Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Jason Price LaFrance Born in the USA
Managing the tremendous wealth of the former USA Drug chain takes care and planning
Most parents preach the power of the golden rule. But few cap off their lesson with multimillion dollar proof of its efficacy.
For Jason LaFrance, his was a lesson with a $438 million punchline. As the son of Stephen LaFrance Sr., founder of USA Drug, LaFrance paid close attention to his father’s business practices. He saw how his father navigated in the business world, how he built the trust of his customers and colleagues, then built a small empire.
LaFrance watched as his father worked his way from Pine Bluff pharmacist to the owner of a booming drugstore chain with stores in seven states. The company’s stores included USA Drug, Super D Drugs, May’s Drug, Drug Warehouse and Med-X, which did a combined $825 million in sales in 2011. When the family sold it off to Walgreen Co. in 2012, the sum was healthy enough to secure the LaFrance family for the next generation and then some.
“We knew it was the right time to sell,” Jason LaFrance says. “To have my dad on board and leading the charge made it easy for us all to agree that it was the right move.”
LaFrance and his older brother, Stephen LaFrance Jr., shepherded the transaction with the Walgreens chain, and went on to found Dale Capital Partners as a way to guard and increase the wealth their father built. Nine months after his company sold, Stephen LaFrance Sr. died in Pine Bluff.
“My father was a huge influence on me overall, in business and with my family,” LaFrance says. “I always knew his dream was for all of us to work together.”
“Jason and Stephen [Jr.] were a huge part of the growth and success of USA Drug,” says Kevin Huchingson, co-founder of the real estate investment trust CapRocq, in which the LaFrance family are cornerstone investors. “Stephen and Jason spearheaded the acquisitions in Missouri, the big acquisition in Tulsa, as they grew their stores,” and when it came time to divest, “it was Stephen [Jr.] and Jason and Mr. LaFrance who, you know, as we’d sit in meetings, and they had 160 some stores, it was the three of them making decisions.”
Jason LaFrance was born in the same city as his father’s business, and was raised knowing that one day, he and his brother would likely work for USA Drug. After graduating from Pine Bluff High School in 1995, LaFrance attended the University of Arkansas and majored, perhaps predictably, in business.
A brother in the Sigma Chi fraternity, LaFrance was known for having the best electronics in the house — and being the most skilled at any video game he owned. He had cut his teeth on the Fayetteville campus visiting his older brother when he was just a kid. At 13 years old, he managed to pass for a college freshman thanks to early facial hair and a quick reputation for winning poker hands.
“He had and still has a photographic memory,” older brother Stephen says. “He could play cards at 4 years old and would play baby sitters for money in bridge and rummy. He was always ahead of his time, hanging out with me and my friends.”
After college graduation, Jason LaFrance moved back to Little Rock to work for the family business until 2003, when he moved to Farmington, Mo., to manage a set of drugstores that he and his brother had invested in, folding them into USA Drug.
LaFrance returned to Little Rock and USA Drug in 2005 before marrying his wife, Cassandra, in 2008 and starting a family. It was a milestone that surprised
“If I feel pressure on any front, it’s just about asset protection, as opposed to feeling like I need to compete or outperform anyone.”
some and marked a turning point.
“He went from being a kind of a playboy partier as a young man to married and like a superdad,” Stephen LaFrance says. “I’ll go over and he’s got a baby on one arm stirring soup with the other.”
A youthful propensity for calling the Hogs hasn’t waned with the years. Jason LaFrance goes to as many Arkansas football games as he can each season, often rallying old friends and family to make the trip with him. His 2015 game attendance was cut short by a busy youth soccer schedule, but he managed to make it to a few key games, including the overtime squeaker at Ole Miss last month that left LaFrance hoarse well into the workweek.
Former fraternity brother and frequent Arkansas cheering partner Matthew Lindsey says LaFrance has been a role model for him in how to balance work and family, and how to put people first.
“I lost my father eight years ago, and Jason called me every day after that for six months,” Lindsey says.
PROTECTING A LEGACY
As LaFrance got older, his father was able to spend more and more time with his sons, showing them the ropes of the business he hoped they would inherit. It was an interaction that wasn’t always possible in the early days of USA Drug, when business sometimes took the father away from his family.
“When we were young, he was pretty busy building the business and didn’t have the opportunity to always be there,” LaFrance says. “I try to be selective about working past 5 p.m., taking meetings that require an overnight. I want to be home to do bath [and] read books.”
LaFrance’s devotion to his brood — son Alex, 5, and daughters Sloane, 4, and Charlotte, 1 — is as obvious to his family as the oversized portraits covering the walls of his Riverdale office make it for strangers.
While mother-in-law Barbara Baldwin recalls a nervous LaFrance asking what kind of engagement ring her daughter might like, LaFrance was a natural father, she says. “He takes the girls on dates and always wants to be involved. I can’t say enough about how much of a family person he is, and a lot of that comes from his father.”
Family portraits are a natural fit for the office of a man whose job revolves around protecting the financial future of his family. At Dale Capital, LaFrance and his brother handle the family’s assets, investing primarily in commercial real estate — an avenue
“That every child in Arkansas has the option to be at [Arkansas] Children’s [Hospital] if they need to is incredible. Everyone from the receptionist to the doctors deal with children — and parents who aren’t in the best state of mind — every day. There is just a sense of calm knowing that these people know how to take care of your kids.”
they knew well from years working with the buildings owned by USA Drug.
This, Huchingson says, is a marked advantage of the LaFrance brothers’ investment in CapRocq, which has raised $110 billion for real estate acquisitions in Arkansas and elsewhere. This year, the trust has made more than $1 billion in offers for property, and each has to be vetted. Wednesday, en route to Rogers, where CapRocq is weighing the purchase of 80,000-square-foot Country Club Plaza at the gates of Pinnacle Hills, Huchingson said the LaFrance brothers make their investments personal.
They “travel with us to these markets — Omaha, Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston, Oklahoma City, constantly evaluating deals.”
They’re hands-on, and they’re very closely allied, with their partners and each other. “Steve and Jason, who are just super close, you can see the love and respect they have for each other.”
Dale Capital also invests in opportunities “that we see come up with groups and people we trust,” LaFrance says. Among these, Chef Shuttle, the Little Rock-based restaurant food delivery service.
ASSET PROTECTION
Friends describe LaFrance as a shrewd negotiator — something picked up from his late father — but extremely fair.
“He’s one of the smartest people I’ve known,” Lindsey says. “He has an ability with numbers and with reading people that you really can’t emulate. He’s very well-respected in business, just like his dad.”
From his corner office inside the Riverdale suite of office buildings, LaFrance says he’s focused on the family’s vision, but laid back now, too. He leaves most of the traveling and negotiating over out-of-town dinners to his brother. He gets to work around 9, late enough to drop his oldest kids at school, and relishes that his business allows for little monotony.
Despite having real estate holdings throughout the Midwest and on the East Coast, LaFrance says he has no plans to leave his home state. Arkansas is where his extended family is, but it’s also a place where LaFrance still sees growth potential, and the business connections he’s made here serve him.
Northwest Arkansas and Jonesboro are both markets that LaFrance has his eye on.
LaFrance is the kind of Arkansan who, when he’s on the road, gladly accepts the barbs and darts slung upon his home state, and spins the slight on its head and brags about his Pine Bluff roots. He knows what Arkansas has to offer, and how it’s supported his family.
“Arkansas is a small state and that makes it easy to network and find your way around the business community,” LaFrance says. “You can find jobs and find mentors. People here are really open to that. We want young people to succeed and for business to grow.”
While the pressure of a legacy like the one left by his father may seem heavy, the son doesn’t seem to mind. He relishes working with his brother and being in a position to put into practice the years of business advice he gleaned from his dad.
“If I feel pressure on any front, it’s just about asset protection, as opposed to feeling like I need to compete or outperform anyone,” LaFrance says.
GIVING SPIRIT
In a 2007 profile of Stephen LaFrance Sr. in the Democrat-Gazette, the father noted two things he wanted his children to remember — “What their dad taught them, and how much he loved them.”
Jason LaFrance holds tightly to both.
Among the many traits that LaFrance picked up from his father over the years was one few people were aware of about Stephen LaFrance Sr. — a commitment to philanthropy.
“He was very private about his giving, but also very generous,” LaFrance says. “He’d probably be mad at me right now for talking about this, but I was able to see how he approached giving and how he understood how blessed he was.”
Though his father rarely spoke about donations, even to his family, LaFrance recalls seeing his good works in action.
Over the years, LaFrance and his wife have worked with a number of charitable organizations, including Arkansas Hospice and Project Zero, a foster care and adoption nonprofit.
On the list of organizations and individuals La- France watched his father buttress is Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Once LaFrance experienced the care provided at the Little Rock hospital first hand — each of his children has been a patient there over the years — LaFrance renewed his family’s commitment to the organization, joining the hospital’s board in 2012.
This year, LaFrance and his wife serve as chairmen for Miracle Ball on Saturday. The event, which features dinner along with silent and live auctions, hosts more than 600 patrons, has a fundraising goal of more than $500,000, and is far and away the biggest fundraiser in central Arkansas for the hospital.
“That every child in Arkansas has the option to be at Children’s if they need to is incredible,” LaFrance says. “Everyone from the receptionist to the doctors deal with children — and parents who aren’t in the best state of mind — every day. There is just a sense of calm knowing that these people know how to take care of your kids.”