Sam Walton

Early life

Sam Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy "Nannie" Lee (née Lawrence) near Kingfisher, Oklahoma on March 29, 1918. There, he lived with his parents on their farm until 1923. Sam's father decided farming did not generate enough income on which to raise a family, so he decided to go back to a previous profession of a mortgage man. So he and his family (now with another son, James born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma to Chesterfield, Missouri. There they moved from one small town to another for several years. While attending 8th grade in Shelbina, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state's history. In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the distinguished Eagle Scout award from the boy scouts of America.

Growing up during the great depression, Walton had numerous chores to help make financial ends meet for his family. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he also sold magazine subscriptions. Upon graduating, he was voted "most versatile boy."

After high school, Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. He attended the University of Missouri and majored in economics and was an ROTC officer. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the estimable zeta phi chapter of beta theta pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men. Upon graduating in 1940, he was voted "permanent president" of the class.

Walton later joined JC Penney's as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa three days after graduating from college. This position earned him $75 a month. He resigned in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II. In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the U.S. army intelligence corps, supervising security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. In this position he served at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah. He eventually reached the rank of captain.

The first stores

In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton opened a variety store. with the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved from his time in the army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. The store was a franchise of the butler brothers chain.

It was here that Walton pioneered many concepts that would prove to be crucial to his success. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods at low prices. His store also stayed open later than most other stores, especially during the Christmas season. He also pioneered the practice of discount merchandising by buying wholesale goods from the lowest priced supplier. This allowed him to pass on savings to his customers, which drove up his sales volume. Higher volumes allowed him to negotiate even lower purchase prices with the wholesaler on subsequent purchases. Walton's store led in sales and profits in the butler brothers' six-state region. One factor that made this store successful was its central location, making it accessible to a wide range of customers. In an attempt to limit the expansion of his main competitor, the sterling store, Walton leased a nearby Kroger store and opened it in 1950 as the "eagle" department store, but it didn't fare as well.

Due to the variety store's enormous success, the landlord, P.K. Holmes, refused to renew the lease when it expired, desiring to pass the store onto his son. The lack of a renewal option, together with the outrageous rent of 5% of sales, was early business lessons to Walton. Despite forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store's inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price".

A chain of Ben Franklin stores

Walton went on to open more Ben Franklin stores with the help of his brother, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. In 1954, he opened a store with his brother James "bud" Walton in a shopping center in Ruskin Heights, a suburb of Kansas City. He opened another in Arkansas, but it failed to be as successful as his other stores. Walton decided to concentrate on the retail business instead of the shopping centers and opened larger stores which were called "Walton's family center."

Walton offered managers the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in the store they oversaw and then invest a maximum of $1,000 in new outlets as they opened. This motivated the managers to always try to maximize profits and improve their managerial skills. By 1962, Walton and his brother bud owned sixteen variety stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas (fifteen Ben Franklin and the one independent Fayetteville store).

Legacy

In 1985, Sam Walton began a program designed to stem the 'tide of communism' in central America by promoting capitalism and privatization.

In 1998, Walton was included in time's list of 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Walton was honored for all his pioneering efforts in retail in march 1992, when he received the presidential medal of freedom from president George H. W. Bush. Also that year, the Jiangsu Province of the people's republic of china awarded him the golden star foreigner's award for "tireless assistance in the development of people's owned factories in the Suzhou Area".

Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest man in the United States from 1982 to 1988, ceding the top spot to John kluge in 1989 when the editors began to credit Walton's fortune jointly to him and his four children. (Bill gates first headed the list in 1992, the year Walton died). Wal-Mart stores, inc. also runs Sam's club warehouse stores. Wal-Mart stores operate in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

At the University of Arkansas, the business college (Sam M. Walton College of business) is named in his honor.

Mr. Walton was inducted into the junior achievement U.S. business hall of fame in 1992.