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Shultz Starbucks

Written by: Julie Guterres

Article Overview: Born in 1952 and raised in Brooklyn, Howard Shultz was the first man to turn the Starbucks Company into a billion dollar retail operation. Howard Shultz grew up in a subsidized housing project is the eldest of three children and the first in his family to ever graduate from college. Moreover, Shultz attended Northern Michigan University with a bachelor's degree in the arts and sciences on a football scholarship.

Shultz Starbucks

Born in 1952 and raised in Brooklyn, Howard Shultz was the first man to turn the Starbucks Company into a billion dollar retail operation. Howard Shultz grew up in a subsidized housing project, is the eldest of three children and the first in his family to ever graduate from college. Moreover, Shultz attended Northern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in the arts and sciences on a football scholarship.

It took Shultz a year before he convinced the owners he was adequate enough to join the Starbucks Company in Seattle as the Director of Management and from this point his impressive journey skyrocketed. Right from the start Shultz had fallen in love with the whole concept of the coffee business. It wasn’t just the smell of coffee that made Shultz fall in love, but the care the company took in choosing and roasting its beans. Furthermore, he liked the owners’ constant focus on educating the public about the wonders of coffee connoisseurship. After going on a trip to Milan, Italy, Shultz tried to convince owners to offer traditional espresso in addition to whole bean coffee, leaf teas and spices they had always carried. When owners refused to take Shultz’s idea seriously, Howard decided to start his own company named IL Giornale in 1985. After two years passed, the owners of Starbucks decided to focus on to Peet’s Coffee & Tea and sold its Starbucks retail unit over to Shultz for $3.8 million. In acquiring Starbucks he turned Giornale into Starbucks and decided to expand all over the United States.

Even as Shultz was expanding his horizons his number one goal was to serve a great cup of coffee and “to build a company with soul.” Another thing that was certainly important to Shultz was his employees. He made sure employee’s working more than 20 hours a week received comprehensive health coverage which includes benefits for unmarried spouses and even an employee stock-option plan. These heartfelt ideas boosted loyalty and led to extremely low worker turnover, even though employee salaries were low. One of the main reasons Shultz’s employees are so important to him is because his father always struggled working at little paying jobs with nothing to show for it when he died. His father got no health insurance, no worker’s compensation when he got hurt on the job and most importantly no respect. So as Shultz continued on growing his company he wanted to make sure he built a company where no matter how minor a job position was you were respected.

Shultz has managed to do all of his expanding without going into nationwide franchises but still owning most of his stores. In addition, Shultz has continued growing without national advertisement, but he can’t help when celebrities get caught in paparazzi shots holding a Starbucks coffee. Howard Shultz is one of the few Americans who have successfully and self-sufficiently made a billion dollar retail operation with all the heart, soul and integrity you could ever dream of.

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Article Tags: bean coffee, coffee business, coffee tea, connoisseurship, cup of coffee, employee stock option, employee stock option plan, football scholarship, going on a trip, howard shultz, il giornale, leaf teas, milan italy, northern michigan university, retail operation, retail unit, smell of coffee, starbucks company, stock option plan, worker turnover



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