In 1967, he left McKinsey and, with his partners, purchased Triangle Corp., a struggling hand tool manufacturing company in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
[8][10] In August 1959, Malek and four other men were arrested in Vicary's Park near Peoria, Illinois after a dog was killed, eviscerated and barbecued on a spit.
Charges of cruelty to animals were later dismissed against all but one of the men, Andrew P. O'Meara, who testified that he alone had struck and killed the dog, skinned it and tried to cook it, in order to teach the others something about living off the land.
[16] Under Malek's oversight of the hotel and resort division from 1981 to 1988, earnings increased nearly fourfold, or 18 percent a year, during a period that encompassed a recession, industry overbuilding and profit declines by competitors.
[18] Malek soon joined Los Angeles investor Al Checchi and Marriott's Gary Wilson in a $3.65 billion, all-cash purchase of Northwest Airlines.
The investor group was joined in the leveraged buyout by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Elders IXL, which contributed $480 million in equity.
[20] In July 1989, Malek and a group of Carlyle investors bought Marriott's leading airline catering division for an estimated price of $650 million.
[31][11] On May 18, 2007, Thayer was found in negligence of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and was ultimately forced to pay a civil penalty of $150,000, while Malek personally paid a fine of $100,000 for his role in the affair.
[32] It was alleged that Malek acted to enrich himself as well as advance his own political and financial interests, in addition to the benefit the fraudulent scheme would bring to him as a significant partner in Thayer.
[36] Beginning in 1999, Malek led the recruitment of the Montreal Expos franchise to Washington, D.C.[35] Working alongside city leaders, Malek set up the Washington Baseball Club, an ultimately unsuccessful investment group with partners that included Jeff Zients, Steve Porter, Paul Wolff, Frank Raines, Jim Kimsey, Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan and David Bradley.
[39] As a management expert to Nixon, Malek helped restructure the White House Personnel Office, and recruited cabinet and sub-cabinet officials.
[48] Malek provided the data on Democrats after a check of voter registration rolls, but balked at fulfilling the rest of Nixon's query.
He was said to be "on track" for chief of staff in the Bush White House, but resigned after acknowledging that in 1971, at the request of President Nixon he drew up a list of important Jewish officials at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Malek served as director of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations, with the rank of ambassador, where he was responsible for the preparation and staging of the event.
[55] Malek was a co-founder,[56] former chairman and one of three executive committee members of the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) center-right think tank established in January 2010 to promote policies based on the principles of freedom, limited government, and strong national security.
[61][63][64] Speaking of his time at West Point, Malek said "Harvard was extraordinarily helpful in teaching me to analyze problems on a purely academic front, but in terms of overall effect, it was not even close to the U.S. Military Academy in making me who I am.
"[8] In 2008, Malek was nominated by President George W. Bush to the board of visitors of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
On Tuesday, May 29, 2012, Marymount University celebrated the formal renaming of its School of Health Professions in honor of Fred and Marlene Malek.
[68] Fred and Marlene Malek were honored with the Outstanding Philanthropist Award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Washington, DC, Metro Area Chapter at their National Capital Philanthropy Day in 2012.
[71][72] Following unprecedented flooding in Prague and nearby villages in early June 2013, Malek traveled to the city to meet with Ambassador Norm Eisen and local officials to pledge aid and discuss ways to help the region recover.
A skiing accident in the mid-1980s left Malek with an artificial hip, which forced him to switch from running to lifting weights, swimming and bicycling.