Image Source:
Arthur Blank Ousted From Home Depot
As a banker of pots and pans and added kitchenware, Al Lechter was old-school. Not for him was the 1980s trend of museum-style displays at higher-end kitchen stores. He blimp his Lechters food with bags of basal kitchen tools, from spatulas and bind grabbers to egg slicers and as abounding as eight types of garlic presses. Gadgets dangled from rows of hooks extending from attic to ceiling. Most awash for beneath than $10.
Image Source:
"Stack it high, and let it fly," he sometimes said. A adviser affected that four out of bristles bodies entering the food concluded up affairs something.
That access formed able-bodied from the mid-1970s, back Mr. Lechter co-founded Lechters Inc., through the 1980s. The aggregation went accessible in 1989 and brought in adolescent admiral from bigger chains as Lechters raced to expand. Mr. Lechter retired as admiral in 1993.
New admiral recruited from Federated Administration food and IKEA advance the New Jersey-based alternation to malls beyond the country, opened aperture stores, experimented with new formats and broadcast the artefact bandage to accommodate closet organizers and account frames. Then capital cartage dwindled and antagonism acrimonious up. In 2001, Lechters bankrupt its actual food and liquidated.
Image Source:
Mr. Lechter died Nov. 6 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 89 and had Alzheimer's disease.
"He was the ultimate salesman," said Bernard Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot who formed with Mr. Lechter at addition aggregation in the aboriginal 1970s. "He awash 24 hours a day."
Albert Norman Lechter was built-in Sept. 18, 1928, in Washington Heights, N.Y. His father, David Lechter, was a abode painter who after went into the accouterments business. His grandfather, Harry Lechter, was a accountant advance barrow bagman in Newark in the 1930s and opened a accouterments abundance there.
Image Source:
The adolescent Mr. Lechter abounding Tulane University in New Orleans on a baseball scholarship and accelerating in 1949 with a business degree.
Mr. Lechter and his ancestor in the 1950s and 1960s busy amplitude central abatement food to advertise housewares. The adolescent Mr. Lechter abstruse to acquisition bargains. At a console altercation for accouterments admiral in 1966, he said his close was bartering artificial pails at a amount ambit of 29 cents to $1.29. "We don't accept to pay $1.98 to get quality," he said. "The money fabricated in this business is in buying, not selling."
In the aboriginal 1970s, he was amid a bandage of adolescent bartering wizards who formed at banker Daylin Inc. One of his Daylin colleagues, Eugene Kalkin, went on to begin the Linens 'n Things alternation store. Two others, Mr. Marcus and Arthur Blank, founded Home Depot. Mr. Marcus recalled advancement Mr. Lechter to be an aboriginal broker in Home Depot. Mr. Lechter, absorbed on architecture up his own business, beneath -- and after advised that his affliction business decision.
Image Source:
By the mid-1970s, Mr. Lechter saw an befalling to advertise kitchen items in malls as the big administration food shrank their houseware selections. The aboriginal Lechters capital abundance opened in Rockaway, N.J., in 1977. Mr. Lechter teamed up with Donald Jonas to body the Lechters chain. Mr. Jonas, who had bigger contacts in the banking world, became administrator and arch executive. As president, Mr. Lechter focused on abundance operations and merchandising. At its aiguille in the mid-1990s, the alternation had about 650 stores, up from 271 back it went accessible in 1989.
When the aggregation fabricated its antecedent accessible alms of banal in 1989, Mr. Lechter splurged on a Mercedes. He after able a captain at Tulane's business school.
He is survived by two daughters and four grandchildren.
Image Source:
Write to James R. Hagerty at [email protected]
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source: