Chapter One
Two Regular Guys
"We Can Finish Each Other's Sentences"
My parents were Russian immigrants who came to America with nomoney. So courageous, these people. I think often about their lives,how in desperation, they picked up and left the only life they and generationsbefore them had ever known. They had nothing. They camewith nothing. They arrived in America looking forward to freedomand safety. They didn't speak the language. They were special peoplefor whom courage was second nature.
I grew up in a fourth floor tenement at the corner of BelmontAvenue and Rose Street in Newark, New Jersey. It was freezing in thewinter and hot as hell in the summer. I tell the joke that it was so badthat they tore it down to build a slum.
It was the only home I knew, of course, and I loved it. We were surroundedby other kids in this tenement, and I loved my life, me andmy friends hanging from the fire escapes, using our imaginations toentertain ourselves. It was so much fun; just ourselves and our minds.
My mother was the matriarch and peacemaker of the family. Shewas such a positive human being that it was difficult to depress herspirit. She could find the bright side of any situation, even death.Mother was a great optimist. She often used the Jewish word b'sheirt,which means "it is destined to be." And to her, everything that wasdestined to be was always very positive. In other words, even if somebodydied, she would find a good reason—"they didn't suffer" or"the family didn't suffer." She could make anything into a positive.
My mom taught me most of the beliefs I possess today, especiallythat you have only so much physical and mental energy. Don't spendtime replaying the past; it only keeps you from focusing on the future.Don't spend time on things in which you can't make a difference. Shealso taught me that the way you handle and deal with life's setbackscreates the basis for what you'll accomplish in the future.
I often think of Willy Loman, the central character in ArthurMiller's great play Death of a Salesman. Willy's glory days as a starsalesman were clearly behind him. If he wanted to keep his job heneeded to change. Instead, he blamed everyone but himself for hisfailures. My mom was just the opposite, always looking on the brightside.
A very, very bright woman, my mother had enough wisdom toqualify her to teach at our best business schools. She was bedriddenin her mid-forties, crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She couldn'twalk. When my sister, Bea, was eight years old, Mother's doctor toldher that the only hope she had of ever walking again would be if shehad another baby. Believe it or not, I was conceived for medicalreasons! Even better, after giving birth to me—on Mother's Day, noless—she was able to walk again. Her hands and feet were stillhopelessly gnarled, but she was able to walk.
To her, I was a blessing. She loved me so because I literally savedher life. Although in unrelenting pain, she functioned for some thirtyyears after my birth and had an immense influence on my life.
My father was a cabinetmaker. He was strong as an ox, a greatcraftsman but a terrible businessman. He worked day and night,seven days a week, fifteen hours a day, and still couldn't make endsmeet for his wife and four children. Without the contributions of mytwo grown brothers, Irving and Seymour, the family would neverhave survived.
As poor as we were, my mother used to take ice cream moneyaway from my brothers and sister and me—often against our will—andgive it to charities. Her sincere belief was that "the more you give,the more you get." How right she was.
* * *
We lived in a predominantly black neighborhood, which made mea target if for no other reason than I stood out in any crowd. Blackgang kids used to challenge me to fights every day after school andwhip me badly, but, somewhat fearless, somewhat stupid, I alwayscame back for more. Finally, the leader of one gang was so impressedwith my ability to take what he was dishing out that he wanted me aspart of the gang. At 11 years old, I not only ran with this gang ofthirty black kids but I became its second in command.
Then when I was about 12 1/2, we moved away from that neighborhood,which was getting too rough for our family.
* * *
My family was always in tough shape financially, so I startedworking from the age of 13. My first job was as a soda jerk afterschool. During summer vacations in high school, I earned money forcollege as a busboy in the Catskill Mountains. You could accumulatea significant (in those days) amount of money if you were frugal, becausethe jobs included room and board and the tips were all yours.
From an early age I had a propensity for medicine—especiallypsychiatry. I was particularly interested in studying the mind. I spenthours reading the works of Freud and Jung and became determinedat the age of 17 that I would become a psychiatrist.
During this time, I learned the art of hypnosis. When I was awaiter at Kutsher's Country Club, I became proficient enough that Iwas able to perform on stage. I would put somebody into a hypnoticstate, take them back in years, but I never made a fool out of anybody.I helped people with memory problems find something they lost. Infact, I did one of the original stop-smoking routines. It was a very excitingperiod in my life; I hypnotized as many as ten people at a time.It was here, as I got into people's minds, that I began to understandhow some folks become obstacles for others.
I recognized then that my calling was in medicine, and specificallypsychiatry. I registered for premed studies at Rutgers College inNewark, which allowed me to save money by living at home.
After my second year, I sought a med school scholarship. One daythe dean, with whom I had become friendly, called me. He hadarranged a scholarship for me to attend Harvard Medical School. Iwas very excited.
Then he said to me, "I will give you the address where you haveto send a $10,000 check," and I just looked at him in disbelief. He explainedthat there was a quota on how many Jews Harvard wouldwillingly accept into medical school. The $10,000 was some kind ofkickback.
I never personally spoke to anyone from Harvard, but I was toldthere was an unwritten quota system regarding how many Jewish studentscould be accepted into various graduate schools—medical included.But if my family could come up with a $10,000 contribution,I could probably circumvent the quota. Well, my entire family—parents,aunts, uncles, and cousins—had never seen that kind of money,let alone possessed it, so my dream was quashed like a tenpenny nailbeing hit by a sledgehammer.
In total frustration, I quit school the next day, packed my suitcases,and hitchhiked down to Florida, where I stayed for a year. I wasso despondent because I couldn't be a doctor.
After I'd had a year of real-life learning experiences and totalindependence, my mother prevailed on me to finish my education. Allgood Jewish mothers feel their children need a college degree, so Iwent home. I went back to Rutgers and enrolled in pharmacy school,which was far from my heart's first choice.
* * *
I was very young during World War II, but it—and the news of theHolocaust in particular—had a sobering effect on me. It dawned onme that folks like myself were massacred for no other reason thanbeing born Jewish. If not for the courage of my parents giving upeverything they knew to come to this wonderful land, I might haveperished in Hitler's death camps. So at an early age, survival of theJewish race and religion became very important to me.
We were brought up in an Orthodox religious home. Going tosynagogue—and living our lives according to the scriptures—werevery important and had a special meaning to my parents and,through their eyes, to me. They had a strong belief in God, and theyinstilled that in me.
I was very religious myself, although I had a problem: I didn't understandHebrew. It was difficult for me to pray to God in a languagethat I didn't understand. I did the chants, and I did the words. But Ididn't understand it, and, as an adult, I kind of backed off on Orthodoxy.But I never backed off on being a Jew.
I understand the frustration that blacks faced in America yearsago. Jews suffered the same obstacles. Large corporations, banks, andindustries were devoid of Jews in positions of authority. We couldn'tbelong to exclusive clubs or high society. So we had to work harderand smarter to succeed. There is great jealousy of the accomplishmentsof Jews in America, but we fought for our share.
I believe that the value of our religion is critical. I think it hastaught me values. And what I have always understood is that thehuman being is his own temple, that if you feel good about yourselfand share your good fortune with others who are not so fortunatethat you are doing the work of God. Beginning with my mother's encouragement,I have tried to conduct myself in this manner.
* * *
When I finished pharmacy school in 1954, I interned for a year.Before the year was up, the father of a friend of mine, Larry Wortzel,died, and Larry offered me a 50 percent sweat equity share of hisfather's Millburn, New Jersey, pharmacy business, Central DiscountDrug. I accepted, but it was a mistake.
This was not a great partnership and was full of stress for both ofus. A frustrated would-be doctor does not make for a good pharmacist.Lots of heated arguments ensued.
One Saturday night—we were open until nine P.M.—after I hadyet another conflict with Larry that day, I was alone in the store andeating dinner at the back counter between customers. That's whenfate—a little guy with a big cigar in his mouth—walked into the storeand changed my life.
"Hey, kid, come here, get me a cigar," he said.
This fellow may have been two years older than I was, maybethree years at the most.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"I said, kid, get me a cigar."
So I walked up to him, and said, "Pick a window."
This big cigar dangling in his mouth, he looked at me, confused."What do you mean, pick a window?"
"Pick a window, because you are going through one of them. Iwant you to have a choice in which one." And believe me, he knew Iwasn't kidding.
He put up his hands in a defensive way, as if to suggest he meantno offense. But I was in a foul, foul mood, and I was prepared. Callingme "kid" was the last straw.
"Wait a second," he said. "You must have had an argument withyour partner."
"How did you guess?" I asked, disarmed by his intuition.
"Hey, I've been in here before," he said. "I've seen you aroundyour partner."
He introduced himself as Danny Kessler and said he was thechairman of a company called United Shirt Shops.
"What are you doing in this crummy store?" he asked me. "Whydon't you get the hell out of here? Go into a business that is moresuited to your talents."
"And what business would that be?"
"Discount stores. Concession departments. I have the men'sclothing concession in a whole bunch of stores and we are making aton of money. There are lots of great stores doing this."
"Where are they?"
"There is one not far from here in Paramus," he said, "Why don'tyou come visit me there tomorrow?"
So the next day, I did.
I had never been in a discount store in my life, and it was mind-boggling.I had never seen that many people in my whole life gothrough a store, and every department, while part of the same storein the customer's eyes, was run by a different concessionaire. Kesslertook me over and introduced me to Henry Flink, who leased and ranthe cosmetics department. Health and beauty aids were just flying offhis shelves.
"How does a person get in this business?" I asked Kessler.
"You want to get in, I will get you in," he said.
I had no money to buy into a new venture; I was broke. Larry hadno money, either; he had the store, that's all. But Kessler was true tohis word and found a place for me to start, Spears Fifth Avenue, nearthe Empire State Building.
We hocked the drugstore to get into this new business. Wortzeldidn't want to do it; I did. Another argument. But our resources wereso slim, we had to do it together. I finally suggested a compromise. Isaid, "You stay with the drugstore, I'll run this business, and we'll besuccessful at it." Reluctantly, he went along.
To get me up and running, Flink agreed to sell me merchandiseon credit, basically setting me up to be his own competitor. It was thebeginning of a personal relationship that continues to this day.
Unfortunately, Spears was on its way to bankruptcy and nearlydragged us under with it. Plus I had other troubles. Wortzel and Iowed Flink and others a ton of money.
Meanwhile, another friend of mine, Bob Silverman, told me aboutTwo Guys. "They need you desperately," he said. "They are the best,but they are running the worst cosmetics business in the world.Maybe you can get a concession in their stores."
So I went to the Two Guys store in Totowa, New Jersey, andwalked it maybe ten times over a two-week period. I was astounded.Great Eastern Mills, another well-known East Coast discount chainof that era, was good. But Two Guys was better. I asked one of theemployees, "Who runs this place?"
"That guy right there," he said, pointing. "Herb Hubschman." Bya twist of fate, Hubschman was in the same store that I was visiting.
"Mr. Hubschman?" I said, interrupting him.
"Yeah?"
"This is the greatest store I've ever seen," I said, exaggerating tokeep his interest. "This is unbelievable."
Flattered, he personally walked me from department to department,telling me, "I buy this" and "I do this" and "I bought this forthis" and "I bought this whole company out." When he finished, heturned back to me and said, "Well, what do you have to say aboutthat?"
And I said, "For the smartest guy in the world, you are the biggestschmuck I ever met in my life."
He looked at me, stunned, a hurt expression in his eyes. "What areyou talking about?"
"Look at how brilliant and innovative you are," I said. "You havefood in the store, you have appliances, you have this and you havethat. But your cosmetics department is the worst I have ever seen. It'sdisgraceful! How can you let this happen?"
"Well," he said sheepishly, "my brother runs it."
"Now I know what's wrong. Your brother runs it.
"Herb," I continued, "from now on, I will run this part of yourbusiness. What your brother is doing in sales now I will pay as rentand I'll make a profit over that."
"You can't possibly make that deal," he said.
What he said he believed and what he wanted to believe were twodifferent things. I wanted that cosmetics department and he wantedme—enough for him to buy the concession departments I had atSpears and another store, Webster's, for all of the debt that I owed, includingpaying off Henry Flink and Larry Wortzel. I separated myselffrom Larry—we weren't talking at all at that point, anyway. I left himwith the drugstore, and I went with Two Guys.
The owners of Two Guys, which was one of the foremost discountersin those days, bought our inventory and paid our debts. Itook over the cosmetics department and in a short time did what Isaid I would do. They also gave me the sporting goods department,followed by major appliances. By the time I was 28, I was overseeingapproximately $1 billion worth of business, all of the hard goods ofthe Two Guys companies.
I ascended the ladder of success at Two Guys by learning how importantthe folks are with whom you surround yourself. I loved teachingpeople the business. Why have I been successful my whole life?Because I've always surrounded myself with people who are betterthan I am. That's one of the lessons that guided Arthur Blank and mewhen we started The Home Depot and one every businessperson inAmerica needs to learn.
* * *
I later became friendly with Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, andremain close today with the company's current chairman of the board,David Glass. We have a lot of common experiences and interests.
One day, Glass and I were walking through one of his superstoresin Georgia. I said, "You think this superstore of yours is a great invention,right?"
"Oh, yes," he said proudly, having played a part in Wal-Mart'sbirth.
"Well, we did this at Two Guys back in the early fifties," I said."We had a supermarket. We had linen and major appliances. We hada little restaurant. We had all of the things that you have here now. Wedidn't have the systems that you have. We didn't have the help thatyou have. Today, we have computers to help run these businesses.Back in those days, it was run by grunts, who did a lot of real grunting.It was a tough business. Everything in your stores is a carboncopy, it's as though the world came around."
David then remembered! He had been in Two Guys stores.
"Some of it worked," I said, "some of it didn't work."
Seton Hall University in New Jersey did a study in the late 1960sand discovered that 70 percent of the appliances that were bought onthe East Coast were bought in Two Guys stores. Something like 60percent of lawn furniture was bought at Two Guys.
But in the end, they blew it.
Herb Hubschman, the founder of Two Guys, died. And when hisbrother subsequently exited the business, it was taken over by outsiderswho destroyed it by overexpanding.
One of their last smart decisions was acquiring Vornado, whichwas probably the largest fan company in the world at the time. TwoGuys was the major buyer of their fans. When they ran into badtimes, our private company, Two Guys, bought their public company,Vornado, and created a new public company under the Vornadoname. I subsequently went out selling their product to other people.
Another acquisition, Food Giant, a supermarket company in Californiathat built emporiums and discount stores, was the arrogantmove that destroyed Two Guys. We overexpanded and paid a heavypenalty for it. Guys like me were drowning in the mess of it all. Therising waves of red ink made me sick.
As a conglomerate, Two Guys was a disaster. People in the companyfocused on their own careers, not the customers. As a result, thecustomers disappeared and careers sank. The history of retailing isfilled with once-great companies that disappeared off the face of theearth, Two Guys included. I carried the lesson I learned about the importanceof customers throughout the rest of my career.
I left Two Guys in 1968 because I couldn't deal with it anymore.
I'd had it with cold weather, anyway. One freezing, miserable day,there was ice on the ground, snow and sleet were falling, it was disgusting.My car window iced up while I was driving. I pulled over, gotout of the car, and as I scraped the ice, some of it went down mysleeve. Just then, a car whizzed by and sent a wave of ice over my headand down my back. "That's it," I shouted to everybody and nobody."I am out of here! Next chance I get, I am gone."
A week later I got a call to go to California.
* * *
In June of 1968 I joined a manufacturing company called Odell,Inc., as president and chief operating officer. Odell was a$50-million-a-year manufacturer of consumer products such as Esquireshoe polish, Tintex, and Tidy Bowl.
I stayed at Odell for two years, enduring a hostile-takeover battlewith Papercraft. In June 1970, I read the handwriting on the wall andleft Odell for Daylin Corporation as a vice president in its NorthBergen, New Jersey, offices. My initial responsibilities included supervisingthe 34-store Millers/Gulf Mart Discount Stores operation,working with Dave Finkle, chairman of the executive committee, tocoordinate the corporate-wide merchandising of our hard-goodslines, and supervising drug and toiletries merchandising in the chainof Great Eastern Discount Stores—a direct competitor of Two Guys.
I never had any real money to speak of in those days, despite holdinglofty titles in some of America's best retail companies. And by1972, I had an ex-wife, Ruth, two kids in college, Fred and Suzanne,and a new wife, Billi, and another child, Michael Morris. No matterwhat I was paid, it wasn't enough. Real money is in equity, and that Ididn't have.
But when I was handed the reigns to another Daylin chain, HandyDan Home Improvement Centers, it forever changed the course ofmy life.
* * *
I grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City. We livedin Sunnyside until I was 11, then the family moved to Flushing.
People assume that because we cofounded the world's largesthome improvement chain, we must be real whizzes around the house.But I never had the opportunity to be handy because I was raised inan apartment. I was always out in the street, playing ball and runningaround with my friends. There was nothing made of wood aroundour house—everything was cement, bricks, and block. I didn't live ina single-family home until I was 31 years old.
My dad was a very kind person. You couldn't help but notice howeverybody liked being with Max Blank. He was just an easy person tobe around. And while he worked hard, he was always available to playball or do whatever I asked.
One of the things I have always remembered about Father was hisnatural affinity for speaking Spanish. When I took Spanish in highschool, he would help me with my homework after dinner. He wouldsit on the corner of my bed, shake his head, and say, "How come youdon't get this?" It came so easily to him and so hard to me. I was agood student when it came to science and math, but I couldn't getSpanish. "Why is this hard for you?" he would ask. "What is the matterhere?" (In 1998, when we opened our first store in Chile, I was remindedagain of how useful it would have been to learn Spanish.)
I have such fond memories of my father. As a pharmacist, he wasalways helping people. Back then, a pharmacist was kind of a secondarydoctor. Medical doctors weren't as accessible or as abundantas they are now, so my father spent a lot of time talking to peopleabout their health, giving them advice. It's somewhat ironic that mypartner, Bernie, has a grounding and experience as a pharmacist.
When my father worked for his brother, it was only a couple ofblocks from where we lived. Mother would make his lunch or dinnerand I would take it to him at the drugstore. I would sit there andwatch while he mixed prescriptions—the way pharmacists really usedto do it—and he talked to me between customers and sneaking a biteof food.
I remember how hard he worked when he started his own business,Sherry Pharmaceutical, a mail-order pharmaceutical companyselling direct to hospitals, doctors, and nursing homes across thecountry. At night he would come home and be on the phone forhours doing deals.
One of the great losses in my life happened when my father died in1957 of a heart attack. He was just 44 and I was 15. My uncle also diedof a heart attack sometime later. My brother, Michael, who is two anda half years older than I am, was always convinced that he would neverlive past 44. Really. He just "knew" that he was going to die becauseDad died so young. Today, Michael is 60 and still in good health.
I never had that fear. I have always pushed myself hard, but it wasnever because I thought I wouldn't live a long life. I do, however,think one of the reasons I have had an extreme emphasis on healthand exercise in my life is my father's death. In the mid-1970s, a doctorat the Scripps Clinic in San Diego warned me against smoking."You have one big strike against you," he said. "Your father's heartcondition."
That had a big effect on me. On the plane ride home, I read KennethCooper's first book, Aerobics, all about running and staying inshape. When I got home, I ran a mile. Cooper had a test in which yourphysical fitness starting point was running as far as you could intwelve minutes. I was able to run a mile in twelve minutes, whichtoday is ridiculously slow. Then, it was a major accomplishment. Thenext day, I did it again. Pretty soon I was running a mile or two everymorning. People would see me out running—this was before it becamea national obsession—and they would say, "What were youdoing? What is that about?" It was such a strange thing to do then.
So I think my father's death affected me in a lot of ways. Maybe atsome level, deep down inside, I have always had a sense of urgencyabout getting things done and accomplishing things and moving onwith things, and maybe some of that has come from him. But I neverconsciously had a fear of dying at an unusually young age. In fact, Iam probably in better condition and fitter than most men half my age.
One of the great losses that I feel I have is that I never really knewmy father as an adult. There have been times when I had been understress and I took great comfort in recalling childhood conversationswith my father and imagining how we would discuss the current issuesin my life.
When you see a person through your eyes at age 15, and that isthe end of the relationship, you don't really know him as an adultwould know him. And as I have gone through the growth in life, myfirst marriage to Diana, our three children, Kenny, Dena, andDanielle, all the business situations, building The Home Depot in thelast twenty years, my second marriage to Stephanie, and our son,Joshua, I wish my father could have been there through it all.
* * *
My mother, Molly, was 37, a young woman, when my father died.How much his death affected her, nobody will ever really know forsure, but I think it was probably greater than any of us ever suspected.Not only because she had to go into his business and run it with noexperience, but because it was really a small business then that shebuilt from the ground up. If she had tried to sell it right after myfather died, it wouldn't have been worth very much.
She was concerned because she had to put two sons through college,both in expensive private schools. The issue of being able to supportus was paramount for her.
My father did not have a lot of life insurance. The life insurancethat he had was in dispute because he had taken it out only a year orso prior to his heart attack. There were questions of whether or not hehad made a full disclosure about his health.
So Mother became the breadwinner, trying to, as she put it, "be amother and a father to two sons." Of course there is no way that amother can be a father to boys, anyway.
The pressure our situation exerted upon her was enormous, andit took a lot out of her over the years. My father's death affected her,not only because she lost her husband, but because it put much morestress on her and made her life a lot more difficult in many, manyways. It changed my relationship with my mother, who is a very remarkablewoman. She is a very bright lady, a principled person, aperfectionist, with strong social-liberal leanings.
My mother, who really had no business experience, went into thebusiness and ran it as best she could. And she did a very good job.
* * *
I have always been athletically inclined. Today I run marathons;back in high school I was a baseball and football player, as well as runningtrack.
Being competitive has always been at the core of my nature, althoughit didn't kick in with regard to academics until I got to college.
In high school, sports were my consuming passion. I did okay inschool in terms of academics, but mention sports and my attentionwas truly riveted. In baseball, I started off as a centerfielder, but Ieventually threw my arm out and couldn't make any long throws. SoI became a catcher, a position that suited me because I was in themiddle of almost every play.
I apparently got my athleticism from my father. He went toColumbia University, where he set then—New York City records forboth the mile and the 100-yard dash, an unlikely feat today becauseathletes tend to specialize in distance or sprint races.
When I started at Babson College, a small business school justoutside of Boston, I took school seriously for the first time. Andthere's nothing like applying yourself: I was elected vice-president ofmy junior class, president of the senior class—I did everything inschool that you could possibly do, plus, I was a straight-A student andmade the dean's list.
One of the ways I paid for my college education was running myown landscaping business. Freed from the confines of city life, I discovereda love of being outside. I ran my own laundry business aswell, picking up laundry on campus several nights a week.
My brother, Michael, earned a degree in pharmacy from the Universityof Michigan. On paper, our skills sounded like the perfectcombination for taking over the family business and finally relievingour mother of the pressure caused by Dad's premature death.Michael would be more on the technical side, I would handle thebusiness side.
But after graduating with a bachelor of science degree in accountingin 1963, I postponed joining the family business a whilelonger and took a job with the Big Eight accounting firm of ArthurYoung & Company. I was the youngest staff person they ever recruitedin New York City and I stayed for almost five years.
Some of the work I did at Arthur Young was in management consulting.I was 20 years old when I started, so I was never the seniorperson on major assignments, but I did do some consulting, as wellas staff accounting. I enjoyed that, and I was very good at what I did.It was important for me to get some outside experience in the businessworld so I could eventually bring a greater expertise to our owncompany.
I was on the verge of becoming an audit manager in 1968, when Ichose to join the family business instead. The company had beengrowing and doing well, and my mother and brother were anxious tohave me finally take my place beside them. One of my father's brotherswas involved with it, as was a cousin. It truly was a family business.
It was very different than what I had expected after all those years.I was prepared to roll up my sleeves and do what it took for the businessto be successful, and I understood the responsibilities that Iwould have then would be very different than what I had at ArthurYoung, and they certainly were. The environment, certainly, was verydifferent. But that was okay with me. And I enjoyed my work whenI was there. I worked very hard, very long hours. But it was not agrowth situation from a professional standpoint.
It was hard for me to work with my brother and my mother. Iloved them both very much, but it was impossible. I spent a couple ofyears working there, and then my mother sold the business to theDaylin Corporation on June 1, 1968. When my father died in 1957, itwas a very small business. By the time she sold it, my mother hadbuilt the company up to several million dollars in volume. Daylin wasa conglomerate centered in the retail business, with an emphasis inpharmacy and health goods.
If you have a family where family members can work together,that is wonderful. But it doesn't often happen, and it didn't happen inour situation. I love my mother, I love my brother, but we were notmeant to work together every day. And I think Mother finally sawthat, too.
I think selling the company was the right decision for her. As awidow and mother, her primary interest was not building a hugebusiness but conserving its equity and resources. She was too concernedabout her own future at that time to think in terms of risk andexpansion.
When Daylin took over, we all stayed with the business for a whilelonger, but I really didn't feel that staying in that business was what Iwanted to do long-term. It was still hard for me to work with mymother.
Fortunately, Daylin was a company of infinite opportunity.
* * *
In 1970, Daylin named me chief financial officer of Elliott's DrugStores/Stripe Discount Stores. Two years later, I became president ofElliott's/Stripe and relocated the company and my wife and our threechildren to Griffin, Georgia. They actually call it "The First CitySouth of Atlanta."
Between 1972 and 1974, my responsibilities at Elliott's/Stripe includedbeing named assistant treasurer of the parent company. MaxCandiotty, the president of Daylin, and Leon Beck, the corporation'ssenior vice president and lead financial officer, adopted and mentoredme. They saw potential in me and were very supportive duringmy career there.
When I became president of the division, it was kind of a shock tothe rest of the Daylin organization because I was a very young man inmy late twenties. I hadn't run a business of that magnitude. I had onlybeen involved in business at Arthur Young from the work I had donethere, and, of course, my family business. So it was a major move, butit turned out well. I did a good job for them, and I grew the businessand gave them the kind of earnings they were looking for.
I remember having many good personal relationships at Daylin inthose days. It was a less structured, less hierarchical corporate environment,a family culture where people supported each other andcared for each other.
Becoming president of that division at an early age fed my entrepreneurialspirit. It encouraged my capacity for starting and runninga business, for wanting to make decisions, for wanting to be a part ofeverything.
In July 1974, Daylin was going through some very difficult times.That's when it decided to sell off some divisions, one of which wasmine, the freestanding drug stores. I said, that's fine. I'm 32 yearsold—I'll do something else.
That's when Bernie called me from Handy Dan. We had met afew years earlier at Daylin corporate events and established a solidrapport. He named me corporate controller of Handy Dan; later, mytitle changed to vice president of finance.
In baseball, the pitcher is often the center of attention. That wasBernie. But the catcher is in the middle of the action, helping set thepace of the game. During our time at Handy Dan and subsequentlyat The Home Depot, Bernie and I have been effective as team playersin roles in which we both feel comfortable.
Continues...
Excerpted from Built from Scratchby Bernie Marcus Copyright © 2001 by Bernie Marcus. Excerpted by permission.
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