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The Leadership Circle
Investing
in the Region
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The RCGA’s
Leadership Circle exists to create added membership value by providing
a unique and invigorating forum to connect executives of small,
medium and large companies to the broad base of influential leaders
in the St. Louis region.
Above:
Bill Moran, President Save-A-Lot
Bill Moran has moved up the corporate food chain, beginning as a
college student who unloaded boxcars for Tomboy Wholesalers. By
the time Moran opened his first Save-A-Lot Food Store in Cahokia,
Ill. in 1977, he began to refine his unique retail strategy that
allows single store and small chain operators to compete with the
conventional supermarkets.
Today, the company generates more than $4 billion annually in retail
sales. With 1,000 stores in 36 states, including 20 in the St. Louis
area, the tremendous buying power of Save-A-Lot coupled with an
efficient system of lower overhead and costly inventory saves shoppers
dollars.
“Save-A-Lot’s buying power is phenomenal from an industry standpoint,”
Moran says. “Save-A-Lot is the biggest customer for most of our
product vendors. From a vendor’s perspective, selling one item to
Save-A-Lot means reaching more than three million customers a week
through a single source.”
“We can afford a thin profit line on affordable luxuries, such as
coarse ground black pepper, because we can live on far less gross
profit,” says Moran, whos company buys one million bottles of the
spice each year.
Moran continues to be pleasantly surprised at how quickly shoppers
adapt to the radically different presentation of Save-A-Lot compared
to conventional grocery stores.
“Our shoppers bag their own groceries, buy brands they have never
seen before and have less variety, but they like the concept of
saving money without sacrificing quality.”
Ask the Leader
How are you able to balance the incredible time and emotional demands
of work with a personal life?
Stephan
Tanda
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“When I am traveling
around the world or domestically, I make it a point to talk to my
family at least once a day—often for half an hour. When I am in
a different time zone, sometimes twice a day. When I have downtime
in a car, in a hotel, I give them a call, or draw a picture and
fax it home, for the girls to color in, or I send a postcard. This
allows us to never lose touch and to share everyday challenges.
When you sit on the 45th floor in a Hotel in Hong Kong after an
exciting business negotiation, the fact that our new puppy chewed
up the Barbie doll might not seem important, but these daily moments
are crucial to sharing in each others lives and renewing the love
and appreciation for each other—in good times and in bad.” —Stephan
Tanda, President, DuPont Protein Technologies
Jan Newton
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“When you’re
leading a great team of people who are providing reliable services
24 by 7 at a company like SBC Southwestern Bell here in Missouri,
you’re always working at prioritizing. Specifically, I always try
to include within my top priorities a combination of family, work
and fun.” —Jan Newton, President, SBC Southwestern Bell–Missouri.
Bob Millstone
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“In many respects,
my wife and I have made our professional and community activities
part of our personal activities. My wife supports my professional
goals, and she shares my commitment to community involvement. We
work together in my business and our family foundation. We volunteer
for community activities. Our work and community commitments have
become another way to spend time together.” —Bob Millstone, President,
The Millstone Company
Bob Murdick
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“Having a personal
life and interests other than work, or work related, is what allows
me to escape and create down time, giving me additional purpose
to the time and effort spent in business.” —Bob Murdick, Chief
Executive Officer, Sachs Electric Company
For more information on Leadership Circle, please contact John Diefenbach,
associate vice president-membership sales,
314/444-1184 or jdief@stlrcga.org.
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