As he enters his 30th year leading one of Akron’s best-known retail establishments, Russell Vernon, CEO of West Point Market, can say he’s truly seen the good, the bad and the ugly.
But what sets this entrepreneur apart from the crowd is his ability to turn the latter two around.
In 1991, Vernon was accused by the local chapter of the NAACP of not hiring enough African Americans. For the next four years, Vernon found himself battling the Washington office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over his alleged hiring practices. The fight eventually cost him $67,000 in legal fees and hundreds of lost labor hours, while casting a gray cloud on the reputation of the specialty foods market his father founded 60 years earlier.
Vernon can now say that battle is behind him.
“I feel good. I don’t feel good about the fact that the government has freedom to do these things,” he says. “I could have bailed out at $20,000 — if I wanted to be extorted.”
By choosing to fight the allegations to the end, Vernon helped create a better environment for small businesses today. He says his case was one of many that prompted Congressional hearings on EEOC practices, which resulted in six new requirements that the EEOC now has to meet to acquire funding.
Incredibly, Vernon can say that the West Point Market has increased sales every year for the last 64 years — even during his four-year legal battle.
Today, he’s is concentrating on his ninth expansion, to start this month, which will add 5,000 square feet to his prepared foods and café areas. He is putting together a transition plan, in which he will hand over the position of CEO to his son, and assume a more public position as chairman. He says that by September, he would like to be less involved in the day-to-day operations of the market, and more involved in public relations and customer contact.
He has also hired an executive with Boston-based Au Bon Pain to take on the position of president and chief operating officer.
In concentrating on expanding the position of his Akron market, Vernon has not lost sight of the global opportunities available to retailers via the Web. After launching westpoint-market.com, Vernon has received orders from as far away as France and Switzerland. While he admits that the revenue from those orders just covers the cost of filling and shipping them, he realizes that he must have a Web presence.
“We haven’t, like many businesses, realized the return yet, but we must be there,” he says of the Internet.
Right now, he says, the site is more informational than lucrative, but he hopes it will help draw customers to the bricks and mortar store, where they can appreciate the thing he says sets the market apart from its competition — customer service. How to reach: West Point Market, (330) 864-2151 or www.westpoint-market.com
Connie Swenson ([email protected]) is editor of SBN Akron/SBN Stark.
