[Deathwatch] William Dillard, retail chain founder, 87

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

William Dillard Dies at 87 
Fri Feb 8, 5:49 PM ET 
By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - William T. Dillard Sr., who built one the
nation's largest retail chains out of a modest store he started during
the Depression, died Friday. He was 87.

Dillard's said its founder died at his Little Rock home.

Dillard was the chairman of Dillard's Inc., formerly known as Dillard
Department Stores. The chain he started in 1938 with a 2,500
square-foot store in southwestern Arkansas now has nearly 350 stores in
30 states.

In 1989, Fortune magazine called the chain "a quiet superstar ...
family run, highly computerized, extremely competitive and great for
investors."

"He was quick to foresee the trend toward suburban shopping malls vs.
the old downtown environment," Ray Kemp, the company's retired vice
chairman, said in March 1994.

Dillard was born Sept. 2, 1914, in Mineral Springs, a small town 110
miles southwest of Little Rock. His father owned a country store, and
by the time Dillard left home for college, "I knew what I wanted to
do," he said in 1984.

He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in business
administration and earned a master's degree in business administration
from Columbia University in 1937. He went to work for Sears Roebuck and
Co. in Tulsa, Okla., then returned to Arkansas nine months later and
opened his first store in Nashville, Ark.

During the first year, the store did $42,000 in business and he made a
$3,000 profit. Last year, Dillard's had sales of $8.7 billion and was
the nation's third-largest upscale department store chain, behind
Federated and May.

Like many upscale retailers, however, Dillard's has been hit hard by
the economic decline; its stock had traded above $50 in 1992-1993 but
had fallen into the $10-$20 range recently.

"Dillards had the extra problem of overcoming a heritage implanted by
Bill Dillard Sr.," said Kurt Barnard, a retail consultant and president
of Barnard's Retail Trend Report of Upper Montclair, N.J.

Barnard said Dillard's death, along with last week's death of Stanley
Marcus, the developer of the Neiman-Marcus chain, ended an era in
American marketing.

"It was the essence of what was needed 30 years ago," Barnard said.
"Lifestyles have changed. I think Dillards kept operating the way it
used to operate when he was the head."

The family still runs the chain and holds five of the 12 seats on the
company's board. Dillard, who worked full days well into his 80s, had
turned over the day-to-day management of the company to sons William
II, Mike and Alex.

Dillard served in the Navy during World War II. By 1948, he had made
enough money to open a department store in Texarkana. He sold the
Nashville store and opened two more in Magnolia and Tyler, Texas.

By 1960, Dillard once recalled, he was 45 and making more than $500,000
a year. "But I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to be a leading department
store owner."

So he moved to Tulsa and bought Brown-Dunkin, which was heavily in
debt. "It was the best gamble I ever made," he said. "In 18 months I
stopped the losses, refinanced and made it whole."

Before computers, Dillard had store managers call him every night with
a total of the day's receipts. When one manager said he had a slow day
because of bad weather, Dillard said, "If I had wanted a weather
report, I would have called the weather bureau."

In 1963, Dillard and some associates bought Pfeifer's of Arkansas, then
one of the state's leading stores. Six months later, he bought Blass
Co., another leading Arkansas store in downtown Little Rock. Dillard
moved to Little Rock and established his headquarters here.

"Mr. Dillard will long be remembered as a man of tremendous vision and
success in the world of retailing, but more importantly, he will truly
be remembered as a man of honesty, integrity and absolutely loyalty,"
the company said.

Dillard's funeral was scheduled for Monday in Little Rock. He is
survived by his wife Alexa and five children.