Sam Walton An Entrprenuer

Businessman Samuel Moore Walton(1918-1992) built Wal-Mart into one of the nation\\\'s largest retailers and became the patriarch of one of the richest American families.

Samuel 'Sam' Moore Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, March 29, 1918. He was the son of a banker and the eldest of two boys. Having grown up in the 1930s during the Great Depression, he later graduated from the University of Missouri in 1940. He married Helen Robson after graduation had four children. He served three years as an Army intelligence officer during World War II.

Walton had started in the retail business with the J. C. Penney Company in Des Moines, Iowa, making between $75 and $85 a month. He worked there for five years. After his army service, in 1945 Walton used a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law plus $5,000 of his savings to buy a Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas, where he was joined by his brother. In 1950, when his landlord failed to renew his lease, Walton moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, now the headquarters to the Wal-Mart Empire.

From 1945 through 1962 he operated Ben Franklin stores; by 1962 he had nine stores--Walton\\\'s Five & Dime --operated under a franchising agreement with the Chicago-based Ben Franklin. Then began what became one of America\\\'s most flourishing retail companies--Wal-Mart, which he co-founded in 1962.

At that time Walton decided that the future of retail was in discount stores, not dime stores. He studied chains such as K-Mart and Zayre and then proposed to the Ben Franklin management the starting of a discount store. When they showed no interest, he, along with his brother James, opened his first Wal-Mart outlet in Rogers, Arkansas.

Walton avoided publicity about himself, preferring that his stores occupy the spotlight, and he took a direct role in the administration of those stores at all levels. Walton's firm traditional principles created a sense of a corporate culture--a set of shared values which define a business and those who work in it, preferring to be called \\\"Sam,\\\" or \\\"Mr. Sam\\\" at most, he might appear at a Wal-Mart checkout, or loading dock, or at a rally at a new store opening.

His business was described as an extremely well managed one. Although the stores tended to operate as relatively inexpensive, no-frills units and appeal to a lower-middle-class market, the company was quite willing to invest at the cutting edge of technology. The stores were clustered around warehouses in order to permit one-day delivery of goods, and advertising costs were minimized. An early innovation was the decision to buy directly from manufacturers rather than through wholesalers. In addition, the company was firmly committed to a \\\"Buy American\\\" program--buying American goods from American companies. Walton built his business into the fastest growing and most influential force in the retail industry, with a very high rate of annual growth. An investor who spent $1,650 for 100 shares of stock in 1970, when the firm went public, would have had $700,000 worth of stock at 1987 prices. In the process, Walton became one of the richest men in the world, with estimates of his worth varying widely and growing constantly.

This early and rapid growth--Wal-Mart stood behind only Sears and K-Mart in retail and was challenging them--was achieved as essentially a regional chain, operating in the Sunbelt. In later years it created a chain of warehouse stores--Sam\\\'s Wholesale Club--and was moving into the hypermarket area, Wal-Mart Supercenters. In 1990 there