Thomas G. Stemberg, philanthropist and founder of the pioneer office supply superstore, Staples, Inc., died on Oct. 23, 2015 at his home in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, after a two-year battle with gastric cancer. He was 66.
After a disagreement with his bosses resulted in his firing from an executive role at a Connecticut-based grocery chain, Stemberg recalls driving around on a Sunday afternoon over the July 4th weekend in 1985 looking for a replacement printer ribbon. He realized that most stores were closed, and those still open charged exorbitant prices for a commodity product. The consummate entrepreneur, Mr. Stemberg saw the business opportunity – a well-stocked office supply store open 7 days a week with discount prices. Within a year, he and co-founder Leo Kahn opened the first Staples store in Brighton, Massachusetts, in 1986, after receiving financial backing from a young venture capital firm named Bain Capital and its co-founder Mitt Romney.
The office superstore concept caught fire in an era when big box retail revolutionized the way people shopped. In 1995, Staples became the sixth publicly traded U.S. company to reach $3 billion in annual sales in less than ten years. As Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. Stemberg oversaw Staples’ growth from its humble beginnings in Massachusetts until 2005 when he stepped down as Chairman. That year, Staples was the world’s largest seller of office products with $16 billion in sales, 1,780 stores and 69,000 associates.
Above all, Mr. Stemberg took pride in delivering value to the customer. He recruited his sons for store visits, and they watched him walk up and down the aisles paying attention to every small detail. As the company grew nationwide and overseas, he took it upon himself to visit personally hundreds of stores and solicit feedback directly from store managers and customers. Many a store manager will recall his surprise store visits, and how upon leaving, he would announce his future plans “to drive up to visit some stores in New Hampshire,” only to arrive to an unsuspecting store in Rhode Island a few hours later.
Thomas George Stemberg was born on January 18, 1949, at St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. The only son of Austrian immigrants who fled the Anschluss prior to World War II, Mr. Stemberg’s life embodied his own personal mantra of “turning adversity into opportunity”. His father Oscar was a Jewish restaurateur who managed the restaurants inside the prestigious Hotel Imperial in Vienna. His mother Erika, a Catholic, fell in love with Oscar after meeting him in Vienna and married him thereafter, despite being disinherited by her father for marrying a Jewish man. Erika endured the scorn of her family members, some of whom would go on to serve as SS Officers for the Nazis. With the anxieties surrounding Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in the late 1930s, Erika decided it best that they leave the country and start anew in the United States. With the help of Oscar’s relatives, Oscar participated in a ruse to fool authorities into thinking he was a vital employee of the Manufacturer’s Life Insurance Company of Canada, so that he and Erika could obtain visas to travel to the United States.
Mr. Stemberg’s father founded a successful new restaurant named Zig’s near the family’s home in Orange, New Jersey, and Mr. Stemberg recalled how some of the all-time greats from the 1950s New York Yankees would visit the restaurant. However, Mr. Stemberg’s father passed away tragically when he was 11 years’ old. His mother, living only on monthly Social Security checks, moved back to Vienna to raise her son.
Mr. Stemberg attended high school at the American International School in Vienna. A standout student, he received an academic scholarship to attend Harvard College in the fall of 1967. While Mr. Stemberg admittedly earned average grades studying Organic Chemistry, he immersed himself heavily in extracurricular life, working for Harvard Student Agencies and co-founding the Harvard Independent, still the school’s largest alternative newspaper. After graduating in 1971, he went directly to Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar with high distinction.
Before founding Staples, Mr. Stemberg rose rapidly through the ranks of grocery giant Jewel Company, becoming the youngest Vice President in Jewel history at the age of 27. Working for Jewel’s Star Market division, Mr. Stemberg was the first to bring the concept of “no-name” generic brands to the United States, an idea he borrowed from France. In his early 30s, he left to become President of the Eastern division at First National grocery stores in Connecticut, a division of Edwards-Finast. Following his retirement from Staples in 2005, he joined Highland Capital Partners and founded the Highland Consumer Fund, a venture capital fund focused on retail and consumer goods start-ups. The fund’s investments include Lululemon Athletica and David’s Tea, among others. Stemberg also served on a number of corporate boards throughout his career including PetSmart, CarMax, and Nasdaq.
Mr. Stemberg contributed to numerous philanthropic endeavors in the Boston area. He served as a Lifetime Trustee for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he endowed several academic scholarships and athletic coaching positions at Harvard and other academic institutions. Never forgetting how hard it was to grow up and attend college without his father, Mr. Stemberg endowed two scholarships for incoming Harvard students who have lost a parent. As Mr. Stemberg recalled, “Back in those days, as a scholarship student I had to scrub dishes in the dining hall kitchen.”
Most importantly, Mr. Stemberg served for many years as the “Godfather” of Friends of Harvard Basketball. He was instrumental in the turnaround of the Harvard Men’s Basketball program, persuading the University’s athletic department to hire Coach Tommy Amaker in 2007 and looking on proudly as the team went onto win 5 consecutive Ivy League titles, a feat Mr. Stemberg called “my second proudest accomplishment.” In 2015, Mr. Stemberg endowed the men’s coaching position.
In his own words, “his proudest accomplishments” are the 6 sons and 3 step-daughters he leaves behind. Mr. Stemberg was apt to liken his role as patriarch of a family with so many children to being the head coach of a sports team, a team that includes children who are both black and white, both biological and adopted. Perhaps his greatest quality, in his work and in his personal life, was his addictive energy that brought so many friends and family together. As longtime friend, college classmate, and former Boston City Councilor Larry DiCara remarked, “Tom’s legacy lies not with his many business accomplishments but with the countless people he helped throughout his life, many times in ways people didn’t even understand or realize . . . he was always there” His team will miss their coach dearly. Mr. Stemberg also leaves behind his loving wife, Katherine.