Successful Successor: You probably know the name Sam Walton. He’s the small town Arkansas retailer who turned a five-and-dime chain store operation—the largest Ben Franklin variety store franchise in 1962—into what is now the largest retail company in the world, Walmart. Sam (I’m entitled to call him by his first name because I knew him and, more importantly, he knew me) was as much a showman as a retailer. He knew how to get the most out of people, whether they were store managers, headquarters buyers, truck drivers or cashiers.
Another aspect of Walton’s success was his ability to spot and employ talent. He chose David Glass years before Glass succumbed to the call from Bentonville, Ark., to become the chief financial officer of a chain with less than a billion dollars in sales. As flamboyant and media savvy as Walton was, Glass was the opposite. Glass was a numbers man. Though he had a dry sense of humor, he was mostly taciturn in public. He let the numbers do most of his talking.
Glass (I could call him David, for we knew each other, as well) championed supercenters, the cavernous combination of discount stores with a full-fledged grocery, as he had worked for a supermarket chain prior to joining Walmart. His advocacy was spot on. Walmart today sells more grocery items than anyone else in the world.
When Walton retired as CEO in 1988, Glass succeeded him. During his 12 years at the helm, Walmart sales grew from $16 billion to $165 billion. He pursued international expansion.
News broke over the weekend that Glass died January 9 from complications from pneumonia. He was 84.
After his retirement in 2000, Glass indulged his passion for baseball by buying the Kansas City Royals. For years the Royals struggled under Glass’ Walmart-inspired low-cost creed. But in 2006 he reversed course, hired Dayton Moore as general manager and started investing in personnel. The Royals won the World Series in 2015. Last year Glass sold the franchise for about $1 billion. Not bad for his initial $96 million investment.
As much as Glass was instrumental for Walmart’s success, it was his time before the NBC Dateline television camera that sticks in my mind. He was not the most approachable of Walmart executives. Behind his resonant baritone voice and wry sense of humor, I always suspected he did not like sharing anything with the press.
His signature moment with the media occurred in December 1992 on NBC Dateline. Glass was confronted with allegations Walmart suppliers in Bangladesh employed underage child laborers, that the company’s vaunted Made in America program was a sham.
At the time, Glass had bushy, dark eyebrows that slanted up his forehead. With the Dateline camera angled from below his seat, he was the picture of Mephistopheles. He was the picture of evil incarnate.
Glass stormed out of the interview. Though he returned to face the Dateline cameras weeks later, the damage to his and Walmart’s reputation was done.
Shortly after that incident Walmart professionalized its media relations office. Camera angles were to be scrutinized as diligently as profit and loss statements.
Tumbling Tumbleweeds: The national weather has been frustratingly crazy of late. Torrential rainstorms. Tornadoes in the heartland and south. Heat waves in the northeast followed by a massive snowstorm blasting across the continent. And earlier this month a mess of tumbleweeds in the Pacific Northwest that buried cars and stalled traffic on a state highway in Washington (https://www.livescience.com/tumbleweed-traps-cars-washington-highway.html).
Have you ever driven as a tumbleweed swirled into you? I have. It was a scary experience.
As I was motoring—okay, speeding—down an interstate outside Reno, NV, on my way to an interview at a JC Penney distribution center a wall of tumbleweeds three lanes wide was blowing towards me. There was no avoiding a collision. I braced for contact.
When it happened I could do nothing more than smile at my naiveté. Had I not watched so many westerns to know tumbleweeds were mostly air? When my car penetrated the tumbleweed it was as if it evaporated before my eyes.
It was a surreal experience.
A Different Drummer: I just finished watching a CNN documentary recorded earlier this month about Linda Ronstadt. Like many I rank her as one of my all-time favorite singers.
I first saw Ronstadt in concert at Brooklyn College in the fall of 1968. Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys were the opening act for Country Joe and the Fish. I can’t remember much about Country Joe, but from the moment Ronstadt started her group’s set by wailing “Different Drum” EVERYONE knew hers was a voice that couldn’t be contained within the walls of a concert hall.
As an associate- and eventual chief editor of a college newspaper I scored free tickets, always in good locations, to many concerts. Not that tickets cost a lot back then. For a Joni Mitchell-Tim Hardin concert a month later ticket prices were $3.50, $3.00 and $2.50. In today’s dollars that would be $25.71, $22.04, and $18.37, respectively.
College concerts back then mostly featured folk musicians and comedians. Gilda’s and my first date was a Tom Paxton-Dick Gregory concert in December 1969. Gilda asked me to accompany her to a Christmas party one of her political science teachers was hosting in his Brooklyn Heights apartment. I said I would go only if she was my date for the Paxton-Gregory concert. The rest, as they say, is 50 years and running history.
