Retiring grocer checks out from job but not from community
Kroger leader says people were ‘the fun part of the business’
If anyone needed to find Bill Breetz, chances were the personable but unassuming 6-foot-5 executive was walking the aisles of an area Kroger store in business attire with a Starbucks cup in hand, greeting and chatting up clerks, florists, checkers and shoppers — the kind of people whose support fueled his career.
When he even wears a name tag, it reads “Bill” and not “Kroger Houston Division President,” the title he said goodbye to on Friday after 44 years with the grocery giant. That approach dates back to a warning a mentor once gave him about flashy titles.
“They’ll only tell you what you want to hear, but really you want to hear the truth,” Breetz said this past week. “I just wanted to be that ‘first guy’ they can come to, that walks around and relates with everyone on every level.”
Breetz, 62, hands the reins to Marlene Stewart, who comes to Houston from Kroger’s Midwest chain of stores, Dillons. He says she can expect to find the stores in “great shape” to compete, serve customers and grow with Houston.
Breetz’s life has been all things retail. As a kid, he helped out his father, a retail pharmacist. The day he started college at the University of Louisville in 1972, he got a job as a Kroger bagger to help pay for school. He majored in medical studies but his plans changed by graduation.
“You really enjoy the retail business and enjoy working with people,” he was told, and was
encouraged to stay with Kroger.
Breetz began management training at Kroger’s home office in Cincinnati. His dream was just to run one store someday, a chance he got in 1980.
“Of all my promotions, I still remember, ‘You’re going to be my store manager,’ ” he said. He ran stores in the Cincinnati area, then rose in the mid-’80s to district manager and, eventually, vice president of merchandising for the Cincinnati division.
In 2000, Kroger sent him to Dallas to energize sales as vice president of operations for its southwest division. In 2002, he became president of that division and moved to Houston, where it was based. The growing Houston division split from Dallas in 2015 and now has 113 stores and 17,000 employees from Bryan-College Station to Lake Charles, La.
With all the 24/7 decisions his job required, the more than 50 stores built or expanded and the countless store remodels during his time in Houston, work was balanced with “his passion” for people — serving on community boards and hanging out in stores.
“That was always the fun part of the business,” he said.
People are what he’ll miss most, he said, and one of the reasons retiring was among his hardest decisions. Those people have driven revolutionary changes in the grocery business, Breetz said.
In 1972, stores were smaller and offered a basic product selection. Today, global suppliers make possible year-round produce once thought of as seasonal while leaving shelf room for local suppliers such as craft brewers.
A 150,000-square-foot grocery store that also sells apparel, like today’s Kroger’s Marketplace stores, was unthinkable.
Technology also drove change. Clunky electronic cash registers evolved into scanners, then much more integrated systems that use sensors to tell Kroger managers how many more cashiers are needed to move lines. Tomes of digital data stream in on consumer buying patterns and product availability. Online ordering and curbside pickup are becoming commonplace.
The biggest change, though, has been fierce competition that, Breetz said, has made Houston’s grocery landscape second to none with an abundance of national, regional and local chains. Customers benefit, Breetz said, and that competition “energized me and kept us doing our best.”
That competition has Kroger continuing its threeyear $500 million commitment to add and renovate stores in the Houston division with several new ones planned through 2017.
But succeeding in such an environment demands time. When weighing his retirement decision, Breetz’s wife, Jo, three kids, three grandchildren and siblings factored heavily. One of his first official acts as a retiree will be spending time with family, vacationing and doing things he hasn’t had time to do such as, perhaps, picking up golf again.
People will continue to be a central focus. Community work with such groups as the Houston Food Bank and Boy Scouts of America will remain on his calendar.
Breetz said his departure only recently sank in. His office was cleared by early last week and he had his last Monday sales meeting. All that was left was a celebratory gathering of store managers and farewell trips to as many stores as he could make.
“I walk away looking at where we were then and where we are today, and I feel really, really good.” michael.smith@chron.com twitter.com/mdsmithnews