Leadership Today

We need a Clear Vision for Charles County Maryland

Jim H. Thompson

I see a bright future for the county if we vote for a new direction.

Committee forming NOW 2009

Increasing the tax base by building new homes to pay for roads and new schools is a downward spiral and self defeating.

Professional Experience

During my last campaign for Commissioner I was asked to write about my accomplishments. My instinct at the time was that most people do not really care. Outside a few friends and family I discussed these accomplishments to illustrate a point, not to elevate myself. I also felt if you had no interest in business or lacked a business back ground you would find this information boring.

Opportunity comes to everyone. Every time you act on an opportunity it creates more opportunities. If you fail to act, or are unprepared then events will control your life. You become a spectator or a “Victim” the Liberals prefer to say.

I have created opportunities for myself with every job I have had. I always took on more responsibilities than the job required and expanded my knowledge and skills.

I worked for the Army Air Force Exchange Service during the Carter administration. The exchange is the world’s largest retail operation run by the US Government. Congress controls what items can be sold through the exchange. Fort Belvoir Virginia was chosen as the test site for selling and installing automobile tires for military personnel and their families.

The exchange transferred an experienced manager to run the operation. A few months later he gave up, the experiment was a disaster and he asked for a transfer. I was given the opportunity because I had help increase sales and performance as a supervisor at the Fort McNair service station.

I transferred at my present pay grade replacing a manager five levels above me. I started over from scratch, establishing my own system and training my staff. Three weeks later I had the whole operation running smoothly. The top executives in the exchange service flew in from Dallas Texas to appraise the situation. They deemed the tire service a success.

The same time I was working at the exchange service I had started working for Safeway as a part time food clerk. Safeway offered me the opportunity to work full time as a Store Manager Trainee.

Two years later I finished my training. Jimmy Carter was President and the economy was in terrible shape. Safeway riffed employees, closed stores, and reduced management positions.

I was promoted to produce manager because assistant manager positions were being filled with former store managers. A new produce manager usually is assigned to the poorest performing produce operation on his district. Three months later I transformed my operation into number two operation on the district. Next year I was transferred to a newer and larger store.

This produce operation had been successful in the past and had fallen because it was being micromanaged by the store manager. The store manager was in a defensive mode and feeling pressure from upper management. I had to convince the store manager to back off and let me do my job. A year later we were the number one store on the district. I was one of the few produce managers to embrace the “spill over” displays that used large amounts of produced. I had the greatest gain in sales plus the best inventory control in the division. Safeway had just made a huge acquisition in the United Kingdom. The new District Managers and some Store managers were flown to the United States. Safeway picked my produce operation to show them how to sell produce.

The economy was still bad and former store managers were being riffed from union management positions. I had been in the union since my first day with Safeway even as a Produce Manager. I was transferred to Crystal City Virginia to replace a riffed manager. The store was on the list to be closed. Moral was very low. The store was actually the bottom store in the division. There was nothing to lose.

I broke the mold on store produce operations. I brought in floral and changed the whole layout of the department. I had the Safeway produce buyers buying items for me like watermelon in December. Many of my innovations are standard now in Safeway.

I pushed my operation to number one in the Division. This lifted the store sales so much that the next year instead of being closed, Safeway invested in a major remodel of the store when money was very tight.

The lack of advancement opportunities had me refocusing my energy on family. I requested a transfer close to home giving up my management position. That lasted about a year. Safeway was building a new store and closing an old store. They had transferred the staff of the old store out, preparing for a change over. Various factors delayed both operations. I was asked to go into the old store and help get it back into full operation.

This is where my Store Management Training paid off. I was all over the store working every department doing every job imaginable. I was offered Produce Manager again and turned it down. The District Manger transferred the whole produce department staff out in a single day. I was on vacation when I came back I was the Produce Manager regardless if I wanted the title or not. When the store closed my produce operation was number one on the District, (my sales figures were so good I won a produce contest three months after the store closed), doing more with less.

I went to the new store not as a Produce Manager but as the number two. I did this on the condition that I would go back into store management. We were the first produce department in the Division to open in the “black”. It had never happened before. It usually takes six months to a year for a new store to operate in the “black”.

A few months later the Produce Manager was in a serious automobile accident. No one knew if he would live or if he would ever come back to work. Normally he would be replaced and if he came back he would have a job somewhere. I told the District Manager I would hold his job for him. When he came back, we were dong over fifty thousand dollars a week in produce sales.

I was running a produce business with two and a half million dollars a year in sales. Every produce department I ran doubled or tripled in sales. I qualified for a bonus every quarter I was a Produce Manager, for ten years. When I earned my bonus check in Crystal City, the first quarter I was there, the District Manager hand delivered it to me. He told me a bonus had not been paid there in five years.

The District Manager came through with his promise of getting me back on track for store management. I had interviews and assignments to do until a new management program was to begin.

The Division was changing their computer system in the stores, going to scanners. They needed two teams to convert the Division in three months. Each team would do the conversion in eight hours per store one store every night.

Employees selected in jobs that are outside Union contracts come under special scrutiny and must be approved by upper management, the personnel office and Union officials. These are a select few who cross the lines between Union store employees and non union Corporation employees. There is a higher degree of trust, and responsibility associated with these employees and their job assignments.

Each team leader was responsible to manage teams of private contractors, one team of electricians, one team of carpenters, and IBM technicians which we were training to use their own equipment. This was cutting edge technology at the time. These teams of contactors would operate on their own schedule. Every night I had different combination of teams to work with.

Each night all the old computer system, wiring, and check stands were removed. Eight hours later the store had to be open for business. I had to make all the decisions when any problems arose. This operation had never been done before in Safeway. These teams relied on me for leadership and total knowledge of how the system works. Even with equipment failures and cable problems I never had a store open late and had cut the install time in half. Several occasions I was called upon by the other team to solve some of their issues. I returned to work in the stores in a management capacity and remained in the Union.

Safeway ownership went from the Magowan family to an investment corporation, KKR. A brand new warehouse facility was built in Bowie Maryland, one of the largest and modern on the east coast. The new owners decided to rid themselves of Union workers at the warehouse and trucking by selling the complex to an outside operator.

Once again Safeway needed a transition team as corporation employees working in the warehouse had their jobs eliminated. I was chosen to be the produce inspector. When Safeway owned the warehouse everyone was a Safeway employee and there was a single authority. Now there was a new company running the warehouse, independent truck drivers, and me as the representative for Safeway.

I was responsible for the quality of the produce entering the warehouse and being delivered to the stores. I had to track inventory and make decisions on ordering and shipping. The challenge was Safeway buyers ordered the produced but once I approved the produce to enter the warehouse it was no longer the property of Safeway it belonged to the new warehouse owners. I am talking about tens of thousands of dollars of perishable produce on every truck load and millions of dollars of produced warehoused and shipped daily.

The new owners brought in their own inventory system and as a Safeway employee I had no direct access to their records. I did have daily spread sheets given to me. I had to analyze this information and physically track movements of the produce through the warehouse and trucking. I developed a system to document and follow the movement of produce from buying to store delivery.

The documentation that I was able to provide allowed Safeway to collect over six hundred thousand dollars in compensation for damaged produce in the warehouse. I had a very good working relationship between Safeway corporate management and the warehouse owners. I had hired a permanent replacement for myself and an establish system with a cordiale working relationship between all parties. When I was leaving to return to work in the store, the new warehouse owners offered me position to help run the warehouse and avoid the costly mistakes their employees had made.

I returned to the store for one week and was offered a new position in the Information Technology Department. This was a Corporation department with non union employees dealing with all aspects of technology in the corporate offices and at store level. This assignment was to be temporary to help relieve the work load of the field technicians. I stayed five years.

I became field technician in a very short order. My unofficial duties expanded to training other technicians, repairing equipment, and the go-to guy trouble shooter.

Safeway decided to build a telephone company in house. I was giving the task of once again to head a team converting and installing a new IP phone system in every store in the division. I followed this up doing a number of construction projects in older stores. These stores had been built in the sixties and seventies with elevated cash offices to prevent armed robberies. We had to demolish and rebuild it at floor level in one night. The problem was each office contains thirty to forty years of accumulation of computer cable and obsolete technology. I had to sort through this “rats nest” of wiring without any diagrams, decide what cables to cut and discard. Then I had to get all systems up and running for store opening.

I moved on to new store construction. I started working during store construction supervising cable and wiring. I prepared and tested all equipment. I installed all the equipment except the satellite dish on the roof. I had to coordinate with, MCI, Verizon, our satellite division in Salt Lake Utah, our telephony division in Phoenix Arizona, and our store operations center. I also needed to work with all the separate departments in the store. I was trusted with a high level of security. My work evolved every operation within the store, Pharmacy, payroll, confidential company records, access to credit card operations and cash control. I opened new stores and remodeled stores for over a year. Corporate then told all the division offices to send all union employees back to the stores.

I turned in my company van and tools. They held on to me for another year as strictly a trouble shooter. I was sent to stores where the other technicians could not resolve issues. I was close to retirement and they tried to keep me until I retired to rehire me non union. All good thing come to an end I returned to the store for my last year and retired.

Safeway asked me to come in for a job interview for my old position. I decided to run for County Commissioner. I was not elected.

December of that year I joined my parents in the family store. Thirty plus years of retail I was looking for a reduced role. I came in and modernized the business. I ramped up our web site included an online store and added an EBay store. Then the economy tanked.

Why had I been successful in the past? I worked within the system, but I was not afraid to question the system. I look at what I was doing and what others were doing. I am always willing to use what works and not prop up failed policy of the past. I am always ready for change but not for change sake. I observe human behavior. You manage best when you allow people to follow their natural instincts.

We were faced with a loss of half our yearly sales. I spent a year adjusting our payroll and eliminating nine positions. I took over inventory control and buying. I changed our business model and remodel the store for increased floor space and accessible storage. Our sales are down ten percent this year but we have a one hundred thousand dollar reversal in expense. We are doing more with less.

When I first started in management forty years ago I latched on to a personal motto, “When the going gets tough the tough get going”.

If you have gotten this far I hope that you believe I have the knowledge and experience to lead the county in times of trouble when the need is greater. The same skills, knowledge, and decision making running a small produce operation to a produce warehouse one hundred times the size, or a mom and pop retail store is the same. Anyone can spend money and raise taxes when the economy is doing well. What do you do when your back is against the wall?