Joe Coulombe (born June 3, 1930) is an American entrepreneur. He is a graduate of Stanford Business School and is a member of Alpha Kappa Lambda. He founded the grocery store chain Trader Joe's in 1967.
After earning his MBA from Stanford Business School in 1954, he joined Rexall and was asked to test the launch of a store brand to compete against 7-Eleven, Pronto Markets. After running six Pronto Markets in the Los Angeles area, Rexall asked Coulombe to close them down. The young entrepreneur decided to buy them out instead.
After a decade of refining his strategy in a competitive environment, Coulombe created Trader Joe's in Pasadena in 1967. He led the chain to success and sold it to German billionaire Theo Albrecht in 1979. Coulombe continued with Trader Joe's as chief executive until retiring in 1988.
Since then, he has served on boards of various companies, most recently Cost Plus and True Religion Apparel. In 2000 Los Angeles magazine named him one of 10 almost famous Angelenos who helped shape the city’s culture.
Famous quotes containing the word joe:
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)