Why do we at The Writing On The Wal care about Sol Price? Because Price was the genius (or possibly evil genius, given history) that gave us the big-box super store. Before there was a Walmart or Sam’s Club, there was Fed-Mart and Price Clubs.

From the San Diego Tribune:

I grew up vaguely aware that a man named, aptly enough, Price was San Diego’s answer to Andrew Carnegie, a business magnate with a charitable heart.

His other son, Larry, who would grow up to unsuccessfully sue his father in 1989 for alleged emotional distress, was a classmate at Francis Parker School in the late ’50s. I remember a friend pointing to an unsmiling, dark-suited man visiting the Mission Hills campus and, in a hushed whisper, saying, “That’s Sol Price.”

I never had another contact with Price until a Maserati with a car phone (a novelty in 1984) pulled up in front of the La Jolla Light, where I was the editor.

The driver of the sports car was a young Harvard business graduate, a Price Co. vice president, who would offer me a job to start up a newspaper called the Price Club Journal. The idea was to publish something like The Wall Street Journal for small-business members of the Price Club. Circulation target: 1 million.

I confess, I had my qualms. I was the only full-time editorial employee, responsible for a vast herd of freelancers spread around the country. I worried that the Prices expected more than I (or anyone else) could deliver.

Still, I took the job in part because the money was bright green and also because, as tough a businessman as he was reputed to be, I considered Sol Price’s character to be a gold standard. I hoped some of it would rub off on me.

Sam Walton once had this to say about Sol Price.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 1031 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Competitors, People, Sam Walton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.