 percent ownership of the company's assets and to hold its public debt. In 1996, Lamar made its first public offering of company stock, which began trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol LAMR. In 1999, when the company completed an acquisition of the outdoor advertising division of Chancellor Media, it took over the No. 1 position in the industry in total number of display signs operated.

Reilly credits Lamar's management team for the company's decades-long growth streak. The company's commitment to innovation and decentralized decision-making has contributed to the rare longevity of its managers: the top nine members of Lamar's management team have an average tenure with the company of more than 20 years. That experience, combined with a continuing focus on the unique needs of Lamar's customers, will guide Lamar's operations as it seeks opportunities in the outdoor advertising environment of the new millennium.