Raised on a farm in McMinn County, Franklin Haney worked his way through UT, where he was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, by selling Bibles for Southwestern Publishing Company. He moved to Washington, DC in 1963 to work for Senator Herbert S. Walters (D-TN). Walters agreed to hire Haney on the condition that he attend law school, so Haney enrolled at George Washington University, from which he earned the LLB in 1965. He stayed on to work for Senator Albert Gore Sr. before returning to his hometown as a private attorney and staff lawyer for the Tennessee Public Service Commission. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1966 and for governor of Tennessee in 1974.
His principal business is the FLH Company, founded in 1967. FLH is primarily a real estate development company employing imaginative uses of tax-free bonds and government subsidies to build or renovate structures for lease to government agencies. The value of his real estate portfolio is estimated at $10 billion. In the 1980s, Haney diversified into food and beverage investments, and FLH acquired a Coca-Cola bottling company and a Miller beer distributorship.
He has been indicted but not convicted of campaign contribution violations, has defaulted on bonds (but since he had insured them, bondholders did not lose money), and has attempted unsuccessfully to purchase the Washington Nationals for $450 million. His proposal to TVA to finance a $1.3 billion completion of construction of a nuclear power plant under a leaseback arrangement was not accepted.
In preparation for the 1982 World’s Fair, he developed the Holiday Inn World’s Fair and the associated office building.