George W. Jenkins

Encyclopedia : G : GE : GEO : George W. Jenkins

This does not cite its .
You can Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations.

George W. Jenkins was born in a small town near Warm Springs, Georgia in 1907. In 1930, despite the Great Depression, Jenkins risked everything he had, including a stable career, to start a new grocery store, a store in which the associates would be treated with utmost respect and dignity and the customers would receive friendly and efficient service each time they visited. He named this chain Publix.

Jenkins was affectionately called "Mr. George" by his associates, who all had a good relationship with him. He returned their goodwill by structuring ownership of the company as a ESOP.

After moving the headquarters to Lakeland, Florida and changing Publix from an ordinary market to a supermarket, the store expanded. In the 1950s, bakeries were added to the stores. In the 1980s, Publix added pharmacies. In the 1990s, the chain started to expand for the first time outside of Florida, starting in Georgia.

In 1993 a new high school in Lakeland was named after him. Jenkins died in 1996, leaving the majority of shares to his family.

Publix Super Markets now operates in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. It is now one of the largest privately owned companies in the country.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.