Word: waltons
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...this tireless senior citizen? He insists on being addressed as just Sam -- or Mr. Sam, if you must -- but people who have assessed his net worth call him America's richest man. He is Sam Walton, and the fortune he has amassed as founder and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores is estimated at $4.5 billion and growing. But Walton spends virtually no time counting his money, or even bothering to spend it. He is too busy as one of America's most restless and evangelical corporate leaders. Thanks to his uncanny ability to motivate employees and slash expenses, the chain...
Right now Sam Walton's company is at a critical turning point as it expands beyond its regional, Sunbelt base to become a truly national presence. Can a folksy company with headquarters in the Ozark hill town of Bentonville, Ark. (pop. 9,900), cater to customers from California to New York? So far, shoppers say yes. The chain has opened stores in 23 states, having recently crossed into the Frost Belt states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana...
...expanding in other directions. It has opened 52 outlets of Sam's Wholesale Club, which are warehouse-style stores of 100,000 sq. ft., or about 2 1/2 acres, that serve mainly as one-stop suppliers for small businesses. Next, taking a cue from Europe's successful hypermarkets, Walton plans to open a chain of Wal-Mart Supercenters, which will offer consumers everything from groceries to hardware in one sprawling 220,000-sq.-ft. emporium. The first one, a test model, will debut this fall in a Dallas suburb...
...fervor among Wal-Mart's 151,000 employees is inspired by a Walton philosophy in which ideas and profits are freely shared. All store employees, even the lowliest shelf stockers, are given the title "associate." Wal-Mart operates a liberal profit-sharing plan (1986 disbursements: $52 million) and offers bonuses for specific accomplishments like reducing pilferage. Workers are exhorted to make suggestions. "Most of the good ideas come from the bottom up," says Wal-Mart President David Glass. "We keep changing a thousand little things...
...Mart now has tremendous momentum, but the founder is still a prime force. The son of an Oklahoma farm-mortgage broker, Walton earned an economics degree from the University of Missouri and joined J.C. Penney in 1940 as an $85-a-month trainee. After serving in the Army, he pooled his savings and borrowed $25,000 to buy a Ben Franklin store in Newport, Ark., in 1945. By the late 1950s he owned more than a dozen similar stores, but decided that the future was in discounting rather than in five-and-dimes. After studying a K mart in Chicago...