About Douglas J. Von Allmen
Douglas J. Von Allmen grew up in Louisville, except for two years his family lived in Miami, Florida. He graduated from Atherton High School upon returning to Louisville after his father's death. After high school graduation, Doug worked in a blue-collar job at a cardboard box factory. Douglas came to the University of Kentucky in 1962 to study accounting and earned his way working as a counselor in the dormitories, helping keep books for small businesses and working in the University's credit union. A member of Delta Tau Delta social fraternity, he graduated with highest honors with a BS in accounting in 1965.
Upon graduation, Doug became a public accountant with KPMG Peat Marwick in St. Louis, Missouri. After four years, he joined Horace Mann Educators Corporation in Springfield, Illinois, where he was Controller and eventually Vice President of Finance. He rejoined KPMG Peat Marwick in Texas and stayed for another four years. During this time he studied how to acquire and finance the purchase of businesses by a method generally referred to as "leveraged buyouts." Doug has made over thirty leveraged acquisitions of businesses for himself and his partners since returning to St. Louis in 1977. In recent years, he sold some of these holdings, including a chain of 350 sunglass stores that was merged with the Sunglass Hut International. He now focuses his time on Beauty Alliance, Inc., a company that is comprised of fourteen professional beauty supply distributors Doug has acquired since 1987.
With approximately $250 million of sales into 23 states it is now the largest privately owned distributor of professional beauty supplies in the country. In 2001 Doug and his family acquired complete ownership of Beauty Alliance from Doug's partner of the last ten years. Doug and his wife Linda reside in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and they have a summer home in St. Louis. Doug and Linda have four children, Dean Kretschmor, Laura Kretschmor, Julie Skurer, and David Von Allmen. Last year, Doug and Linda gave the University a very generous gift…..in recognition of this gift, our School of Accountancy and our Center for Entrepreneurship have been named in their honor. We recognize Doug for his outstanding business career as one of the nation's successful leverage buy-out experts and for his dedication and commitment to the University which started him on his successful business career.