Walgreens founder's grandson dies at 80

DEERFIELD – A scion of one of Dixon's famed families, Charles R. "Cork" Walgreen III, died today at his home in Lake Forest. He was 80.

The former president, CEO, chairman of the board, and chairman emeritus of Walgreen Co. was known as an innovator whose "significant strategic changes ... powered the company’s growth for decades to come," Michael Polzin, divisional vice president of corporate communications, said in a news release announcing his death.

He was the grandson of Charles R. Walgreen Sr., who began his career at age 16 working for a druggist in Dixon then went on to found the 115-year-old pharmacy retailer Walgreens Co., now called Walgreens Boots Alliance, which is based in Deerfield.

The airport, Charles R. Walgreen Field, is named for Charles Sr., and the family still owns and occasionally returns to its estate in Dixon.

Born in Chicago on Nov. 11, 1935, to Mary Ann Leslie and Charles R. Walgreen Jr., Cork started out as a stock boy in 1952, when he was 17, and went on to become the third Walgreen to lead the company.

He earned his bachelor’s in pharmacy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1958, and worked for 4 years as a pharmacist in the North Western Avenue store in Chicago. Then came a series of promotions, until he became president in 1969, president and CEO in 1971 and chairman and CEO in 1976. He was CEO until his retirement in January 1998, chairman until August 1999, and he retired from the board as chairman emeritus in 2010.

When he became president, the company was not meeting its profitability goals and growth targets, and, in a sense, was struggling with its identity, the release said.

“We thought we could sell everything ... suits, hammocks, carpets... We were trying to please all people with all types of merchandise that didn’t belong in a drugstore,” Walgreen said.

By that time, Walgreens had a number of businesses, including Wag's, a restaurant chain, and laboratories and manufacturing plants for private label products. He began a turnaround for the company by selling its food services, closing the labs and manufacturing operations, and ending many of its joint interests in businesses as varied as optical services, grocers, and its Mexico-based Sanborn’s department store chain. In 1988, Wag’s was sold.

Walgreen committed to focusing on core product categories: health care items, beauty and photo. He changed the company's view of profitability, switching the focus from profit per store to profit per customer visit, the release said.

In in early 1980s, he converted Walgreens pharmacies to Intercom, a computerized prescription processing system that linked all its stores electronically, allowing customers to fill prescriptions at any store. He also committed to automating the company’s distribution centers and embraced new technologies such as point-of-sale scanning and photofinishing.

By the early 1990s, he led another transformation, to freestanding stores rather than traditional locations in strip malls. These stores featured drive-thru pharmacies, another industry first, the release said.

When he retired as CEO in January 1998, the company had seen 23 consecutive years of record sales and earnings growth, had six stock splits and had grown to more than 2,400 stores, up from 561 in 1971, generating $13 billion in sales, up from $817 million.

He also served a number of industry, civic and professional organizations, and in 2004, he donated $2 million to the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy, to establish a professorship focusing on researching the socioeconomics of health care policies, regulations and ethics.

The release quoted Alex Gourlay, Walgreens' co-chief operating officer: "I was struck ... by how he led our company – with a great singular focus on his customers, with humility and a very clear sense that Walgreens needed to stand for value and care in the community.

"He made courageous decisions in that straightforward framework and built the Walgreens we know today as customers, employees and partners."

MEMORIALS

Charles Rudolph "Cork" Walgreen III is survived by his wife, Kathleen B. Walgreen; sons Charles Richard Walgreen, Kevin Walgreen (a Walgreen Co. senior vice president), Leslie Ray Walgreen, Chris Patrick Walgreen, Tad Alexander Walgreen and Carl Allen Jr.; daughters Brooke Julia Walgreen and Jorie Allen Grassie; sister, Leslie Ann Walgreen Pratt; brother, James Alan Walgreen; 19 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his son, Tad Alexander Walgreen Sr.

Services will be private.

Donations in his memory may be directed to Radiation Oncology Fund at the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center Loyola University Medical Center Office of Development, 2160 S. First Ave. Maywood, IL 60153