Americans today enjoy shopping and may even know their favorite business by

the motto. Save More, Live Better. Do you know the business we are going to be
talking about from those four words? Save Money, Live Better.

With the economy in poor shape what other place would we want to spend our
money? The only place I can think of would be Wal-Mart. What makes Wal-mart
the store to shop at when money is low in your home, not only in your home but
your country as well? Where and when did Wal-Mart come to be such a great
place to shop? Who made this place what it is today?

Why don’t we take a look at the fabulous founder of Wal-mart, Sam Moore
Walton.

Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918 near Kingfisher, Oklahoma to Thomas
and Nancy Walton. At this time the Walton’s lived on a farm up until 1923 when
Sam’s father decided to return to his previous occupation as a loan appraiser due
to the farm life not providing enough income.

In October 1929, when Sam was eleven, prices of the stocks sold on the New
York Stock Exchange crashed. This economic downfall wiped out the fortunes of
many Americans who had bought stocks on credit during the so-called Roaring
Twenties. In the Great Depression that followed, millions of people lost their jobs
and faced poverty for the first time in their lives.

Compared with many families, the Waltons were lucky. Thomas Walton almost
always had a job working for his brother's mortgage company. Sam added to the
family's income by delivering newspapers and helping his mother run a small milk
business she started with a few cows. In his autobiography Sam Walton: Made in
America, Walton wrote, "We learned how much hard work it took to get your
hands on a dollar and that when you did it was worth something."

While living in Shelbina Missouri, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the
state’s history, which lead to him receiving the distinguished Eagle Scout Award
from the Boy Scouts of America later in life. Sam was quite active in high school;
he played basketball and football he was the staring quarterback for Columbia’s
Hickman High school, he also excelled academically becoming an honors
student. He was the vice president of the student body during his junior year and
moved up the following year as president his senior year.

Now that we know Sam grew up through the Great depression, what happened
for him after that? At graduation Sam was awarded the “Most Versatile Boy” He
attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in economics. During his
collage graduation he was voted “Permanent President” of the class. After
graduation Walton continued working hard, waiting tables and expanding his
newspaper delivery service, he took on more routes and hired helpers—his first
taste of running his own business. If you remember this was mentioned earlier,
he took on a paper route to help with the family income.

In 1940, Walton took his first full-time job, joining the department-store company
J. C. Penney as a management trainee, which allowed him to make $75 a month.
After eighteen months with the company, he quit that job to take another working
at a DuPont munitions plant in Oklahoma; he was drafted into the U.S. Army and
served as a communications officer during World War ll (1939-45).In 1942, he
met Helen Robson, while he was stationed in Oklahoma. In 1943 Sam and Helen
were joined as one on Valentines Day.

Soon after the wedding Sam joined the US Army Intelligence Corps, where he
supervised security at aircraft plants along with prisoner of war camps, eventually
reaching rank of captain. He had ambitions of opening a department store, so he
chose to leave the military in 1945, after talking with his father-in-law, he was
loaned $20,000, he put that with the savings he had of $5,000. Sam bought a
Ben Franklin variety store from the Butler Brothers franchise in Newport,
Arkansas.

From the beginning Sam pioneered some concepts that are still used today to
make his business a success including a wide variety of low priced goods,
keeping his store open longer than most other stores and buying goods in large
quantities from the lowest priced wholesaler to pass savings on to customers.
Cheap prices brought large sale volumes which allowed him to purchase even
cheaper wholesale goods from suppliers, leading to his store being the most
profitable franchise store in the six state regions.

Sam did have a failed business in 1950 after he leased and opened a nearby
store called Eagle. The buildings landlord P.K. Holmes decided not to renew
Sams lease wanting the store for his son to run, so with a high rent of 5% of
sales and no lease renewal Sam was forced to sell the store, which Holmes
bought for $50,000 which Sam thought was a fair price. In 1951 before leaving
the store Sam arranged to lease another store in Bentonville, Arkansas as
another Ben Franklin franchise but called his new store the Walton’s Five and
Dime.

Sam started another store in Fayetteville, AR in 1952 with the same Walton’s
Five and Dime name but wasn’t a Ben Franklin franchise, that store became a
success just as the first store he opened. Sam used a technique of nosing
around other stores looking for good employees, which is when he ran into
Willard Walker, a manager of the TG&Y variety store, at this point Sam used
another technique and offered Willard a percentage of the profit from the store,
that technique is now known as profit sharing.

Sam made sure his stores were clean well lit and kept loyalty high with his
employees by profit sharing. He continued to open stores in all directions with the
help of his brother (James, also knows as Bud), father in law and brother in law
but decided to open larger stores called Walton’s Family Centre.

Sam allowed his managers to be limited partners by investing in their store and
any new stores that opened to give them motivation to maximize profits. Sam
along with Bud owned 16 variety stores across Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas.

In 1962 the first Wal-Mart store opened its doors in Rogers, Arkansas, located at
719 West Walnut Street, a huge success, after becoming the world’s largest
retail store.

Sam was a very down to earth kind of employer and he wanted to make his
employees feel accepted and appreciated by him, one way Sam had of doing this
was to come in and sit on the floor with his employees, they all talked about
different things. I wonder what things would be like today if employers took this
approach to get to know their employees on more than just an
employer/employee relationship. Employees would be happier about coming to
work for more than just an income, they would want to come for the friendships
they build and treasure later in life. Not only was Sam a down to earth man, Sam
also loved to give from his heart, that’s what it’s about being Christ-like. Giving
love and helping others unselfishly.

The Sam and Helen R. Walton Award was created in 1991 when the Waltons
made a gift of $6 million which included an endowment in the amount of $3
million to provide annual awards to new church developments that are working in
creative ways to share the Christian faith in local communities.

In 2004, the Wal-mart Corporation employed 1.5 million people throughout the
store locations. In 1998, Sam was named by Time Magazine, as one of the 100
most influential people in the twentieth century; he received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom for his efforts in March of1992 from George H. W. Bush.
Forbes ranked him the richest man in the country from 1985 to 1988. Wal-mart
also operates Sams cub warehouse stores. Also that year, the Jiagsu province of
the People's Republic of China awarded him the Golden Star Foreigner's Award
for "tireless assistance in the development of People's owned factories in the
Suzhou area"

Wal-Mart stores now populate America, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil,

South Korea, China, Germany, Puerto Rico and the UK.

Sam Walton died Sunday April 5, 1992, of multiple myeloma, a type of blood
cancer, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Sam left his empire to his wife and 4 children.
Rob, took over as chairman of the board and John became a director until he
died in a plane crash in 2005, but the other family members are mainly only
shareholders. The Walton family made up half of the top 10 richest in the USA
until 2005 and if alive, Sam would be the world’s wealthiest person.
The Walton Family is one of the richest families in the world, their wealth
inherited from Bud and Sam Walton, founders of the world's largest retailer store
Wal-mart. The five most prominent members (Jim, John (d. 2005), Rob, Alice,
and Helen (d. 2007)) have consistently been in the top ten of the Forbes 400
since 2001, although Helen dropped to #11 in 2006, probably in part due to her
extensive philanthropy. Christy Walton took her husband John's place after his
death in 2005.

Collectively, the Waltons control over 39% of the company, and are worth
approximately $18 billion each, for a combined total of $89.5 billion (as of March
2010). After Helen Walton died in April 2007, her fortune will pass to charity over
the next few years.

List of Walton's family fortune as of March, 10, 2010 published by Forbes.

Jim Walton US $20.7 billion

Christy Walton and family US $ 22.5 billion

Alice Walton US $20.6 billion

S. Robson US $19.8 billion

Ann Walton Kroenke US $3.2 billion

Nancy Walton Laurie US $2.7 billion

(John Walton) US $2.5 billion

Total: US $89.5 billion

Written By: A. Parker