Jeff Brotman

Co-founder of Costco retail empire and philanthropist

Jeffrey Hart Brotman, businessman. Born: 27 September 1942 in Tacoma, Washington state. Died: 1 August 2017 in Medina, Washington state, aged 74

Jeffbrotman,afounder of Costco, which became one of the world’s largest retailers by luring loyal, card-carrying customers to its cavernous stores with startlingly low prices on everyday products, has died.

He had been a reluctant retailer at first. After working in his family’s chain of 18 men’s stores during college, Brotman sought to escape a retail career by applying for law school. But his business acumen proved too compelling. After his father suggested that he replicate Price Club, a pioneering San Diego-based chain of warehouse stores for small businesses, Jeff Brotman teamed up with James Sinegal, a protege of Sol Price, the chain’s founder and a retailing genius himself.

Their first Costco warehouse store opened in Seattle in 1983; the company merged with Price Club a decade later. It soon became a global retailing juggernaut by offering consumer goods at rock-bottom prices, sticking to a no-frills inventory and encouraging customer loyalty with annual membership fees.

Costco was the world’s largest retailer of a wide range of products, including organic foods and wine, in recent years. The company took in about $120 billion (£755bn) last year, its revenues second only to Walmart (although Costco was recently bumped to third place by Amazon).

“Jeff understood immediately that there was an opening there,” his brother, Michel, said this week. “The Price Club idea appealed even to people with money – the idea of being able to buy value at the right price. It wasn’t about buying cheap. It was about buying good value.”

While Sinegal was largely the public face of the company as its chief executive until 2012, Brotman served as its less visible chairman from the beginning. He became expert in scouting the most profitable locations for Costco’s warehouse stores, which number 736 worldwide, including Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Jeffrey Hart Brotman, a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Romania, was born to Pearl and Bernard Brotman. His Canadian-born father owned Seattle Knitting Mills and, with his brothers, a chain of haberdashers in Washington and Oregon.

Brotman earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Washington in 1964 and graduated from its law school in 1967. After practicing law briefly, he and his brother opened a women’s jeans store named Bottoms and later a chain of men’s clothing stores called Jeffrey Michael. Jeff Brotman was also an early investor in other retail ventures, including Starbucks, which went on to build a coffee empire from its base in Seattle.

Brotman married the former Susan Thrailkill, whom he met on a blind date. Besides his brother, Brotman is survived by his wife, a son, daughter and two grandchildren.

Brotman also drew attention as a fundraiser for Democratic candidates and, with his wife, as a philanthropist whose beneficiaries included the University of Washington and the Seattle Art Museum. © New York Times 2017. Distributed by NYT Syndication Service