Sam Walton

Entrepreneur
The objective of this article is to provide a short biography on Sam Walton. Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton (March 29, 1918 April 5, 1992) was an American businessman and entrepreneur born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma best known for founding the retailers Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. Ishank Mishra 1MS10IS038

Introduction
Walmart as we know it today evolved from Sam Waltons goals for great value and great customer service. Mr. Sam, as he was known, believed in leadership through service. This belief that true leadership depends on willing service was the principle on which Walmart was built, and drove the decisions the company has made for the past 50 years. So much of Walmarts history is tied to the story of Sam Walton himself, and so much of our future will be rooted in Mr. Sams principles.

Born

Samuel Moore Walton March 29, 1918 Kingfisher, Oklahoma, U.S. April 5, 1992 (aged 74) Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. American University of Missouri 1940 Founder of Wal-Mart US$23 billion (1992) Presbyterianism Helen Walton (1943 his death) 4

Died Nationality Alma mater Occupation Net worth Religion Spouse(s) Children

Early life
Sam Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. 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 farm mortgaging where he repossessed farms during the Great Depression. He and his family (now with another son, James, born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma to Orlando, Florida. There they moved from one small town to another for several years. While attending eighth 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. Eventually the family landed in Columbia, Missouri. Growing up during the Great Depression, Walton had numerous chores to help make financial ends meet for his family as was common at the time. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver Columbia Daily Tribune newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he also sold magazine subscriptions. Upon graduating from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, 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 as a ROTC cadet. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honouring the top senior men, and the national military honour society Scabbard and Blade. Upon graduating in 1940 with a Bachelor's of Economics, he was voted "permanent president" of the class. Walton joined JC Penney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa three days after graduating from college. This position paid 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.

Changing the Face of Retail

In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton took over management of his first variety store at the age of 26. 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.[6] The store was a franchise of the Butler Brothers chain. It was here that Walton pioneered many concepts that became crucial to his success. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. His second store, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin and next door to its main (Newport) competitor. Walton leased the space mainly to preempt his competitor from expanding. It held its own, but didn't fare as well. With the sales volume growing from $80 to $225,000 in three years, Walton drew the attention of the landlord, P.K. Holmes, whose family had a history in retail. Admiring Sam's great success, and desiring to reclaim the store (and franchise rights) for his son, he refused to renew the lease. The lack of a renewal option, together with the prohibitively high rent of 5% of sales, were 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". With a year left on the lease, but the store effectively sold, he, his wife Helen and his father managed to negotiate the purchase of a new location on the downtown square of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walton negotiated the purchase of a small store, and the title to the building, on the condition that he gets a 99-year lease to expand into the shop next door. The owner of the shop next door refused 6 times, and Walton gave up on Bentonville when his father-in-law, without Sam's knowledge, paid the shop owner a final visit and $20,000 to secure the lease. He had just enough left from the sale of the first store to close the deal, and reimburse Helen's father. They opened for business with a one-day remodelling sale on May 9, 1950. Before he bought the Bentonville store, it was doing $72,000 in sales and it increased to $105,000 in the first year and then 140,000 and $175,000.

The Wal-Mart Story

The first true Wal-Mart opened on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, [12] Arkansas. It was called the WalMart Discount City store and located at 719 West Walnut Street. Soon after, the Walton brothers teamed up with the Stefan Dasbach, leading to the first of many stores to come. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Wal-Mart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition. As another chain store grew, Meijer, it caught the attention of Walton. He acknowledges that his one-stop-shopping centre format was based on Meijers innovative concept. Contrary to the prevailing practice of American discount store chains, Walton located stores in smaller towns, not larger cities. To make his model work, he emphasized logistics, particularly locating stores within a day's drive proximity to Wal-Mart's regional warehouses, and distributed through its own trucking service. Buying in volume and efficient delivery permitted sale of discounted name brand merchandise. Thus, sustained growth from 1977's 190 stores to 1985's 800 was achieved. Sam's competitors thought his idea that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service would never work. As it turned out, the company's success exceeded even Sam's expectations. The company went public in 1970, and the proceeds financed a steady expansion of the business. Sam credited the rapid growth of Walmart not just to the low costs that attracted his customers, but also to his associates. He relied on them to give customers the great shopping experience that would keep them coming back. Sam shared his vision for the company with associates in a way that was nearly unheard of in the industry. He made them partners in the success of the company, and firmly believed that this partnership was what made Walmart great. As the stores grew, so did Sam's aspirations. In addition to bringing new approaches and technologies to retail, he also experimented with new store formatsincluding Sam's Club and the Walmart Supercenterand even made the decision to take Walmart into Mexico. Sam's fearlessness

in offering lower prices and bringing Walmart's value to customers in the U.S. and beyond set a standard for the company that lives on to this day. His strong commitment to service and to the values that help individuals, businesses and the country succeed earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President George H. W. Bush in 1992. It was during Sam's acceptance remarks that he articulated what would come to be Walmart's official company purpose.

Personal life
Walton married Helen Robson on February 14, 1943. They had four children: Samuel Robson (Rob) born in 1944, John Thomas (19462005), James Carr (Jim) born in 1948, and Alice Louiseborn in 1949. Walton supported various charitable causes. Death Walton died on Sunday, April 5, 1992, of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The news of his death was relayed by satellite to all 1,960 Wal-Mart stores.[17] At the time, his company employed 380,000 people. Annual sales of nearly $50 billion flowed from 1,735 Wal-Marts, 212 Sams Clubs, and 13 Supercenters. His remains are interred at the Bentonville Cemetery. He left his ownership in Wal-Mart to his wife and their children: Rob Walton succeeded his father as the Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart, and John Walton was a director until his death in a 2005 plane crash. The others are not directly involved in the company (except through their voting power as shareholders); however his son Jim is chairman of Arvest Bank. The Walton family held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005. Two daughters of Sam's brother Bud Walton, Ann Kroenke and Nancy Laurie, hold smaller shares in the company.

Legacy
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.

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. Walmart operates in the U.S. and in 15 international markets, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. At the University of Arkansas, the Business College (Sam M. Walton College of Business) is named in his honour. Walton was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1992.

Quotes
There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. High expectations are the key to everything. Capital isn't scarce; vision is. Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Bibliography
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_M._Walton 2. http://www.biography.com/people/sam-walton-9523270

3. http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/heritage/sam-walton