Co-founder of Big V loved customers
Big V Drug Stores co-founder Tony Crncich viewed himself as a family man first, both at home and in the way he ran the 135-store chain launched in Windsor in 1962.
That perspective was verified by the former employees who turned out for his funeral Saturday in London alongside the business partners and acquaintances he made during his storied career in building one of Ontario’s largest pharmacy chains. Crncich passed away Oct. 18. “What he believed was if you treated people right and found out what they need, you’d be successful,” said daughter Diane Padoin, the second oldest of six children raised by Crncich and his wife, Joanne.
“It was a pretty simple philosophy.
“Dad would do walkabouts at the stores. He just talked to everyone.
“He’d get a real feel for the store and the people.”
Though the 87-year-old Crncich sold the Big V chain that he and his lifelong friend Mahlon Dyer built in 1996 to Shoppers Drug Mart, Padoin said the family was particularly touched by former employees still coming to pay their respects.
“Some clerks from a London store came to the funeral,” said Padoin, who added her father opened his first pharmacy (Lakeview Pharmacy) in Tecumseh in 1956.
“They told us they still call the store Big V and they never had a better employer.
“Dad was proud of the impact he had on people and being able to help so many folks.”
Padoin said her father was no different in his business dealings.
“He’d always ask the people he did business with about their families first before any business talk began,” Padoin said.
“He was respected by the people he dealt with because he was fair and honest with them. He wanted to make sure in any transaction, it was beneficial for both of them or it wouldn’t work.”
Crncich, the only child of Croatian immigrants, was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., in 1930.
The family later bought a farm near Leamington and moved to the area in 1942.
Gifted in math and science, Crncich studied pharmacy at the University of Toronto.
“My grandparents wanted him to be a professional and it was first thought he’d be a doctor,” Padoin said.
“But he learned about business on the family farm and he thought pharmacy allowed him the best opportunity to combine both. He had a real business mind.
“He had vision. He could see things coming in the industry.”
Crncich’s first pharmacy job was at downtown Windsor’s Pond’s Drug Store, which would later become part of the Big V chain.
After he and Dyer had accumulated four stores, the duo came up with the idea of forming a group of independent pharmacies that would give them better buying power to compete with the chains.
Big V was launched in Windsor in 1962 with 11 stores and continued to grow steadily.
“They just liked the name because they thought it would make for easy marketing,” Padoin said.
“They liked the simplicity of it and they also were inspired by Winston Churchill’s V for victory gesture.”
Another one of Crncich’s innovations was convincing the province’s regulatory body to allow him to close the drug dispensary, but have the front of the store remain open.
“That’s what allowed the stores to become neighbourhood stores open all the time,” said Padoin, who confirmed that all six of Crncich’s children worked in the family business at some point.
“We all went to Big V university,” joked Padoin, who said her father still liked to dabble in the stock market daily.
“That’s where we learned the customer is right and our goal was to make sure we helped the customer over everything else.
“It was very difficult for him to sell the chain. However, he felt he had a wonderful life with my mother and had done just about everything on his bucket list.”