LONG BEFORE the ad men dreamt it up, Feargal Quinn was a Duracell bunny: a quick and efficient mover, always popping up on the television, friendly but relentless in pursuit of goals.
By 1973, at the age of 36, he had built Superquinn from scratch to a 300-job enterprise and was running for the Seanad. Between then and 1993, when he was finally elected, he became a public figure.
And what a figure he cut. In 1979, the Fianna Fail Minister for Posts & Telegraphs, Mr Padraig Faulkner, made him head of the interim body to revamp the postal service. He publicly criticised the shortcomings of bureaucracy and the Civil Service. In 1994 he was appointed chairman of An Post.
He has been chairman of the Irish Management Institute, president of the Irish Quality Association, is an honorary Doctor of Laws, author of a business bestseller, Crowning the Customer, and a champion letter-writer to The Irish Times.
He has offered his considered opinions on a far broader range of issues. Like why we should get up earlier in the morning, how monopolies damage the economy, buying Irish, mortgage costs, how to be an "alert, critical customer" during a recession, service standards, the floating vote, the floating apostrophe, management myths, regulatory inefficiency, God and mammon, plastic bags, equality, the North, tourism, Daylight Saving Time, tax cuts, banking, scientific education, Irish Steel and farmers.
"It is his intention, if elected . . . to look closely at restrictive practices and monopoly situations in Irish business", his 1973 campaign literature proclaimed.
In a 1987 discussion with Olivia O'Leary - held in Dublin's ProCathedral during Lent - he said that "hello money" was not an unethical practice. "There is only space for three bakery companies on our shelves . . . we sit down with each of 10 companies and we negotiate a price. I do not regard it as unchristian", he explained.
Educated at Newbridge College, Co Kildare, and at UCD, Mr Quinn is married with five children. A Knight of Columbanus, he received a papal knighthood in 1994.
He is open about his desire to win over people he meets and describes handling a complaint well as being "like scoring a try".
He has an unshakeable faith in his talent for this. "I can influence people so well with good humour and . . . the ability to smile, the ability to be in good form, the ability to - I would almost use the word - entertain", he recently told The Irish Times.