Franklin Clarence Mars

He started the Mars Candy Factory in 1911 with Ethel V. Mars, his second wife, in Tacoma, Washington. This factory produced and sold fresh candy wholesale, but ultimately the venture failed because there was a better established business, Brown & Haley, also known as Almond Roca, also operating in Tacoma.

In 1920, they moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Mars founded Mar-O-Bar Co. and began to manufacture chocolate candy bars. The company later incorporated as Mars, Incorporated. In 1923 he introduced his son Forrest's idea, the Milky Way, which became the best-selling candy bar. Mars moved to Chicago in 1929 and settled in River Forest. He became an honorary captain of the Oak Park, Illinois police department.

In 1930, Mars developed the Snickers Bar.

Mars was born on September 24, 1883, in Walden Township, Pope County, Minnesota. He learned how to hand-dip chocolate candy as a child from his mother Alva, who entertained him while he had a mild case of polio. He began to sell molasses chips at age 19. Mars attended high school at the Breck School, a boarding school then located in Wilder, Minnesota.

Mars and Ethel G. Kissack (1882–1980), a schoolteacher, were married in 1902 in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Their son, Forrest Mars, Sr., was born in 1904 in Wadena, Minnesota. They divorced sometime before 1910.

Mars and Ethel Veronica Healy (1884–1945) were married in 1910 and had one daughter, Patricia Mars (1914–1965).