Jeanan Yasiri: This is a
course that is offered through the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology.
I'm Jeanan Yasiri.
As we begin our session today, I would like to thank our partners who provide support
for this course: the UW Office
and financial support, which is provided by the Ewing Marion the UW College of Engineering for their technical support,
entrepreneurship in higher Kauffman Foundation, which is committed to advancing
education. Additionally, I'd also like to
Wisconsin Public Television and their University Place crew for taping today's lecture. I'm very pleased to introduce
our special guest today, John McHugh, president of Corporate
Communications with Kwik Trip, a Wisconsin-based corporation
based out of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
John manages all corporate communications, leadership
development, and training for Kwik Trip.
And prior to joining Kwik Trip in 2004, he was an instructor
and principal at Aquinas High School in La Crosse.
in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Gregorian University He holds degrees from the University of St. Thomas
know he has very little, but he is very beneficent with his time, he serves as vice president of the Friends ofI
Wisconsin Public Television board.
Center and sits on the boards of He is president of the board of the Franciscan Spirituality
the Scenic Bluffs chapter of the American Red Cross, the Seven Rivers Alliance for Economic
Development, and the La Crosse
Promise. As we explore entrepreneurial issues in business through the
course of this course, I think
around for a while, embrace it's entrepreneurship. also And that's one of the topics businesses, those that have been
share with us today. that I wanted John to come and
Please join me in welcoming John McHugh. [APPLAUSE]
John McHugh: Thank you. A couple months ago we had one
was out changing the trash out of our store leaders in Fairmont, Minnesota, Deanna, she
by the pumps and this elderly gentleman pulled his car up. He got out of his car and he
recognized that she was a coworker at Kwik Trip because of
She was real patient with the man and asked him if he was hgoing to pay inside or pay atn you teach the pump. pump gas?"
And he said I didn't even know I
could pay out here, I'm going to pay inside like most people do. So she showed him what button to
push on the pump and showed him how to dispense gas in his
automobile, and when they were all finished she was just about
to leave and he said hey, hang
on, I got one more question. How do I know if I need oil in
And she says actually that's a my engine?
pretty simple process, and she reached over to the driver side door and showed him where the
little lever was to pop open his
hood. He popped open the hood and then she got in front of the
automobile with him and showed
him how to put the rod up so that the hood didn't come back
conk. Pulled up the dip stick and showed him how to get a little on his head and give him a good
dispenser and wiped it off and bit of paper towel from the
the black stuff, the oil, put icomes up to that mark.re's a little mark here. We're going to make sure that
And he said hang on, They checked his oil, it was perfectly fine.
I got a third question. How do I know if I need air in my tires?
And she says, well, that's
actually a pretty simple process.
the side of our lot. Why don't you pull over there to
You pull over there and while you do that I'm going to back in compressor. It's marked air.
the store. We have a little air pressure
tire gauge. I'm going to show you how to use
She went into the store and got the tire gauge. Both of them knelt down in the So he pulled over.
spotted the area on the tires where it had the pounds per square inch, told him what that meant, and then showed him how
to use the pressure gauge.
The little white thing has got to come out to the same number
They checked all four tires, that matches on your tires.
they were perfectly fine. She got done, and he said, I've got to be honest with you.
I know how to pump my own gas.
I've always pumped my own gas. Secondly, I know how to check my
As a matter of fact, own oil.
I change my own oil. I've never had to take it to a
Thirdly, I've never had a tire mechanic to change the oil.
go down because of lack of air pressure. I know what air pressure is in a
tire and how to check that. But he said I came here to Kwik Trip to find out if what they say about you is true.
That you'll take care of a
guest, a customer, if they need it because I found out this week that I have terminal cancer.
I'm not going to be here
in three months, and my wife of 54 years, she's never
She's never had to had to pump her own gas.
check her oil. She doesn't have a clue about how to check the air pressure in
her tires.
And I want to make sure that after I'm gone in three months
care of her when I'm gone. there will be someone to take
we do the right thing in terms And that story of Deanna is one of literally hundreds that we get every year that at Kwik Trip
you'll find out that a lot of what we come up with really is And as I talk about entrepreneurship this afternoon,
Our people coming up with great ideas. the result of good people working for Kwik Trip.
great ideas. It's not rocket science, it's our people just coming up with
We've had continuous growth A little bsince then.r company. We're now well over 400 stores. Now, I'm going to tell you a
little bit about our business model because it changed back in
be what you would consider a 2002. Prior to that, Kwik Trip would
normal ordinary convenience store. And in the traditional
convenience store world, your sources of income are twofold:
Well, we already knew back in 2002 that if you wanted to be a convenience store business you Tobacco products and gasoline.
commodities for a couple can't hang your hat on those two
different reasons. First of all, we knew what was
not only in our state but throughout the country, they're declining substantially. happening with tobacco sales,
of money off of gasoline, contrary to what people might think. Secondly, you don't make a lot
our suppliers. The price is dictated to us by
We use 31 different areas here in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
And if we're lucky we literally make pennies on the gallon. Matter of fact, Monday of this Iowa.
So you can't bank a convenience store industry on those two sources of income. week we didn't even make that.
additional stream of income. So we knew we had to develop an
We've decided to go into the food business.
We don't intend that we're going Now here's the model.
to replace the grocery store for you.
American family does their major But we know this: the average
grocery shopping every two weeks.
they're going to run out of their basic commodities: eggs, But in between those visits
at home for two weeks. milk, butter, bread, bananas. Those things that you can't keep
And so in between time, you come to Kwik Trip for the basic
Now the other interesting thing about our business model is this: most convenience stores go commodities.
nicknamed in the industry insult off of something that we
pricing. Which means you need it conveniently and you're going to
pay through the nose to get it. We're just the opposite.
And you're going to find out how we can do this.
All of our basic commodities are
not only not insult pricing, they're anywhere between 10% to 16% cheaper than what you'll
even find at Wal-Mart, let alone
your big box retailers of other names. And there's a reason why we can
offer those basic commodities so
cheaply. So it's not insult pricing. As a matter of fact, your bread,
your eggs, your butter, your
milk, your bananas, you're much better getting it at Kwik Trip than anywhere else.
It's much cheaper for you.
A little bit about who we are as a company.
names. We go on a lot of different
Anybody from Iowa in the room? We're Kwik Trip here in Wisconsin and in Minnesota. In Iowa we're called Kwik Star.
convenience store with a Q and Oh, sorry, only one of you. We have to go by Kwik Star in Iowa because there's a Quik Trip
on the radio you can't distinguish between Quik Trip and a Q and Kwik Trip with a K.
So we have to go by Kwik Star in
Iowa but it's all of our company.
Platter restaurants. Tobacco Plus stores and Hearty
We're privately owned. We're not publicly traded on the
We're privately owned by a stock market.
Now an interesting story about family that lives in La Crosse. Don and LaVonne Zietlow and their family.
Don. He's our owner and CEO. Back in 1958 he was a truck
driver for a grocery firm in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
He wasn't making much money. Was hardly making enough to make
ends meet.
And one night after a good 16-hour shift he was off loading
of mumbling to himself like here meats into the freezer and kind
I'm doing all the work and all the people who are on corporate alley are doing nothing and I'm
actually making all the money for this company and the work I'm doing.
himself in 1958 that if he was And he made a commitment to
ever in a position where he could share the profits with the people that actually do the
work, that's what he would do.
Well, the neat thing is that it came to fruition that Don became owner and CEO of our company,
and he carried through in that
promise. So what it means for us is that 40% of all the pretax profits,
pretax, 40% of all of our profits come back to all the
coworkers. And that's all of us.
Now, he'd say that's okay but then that means Zietlow is still
getting 60%. That ain't all that great.
Well, actually here's how it
shakes out. 40% comes back to all of us. 29% of our profits go to Uncle
Sam.
We have to pay corporate tax just like all of us pay tax.
company to build new stores, put Another 29% is reinvested in the
on a new dairy plant, new bakery addition. Any math geniuses in the room?
How much do I have left?
2%, nice job. 2% of our profits is what goes back to the Zietlow family.
And that's the entire Zietlow family. That's Don and LaVonne, that's
that's the grandchildren, now the great grandchildren. Vicky, Steve and Scott, and
Don Zietlow, our owner and CEO, makes less money now than he So if you do the math and you know what we make as profits,
worked for Gateway Foods for another person in La Crosse.
Makes less money. As a matter of fact, in the last
19 years as our CEO and owner, he's never taken a raise.
So one day I said Don, why do you go through the hassle of
owning a company making less money than when you worked for
somebody else.
He said John, my goal is to die broke. That's my goal.
He said I don't make the
doughnuts that you see at Kwik Trip. I don't deliver the doughnuts
that you see at Kwik Trip.
Let's give it to the people that I don't sell the doughnuts that you see at Kwik Trip. Why should I make the money?
actually make the doughnut, that deliver the doughnut and sell the doughnut.
When we talk about the Wisconsin
Idea and giving back to communities, our owner and CEO certainly has lived that.
That's Don Zietlow. A little bit about our business model.
simple. Three things: people, food, and something we call vertical Our business model is pretty
What does it all mean for us? I'm going to show you a little integration.
And when I talk about that 40% bit later why people are so terribly important to us.
pretax profit sharing, you've heard companies say that our people are our most important
asset.
You've heard companies say that. I'm proud to say that I think we
So what this practically means actually live by that.
is for all of our coworkers last year, they took their base
Christmastime was given in terms salary and then 9% of that at
of a cash bonus. So take whatever you earned last
that's your cash bonus, your year, multiply that by 9%,
check. And then 5% of your salary was
Even if you're a part-timer, we give you that 5% 401K. put into your 401K plan.
What that meant is if you had just started out at Kwik Trip working in our store, starting companies.
had worked there for a good part wage, starting position, and you
of the year, your cash bonus at Christmas time was $1,850. That's not too bad for just
working in the convenient store.
And then the other piece to it is then we, after five years if you've been with us, we think if
you've been with us for five
years, you're pretty valuable to our company.
And so we should make a commitment to you. You've made a commitment to us.
forward you get a share of real estate. The actual stores at Kwik Trip service and ever year going
family, the stores are owned by our coworkers. aren't owned by the Zietlow
And the neat thing is if you started at Kwik Trip back in
1989 when we started this benefit, your real estate account balance is now worth
Now, that's in addition to your 401K and your profit sharing and $79,000.
everything else. You can either keep that when
you retire or you can will it to
your children. So people are important to us and we really kind of put our
money where our mouth is because
we think in terms of entrepreneurship if you don't treat your people well, they're
not going to come up with great ideas.
Food, I'll talk a little bit more about that.
And then vertical integration.
That means that we control a lot of what's in our stores.
We make it, we ship it, and we There's no middle man.
sell it. Almost 80% of the products that you'll see in a Kwik Trip store
are actually made by us in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Our mission statement: serve our customers and community more
effectively than anyone else by treating our customers, coworkers, and suppliers as we
treated, make a difference in somebody's life. personally would like to be
Now, you've been through probably enough business classes
and you know that most
businesses have a mission statement. And it's usually a plaque on the
wall and if you ask any of the
coworkers what's your mission statement, they don't have a clue.
I'm proud to say that almost 99%
of our coworkers know our mission statement. By heart.
And here's the reason why.
meetings with it but we Winterview for a fit with our with our mission statement. Not only do we start our
mission statement. If you come to work for Kwik
Trip, the first question you're asked on the interview, tell me about the last random act of
Second question, tell me how in the last month you made a difference in somebody's life. kindness you did for somebody.
treated others as you would like Third question, how have you
to be treated. Those are the first three questions.
And if you can't answer those three questions, we don't think you're going to fit with our
Because for us, our most culture.
important piece at Kwik Trip isn't selling gasoline and hot
Our most important piece for all dogs.
human person, your deepest of our coworkers, we know this, is that at the end of the day your deepest satisfaction as a
satisfaction, doesn't come from your paycheck. Your deepest satisfaction as a
human being comes from the fact that at the end of the day if you've been at work you know
made a difference in our world. That somebody's life was that something you did today
different because of something you did.
And it's not profound stuff but it's just somebody walked in and
talked to them or smiled at them, you kind of changed their you could telday.ey were in a bad mood and because of how you
Now, the best business book that That's what we emphasize.
I personally have ever read by Jim Collins, a book called "Built to Last."
And in that business book he
found out that the companies that are most successful in this
mean 16 times more profitable than the stock market average. country, by most successful I
Now I don't about you but if I can find out which companies
were 16 times more profitable than the S&P averages, I
certainly would want to invest in those.
And they found out that those companies that were that wildly successful, they had one common denominator.
16 times more profitable than the stock market average because
and lived by all the coworkers in those companies they had a mission statement that was known
so that a good mission statement isn't fluff but it's important
because it helps your coworkers plug into what's deepest and in terms of good business and
paycheck. In terms of distribution, this most important in life. And it isn't always the
it our large distribution center in La Crosse.
We're based in La Crosse. We have a lot of different
the different products that you have in our stores. We also have our own bakery Tfacility in La Crosse, our ownr
kitchen which makes our own pizza, our own sandwiches, and
We'll talk a little bit more all of our food is USDA inspected.
about that in a bit. We have our dairy.
have our own dairy the milk that As a matter of fact, because we
was in the belly of the cow this morning about 3:00 or 4:00 AM it
La Crosse around 5:00 or 6:00. ends up at our dairy in
It gets processed right away today this morning and it takes only about 45 minutes to process
it from start to finish, and so that when you go to a Kwik Trip store tonight when we start our evening deliveries at 5:00, the
milk that you pick up after 5:00
on a Kwik Trip shelf could very well have been in the belly of the cow this morning at 4:00 AM.
Now that's pretty fresh.
Well, it's important for us because what it means is we can offer you a freshness that even the grocery stores can't do.
The grocery store is going to buy it from somebody else, that other middle man, who got it
from somewhere else. from somebody else who got it
We cut out that middle man that's why we can offer it so freshly for you.
We also have our ice cream
plant. We make our own ice cream.
here's how you know it's really good ice cream: it has a higher fat content than even It's verHaagen-Dazs.ream and
And for ice cream, what makes it
so good is the butter fat content. So those of you that are
watching your weight this is bad
off, you want to make sure that you get Nature's Touch Kwik Trip For those of you who could care less, you're going to burn it
ice cream because it's got a high fat content.
We also manufacturer our own
make ice: water and a little bit ice, which by the way is one of our most profitable items because it doesn't take much to
of cold air. We have our own convenience transportation fleet.
We deliver all of our own products. Now this is important.
successful. In retail there's a term called shrink and shrink means It's painventory loss.s us so
How much has gone out of the
theft from customers. It can be a result of theft from get paid for. And shrink can be a result of
that was distributing your people that work for you. It can be a result of the person
product as an outside vendor only gave you half of what you
charged you for all of it. were supposed to get but still
store just goes bye-bye. In retail, the average shrink percentage is 2%. So 2% of all the stuff in your
It disappears and you never see any income for it. Our shrink average at Kwik Trip
is 0.2%.
That's a huge difference. Why do we have such little shrink?
Well, a couple things.
part of our 40% profit sharing. So if he smashes an entire tray of doughnuts, that's part of his distributing that product is
out of every dollars of those doughnuts is going out the profit sharing, that's 40-cents
happen. So because we do our own window. He doesn't want to see that
distribution it means that our drivers have a vested interest
to make sure that the product gets there on time, make sure that the product gets there intact, and make sure that all
the product gets there, not just
some of the product. Food safety.
news. Food safety is a pretty important piece. You know, you've heard it in the
the food that's in our store, we Because we manufacture 80% of
actually have our own food safety lab on site in La Crosse.
facilities. Now, to make sure that we're It monitors all of our
rather objective in this whole process, we've combined with
Marshfield clinic in Marshfield,
Wisconsin. They help staff the food safety lab so that they give us an
objective third party set of
eyes to make sure that we're really doing what we're suppose to be doing.
Vertical integration. Unlike any other convenient store, we're vertically integrated.
That means that we don't buy the
doughnuts from anybody else. We don't buy the bread from anybody else.
We don't buy the milk from
it. What this also means is that We do it all ourselves. We make it, we ship it, we sell
because we're a large company of 10,000 coworkers, well over 400
stores, anything that a major corporation needs we do in-house. So we have our own Kwik Trip
credit card so we have our own
credit card department. We have our own training department.
Our own human resources department. Our own marketing department. Our own store auditing
department. If there's anything that a major
Now some companies will outsource. company needs, we do it ourselves.
company. Actually, we'll outsource all the IT stuff to another IT
Or we'll outsource the building of our stores to another company.
We do it all internally because we know if we cut out the middle
man, that's more profits for our coworkers.
Our coworkers.
I talked about the profit sharing, 40% of the pretax profits.
Bonuses.
Convenient store investments that's the process by which we
Now does this make a difference for us at Kwik Trip? get all the real estate.
It certainly does. In the retail industry your
average turn over is well over
Some businesses have what's called the churn and burn That meansphilosophy.ng to turn They just want to get bodies in
the door. They're going to work you to the
death. You'll quit.
They'll just bring in a new body. Well the problem is that if you do churn and burn philosophy you
just keep going through our coworkers so quickly training is
expensive and if you really have a good culture and you're
looking for good people, it gets
people. Turn over in our industry is And so you make sure if you get good people, you keep good
less than 24%. well over 100%. I'm proud to say that ours is
less than 1%. Once people get to Kwik Trip, centerthey don't leave.office joAnd that's important for usis
because when we get good people we want to keep good people.
Even in the current economy. We grow by about 700 coworkers
every year. We have no history of layoffs in
our company since 1965 when we started.
No layoffs. Continuous growth.
Last year we had well over 100,000 applications for 700
positions because we're known as
Families helping families, it's a an internal organization.en youIf in he of you might bere going to treat you pretty well.
polling agency. They have a neat study called the Q12, the 12 questions. familiar with Gallup, the
great company and that make a great company a great place to The 12 questions that make a
12 questions is this: do I have someone at work that cares about work. And one of the Q12, one of the
cares about me as a person? And if you can answer yes to me as a person? Do I have someone at work that
that question you're much more inclined to say that this is a
good place to work. Well, for us to make sure that
families helping families where all of us, and it's optional, you don't have to do it, you can internal organization called
deducted and it goes into a big pot, and then if you're a coworker and you have a disaster, financial disaster,
maybe you're hit with a natural disaster, something's just not
assistance, we help you out. going well in your life and you need some additional financial
Maybe it's a case where, we had one of our coworkers this last Mayr in La Crosse, her apartment
was leveled by a tornado so we
paid for a new apartment for her and clothes and everything that she needed.
We've had coworkers who had a spouse that maybe had a serious illness and the spouse couldn't work and didn't have Aflac and
needed some additional
they needed to buy groceries, paid for gas to get to the So we were the internal Aflac for them and gave them the money
coworkers with well over hospital and so on. So last year we helped over 150
$150,000 in donations. It's our internal way of taking care of each other because if
your fellow coworkers take care of you, two things will happen: you'll say it's a great place to
taken care of at work you're work and if you feel like you're
also more creative at work. You come at your business from an entrepreneurial perspective
meaning that you'll come up with
As a matter of fact, in the State of Wisconsin we got the award for a company that does things efficiently and well by
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. We also care for a lot of other groups, and I'm only going to mention two of them.
We literally give out hundreds
of thousands of dollars every year to charitable causes. Again, that Wisconsin Idea that
we give back to the community,
but we don't publicize it. You won't ever see a commercial that says proud sponsor of and
some cause. Because we think we should give back to the community simply
do. Not because we get good PR out because it's the right thing to
of the deal or a good name recognition.
But for us two of our signature events that we talk about internally is something called
where we take World War II the World War II Honor Flight
As a matter of fact, I was just von our eighth flight this last for a day to see the monument dedicated to their honor.
Olympics. That's our other signature Saturday. We also do a lot with Special
cause. We raise a lot of money for
Special Olympics. And not only do we raise a lot
of money but a lot of us volunteer for Special Olympics
as well.
We were up in Stevens Point this last year for the cause.
company, neat company to work for, we've also had external Because we're a pretty neat
the best place to work in the state of Wisconsin by the sMilwaukee Journal Sentinel.. We're the third best company to
work for in the state of
Minnesota by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In Minneapolis/St. Paul,
if you know that area, it's a very competitive industry,
Google, Microsoft, a lot we're going against companies that have offices out there like
of excellent companies. So it says that really what we believe we are I think we really
are.
We do a lot for the environment. So much so that, you're the first to know this publicly, but
in a couple weeks we're going to
Wisconsin. be recognized in the state of Wisconsin as the most green company in the state of
You might think convenience store? Green?
What's up with that?
How does that happen? All the new stores that we build are LEED certified.
It's a certification that says
that how you built this store was with reusable product, renewable product, and it
dictates what we use for
As a matter of fact, if you come lighting, what type of lighting we use, how much water we use and recycle.
through a Kwik Trip car wash and if you pay for the more expensive wash and you get your
undercarriage washed, you know
when you drive over you get the underside all flushed off from the mud and snow, all the water
that gets sprayed up on the bottom side of your car, that's recycled water, so much so that every year we recycle enough to
fill up 318,000 swimming pools. The motors that we use in our stores, the type of renewable energy, some of our stores now
have solar panels on the top. We also buy wind energy from
reuse, repurpose and so on. We also believe in local cooperatives. And wherever we typical recycle,
suppliers. Whenever possible, most of the
food products that we can offer we try to buy locally.
And here's why we think it's This is just a small listing of that.
important. Food that's grown locally is
It's better for you. actually healthier for you.
We know that. Secondly, it reduces our green footprint.
If I only have to go to Stevens Point to get the potato, versus driving all the way out to Idaho
much I've saved in terms of fuel to get the potato, think of how
costs. That's important for us.
convenience store, not good, not Now, a lot of times they think
healthy food. As a matter of fact, some of you might be familiar with an author
by the name of Michael Pollan who's written a lot about food, and he has this wonderful line
says, don't ever buy your food in one of his books: advice, he
for your body where you buy the fuel for your car. Bad news.
Don't ever buy convenience store
actually partner with Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse It's awful for you. Now, we at Kwik Trip, we
for something called the 500 Club where we have a listing of
well over 30 some items in our
store that are under 500 calories and very good and
Part of the reason is we sell a lot of fruits, a lot of fresh vegetables. As a matter of fact, we go
through 17 semi loads of bananas
They're always 38 cents a pound. a week. Bananas is one of our signature items.
And here's the reason why we can offer them so cheaply.
facility even in La Crosse where We have our own banana ripening
we ripen all the bananas. You may not know this but if you were to take a banana off the
tree when it's green and you
just leave it sit on your counter and hope that it ripens, it won't.
It will turn kind of this greenish/grayish color. You actually need an additional ethylene gas pumped in there.
And that's the natural gas that a banana releases as it ripens. And if you add that additional
that's how it gets it's yellow little bit more of ethylene,
flavor or yellow color on the outside. So that's pretty important for
us in terms of local. One last story about how we think what we do at Kwik Trip is
perspective. important from a people
Our perspective of how we're successful in a business model
vertically integrated, that we isn't simply that we're
cut out the middle man, it really is about how we treat our
We think a good company will be successful regardless of what you sell, what product you people.
deliver, if you treat your develop, what product you
people well. That's really our lynchpin for
And for us it's helping our people understand that when they us.
do every day makes a difference. This is my all time favorite
Kwik Trip story.
wonderful old couple by the name Do I still have time? When I first moved to La Crosse back in 1993 I met this
of Genevieve and Ralph. Anybody from La Crosse here? Oh, good.
Do you know State Street
in La Crosse? That's where they lived. And I'd go visit Gen and Ralph
once a month. And I'm going to be honest with you and tell you why I'd do this, and this is going to sound
bad.
Every time I'd show up, Gen would make me this wonderful home cooked breakfast.
You know the kind where the eggs
are fried in the bacon grease. It's only a good breakfast if it's clogging your arteries.
So she'd make me eggs over easy,
and 11:00 in the morning. It was such a great breakfast, all kinds of stuff. So I'd stop there between 10:00
fed that well, you'd probably stop by once a month as well. This went on for a couple years. So like most of us, if you got
Gen served me the breakfast, she Finally one day I stopped in and
And for Gen who was a tremendous served me the toast but there was no butter on jam on the toast.
But you know if you're a guest cook I knew that wasn't normal. I could tell that something was up.
at somebody's house you're not going to say, hey, by the way,
jam, it's a little dry here. you forgot the butter and the
I didn't say anything. The next month I stopped by and Gen served me the eggs, I always
liked my eggs over easy.
The eggs were over and they were very easy.
still clear. It's not even white yet, it's
And I had to work to slime those babies down.
say to somebody, hey, by the But again you're not going to
way, can you put those back in the frying pan a little bit, not
I didn't say anything. done yet.
and I walked into the kitchen, The third month I stopped by, and Gen knew I was coming, it was never an unannounced visit,
ready. nothing was ready and Gen was walking around in a tizzy and she said I don't have anything
I don't remember how to turn on the stove. Well, it was the beginning
stages of Alzheimer's.
Well, we got the stove on that morning and breakfast made, and afterward Ralph would always
walk me out to the car. And Ralph said you know, John,
you can stop by once a month for a visit but if it's okay with
you I'm going to stop having Gen
I said, Ralphy, no problem, I'll make you breakfast because it's getting a little dangerous. She's starting to lose it.
and Gen and Ralph would always stop by once a month, don't worry about feeding me. So then I'd stop by once a month
be seated at the kitchen table next to each other. On the opposite side of the
table was a small television set
that was also a built-in VCR unit. Remember when those used to be a
little bit more common? Well, they were always watching the same thing. They were always watching the
Chicago Cubs on WGN.
And here was the reason why. They had grown up in Chicago, then moved to La Crosse after
they got married. Kind of lost touch with their Cubs. And then after they retired in
the mid-'80s they found out they
could get cable television in La Crosse. And with cable television in
La Crosse you also get WGN, so now you can watch the Cubs every time the Cubs play. Well, I don't follow
professional baseball all that
much so I was never really attentive to the game.
to turn it down so I could talk to them. I always had to just tell them
They had it so loud. Until I was there in the
November and they were watching the Cubs game.
And I'm pretty sure they don't play professional baseball
in November.
[LAUGHTER] Especially the Cubbies, usually they're long gone and out of it by then.
I didn't say anything. And then I stopped by in
were watching the Cubs game again. December and I noticed that they
But because my curiosity had been piqued in November, I
noticed that it was the same
game that they had been watching the previous month. So Ralph again would always walk
me out to the car, and before I left I said hey, Ralphy, can I
game every time I show up?" "Huh, are we watching the same ask you a question? "Are you watching the same Cubs
Cubs game every time you show up?
We watch the same Cubs game every single day."
"Ralph, why do you do that?" He said, "Well, we used to watch
the Cubs live on WGN, but on the days in which the Cubs would lose, Gen would be
the whole rest of her day. in this awful foul mood
She'd be cantankerous. She wouldn't fall asleep
She'd toss and turn." Those of you who have ever known at night.
someone with Alzheimer's you know that their mood swings can
be very dramatic and triggered
are losing, and in the bottom of by just the least little thing. So Ralph said what I did is I taped a game in which the Cubs
the ninth inning they come from behind and they win. And frankly, Gen doesn't
remember that it's the same game
every day. She thinks it's a new game. But at the end of the afternoon
when the game is all done she's in this wonderful mood. She's happy.
She's content. She falls asleep at night.
If that's what I have to do every day so that I can keep her at home and not put her in the
nursing home, I'm willing to do that. He says I got the whole game
I know exactly how long the commercial break is going to be so that my bathroom break doesn't miss anything.
That conversation was the first week of December. 10 days later Genevieve had down
And I knew that Ralph was going to be lost without her because hill quickly and passed away.
so much of his life the last couple years had been spent
taking care of Gen. So I just made this personal
commitment then instead of stopping by once a month,
I'd stop by once a week.
In fact, I stopped by the Friday right after the funeral that
kitchen, it's that kind of week and we're sitting in the
uncomfortable experience where you don't know what to say to somebody.
And Ralph looked at me and said you know what?
together. We need to start eating together We need to go back to the old days like when we used to eat
again. And I panicked because I thought
I don't want to be a guinea pig for this 83-year-old guy who
just now decides he's going to learn how to cook.
Well, he could tell I was nervous and he said no, no I got
for the refrigerator, opens up it all figured out. And he gets up, he walks over
the refrigerator, opens up the vegetable crisper and pulls out of the vegetable crisper a
package of our Kwik Trip
twin ham sandwiches. Now frankly, and I probably shouldn't say this because I'm
the PR spokesperson and this is being taped, but it's not the best thing we sell in our stores, folks.
It's a dry bun, thin slice of ham, thin slice of cheese.
the be all end all, it just isn't. Out of everything we sell, of all our food options, it isn't
front of my spot, one in front So he rips open the sandwiches, two in a package, puts one in
of his. Goes back to the refrigerator, pulls out a bottle of mustard,
and opens up the mustard cap and
reveals the fact that it's got that dried mustard snot.
been on there so long it's Now his dried mustard snot has
purple. So I'm thinking to myself please wipe that, wipe that off.
He doesn't, opens up the top of my sandwich, squirts it all over, shuts it. Squirts it all over his.
Puts the mustard back and says
"I got these for you because I know you love ham sandwiches."
I don't where the guy ever got I don't.
this from. [LAUGHTER]
that every Friday I would stop Well, it became this tradition
at Ralph's and we would share a package of Kwik Trip twin ham sandwiches.
This went on for six weeks. So finally at the end of the
sixth week I thought I've been mooching off this guy for a
couple weeks. Before I left I said, Ralphy, next week my treat. Before I come over I'll stop at
Kwik Trip, and I'll pick up the twin ham sandwiches, with the idea in the back of my mind that
other than ham sandwiches. maybe I could get something
And he blew up at me. Now you got to put this in context.
Ralph was a mild mannered guy.
I know you're always coming on He blew up at me. He said don't you dare go get those sandwiches.
Friday so on Thursday I go down to our Losey Boulevard store and I get those sandwiches.
Don't you dare go get those.
and he said and I go down there and I chat with all the ladies energy was coming from. And then he got real teary eyed
he said and then when I go to the register to pay for my who are working in the store. And then he just broke down and
asks me how the Cubs are doing. And he just broke down. That conversation with Ralph was working the register, she always
On February 14th, Valentine's Day, he was at home. the first week of February.
walked in and Ralph was in the His daughter Mary went to check on him before work and she
kitchen, hands on his hips. And Mary said, dad, what's the matter?
Do you know what today is?
the first time in 53 years I'd No. It's Valentine's Day today. And do you know this would be
be without my sweetheart on Valentine's Day. He said I'll be darned if it's
going to be the first.
4:15 sitting in his La-Z-Boy I'm going to be with Gen today. Mary left for work. Got a call later that afternoon.
chair in his living room, Ralph Madison passed away. So strong was his love for his
bride of 53 years, couldn't be
without her on Valentine's day. Now, the last eight weeks of Ralph's life, when he went to
the Kwik Trip store, did he get something more than just
twin ham sandwiches? The lady working the register,
do you think it was pure
And these are the kind of stories that we tell among all the Chicago Cubs? Nope.
than selling gasoline and hot dogs. oIt's about making a difference what we do is more important
And in your job, and I don't in somebody's life.
care where it is or what you do, if you know at the end of the day you made a difference in
somebody's life, that's what
brings job satisfaction and that's what makes a good company a great company.
And if you don't believe me,
read Jim Collins' book "Built to Last."
Questions, comments, concerns, Thanks.
rebuttals. [APPLAUSE]
this is their opportunity to ask questions. I see a gentleman way at the end >> The students know
over here. and so I'm going to sneak past
Thank you, John. >> Don't ask me anything real tough.
I don't know everything.
Hey, John.
>> Hi. >> I'm Bryan and I actually worked with Kwik Trip for four
years, but one of the reasons why I had to leave was because
And could you kind of explain why there aren't any in any thmetropolitan areas like, you, well, in Madison.
the city limits of Milwaukee and know, I can't think of any in
Minneapolis. And one of the things I think about that is whenever I was an
employee our store leader talked
about how we just missed the S&P ranking, I don't remember for what, but the reason why was
because there wasn't enough diversity.
wouldn't that kind of help that? And obviously I'm sure you guys have thought about that, but
four years of service. >> Yeah, excellent, excellent comments. First of all, thanks for your
We don't have stores in any of the major metropolitan areas. Milwaukee, St. Paul,
Minneapolis, Madison, and there's several different reasons for that. One is that if anything you know
about real estate, land in an inner-city is terribly
expensive. It's a little cost prohibitive
for us, number one. Number two, and I don't think it's as much as an issue here in
larger markets. Sometimes those inner-city Madison as it is in some of our
And we've made a commitment that areas, especially at night, can be unsafe areas.
So if we have an area that we will never put our coworkers in a situation that for them is unsafe.
demographically could be higher crime, we won't build there. As a matter of fact, we did have
a store here in Madison some
time ago and it had a huge crime problem and we closed it for the
We just won't put our coworkers in that area. So cost and safety are important sake of safety.
And in terms of diversity, we tried to get on the Fortune 100 list of the best companies to work for, and that's the
national list of the 100 best companies, this last year we
is diversity. We don't have as much diversity misseas they would like.much. AndInterestingly enough, ourkly,
diversity in our stores in our
company mirrors exactly the demographics of Wisconsin. We know the studies.
And we operate throughout Wisconsin, and those of us who
are from Wisconsin know that we're still pretty homogeneous
in a lot of ways. So our diversity as a company mirrors our state, but it's not as much as what you'd get on
some of the coasts. So how we change that?
back to the office because we're Boy, if you've got so suggestions, I'll bring them
get some of that diversity going wondering how to do that. We actually have recruiters going out, and hopefully once we
then that will start to mushroom, but right now we don't do too well in it.
I don't have an answer for you. Excellent questions.
I am a marketing and supply chain major, but before I ask my >> Question right here. >> Hi, my name is Kora.
question I just want to say, really good speaking job.
I laughed and teared up all in
the half hour, hour, that you spoke. Quick question for you though,
with the vertical integration that you talked about, since I'm
a supply chain major I kind of thought about that, you run a
really high risk of shortages and if a threat or something
something like that, how do you proactively manage that risk? hap>> Excellent question.ce weather ruined something or
such that we work off of Our supply chain management is
Kwik Trip and it gets scanned in automatic replenishment at Kwik Trip. So when you buy a product at
the register, within seconds the corporate office knows that on
those packages of twin ham the next truck another one of
sandwiches needs to get sent back on the next truck. So we do automatic replenishment
for that. We also have backup plans and usually we don't have to utilize
for example, the weather is bad in some of our fuel distribution them too much, but let's say,
suppliers in that specific area that to distribute a load of trucks can't get to a site. We have contracts with outside
going to be pretty rare, if you ever pull past a Kwik Trip and fuel. So every now and then, it's
the side of it, you can go oh, you see a big fuel truck and it doesn't have a Kwik Trip logo on
shoot, poor John, because what that means is we're paying a lot
have to pay for the distribution more money for it because we
cost, we got it from a different supplier, but we have those backup plans in case.
And it usually happens because
we only had about 17 instances of inclement whether. This last year in terms of fuel and store out-of-stocks, I think
for the entire year, and most of those were primarily
And sometimes, like this summer, weather-related.
we did a huge promotion on ice and water.
is send an entire truck to an area just with ice and water in addition to all of our other And what we sometimes have to do
Excellent question. >> Hi, John. products.
curious, how do you plug into that as the VP of You talkcommunications?altruism iI know that there's a lot oft
discussion in management about
We operate by a code of ethics how you feel about your mission in the company as well. >> Excellent question.
at Kwik Trip and our number one code is honesty and integrity. And the neat thing for me is
that I would never talk about it
publicly or even train on it internally in our company if it didn't start from the top.
Our owner, Don Zietlow, is
probably one of the most ethical human beings that you can imagine.
He's very altruistic. So that anything that I say or
do gets reinforced from the top. Now you know that there's a lot
of companies where the person at
So it gets reinforced from the the top isn't altruistic, doesn't have good ethics, and then it becomes problematic.
very top on down. Not only does it get reinforced, but when Don finds out one of
our stories about one of our
coworkers going above and beyond to do the right thing, we celebrate it internally.
That letter then gets published for all of our coworkers to see that week in the retail insider.
At our year-end meetings, we You might remember that.
meet with all our coworkers the first two weeks of December, you remember those as well, and
we'll share a video story of
that coworker, and that coworker who did the right thing also
recognition company called OC Tanner worth about $75. They can go on and select a prize, a present from us saying
thanks for being altruistic and doing the right thing.
So it gets rewarded as well, but it starts from the very top with
us. >> Hi, my name is Natalie and you talked a lot about coworkers
wondering if you could just share one. coming up with ideas, I was
>> Sure. Excellent question, Natalie.
I don't know if you ever get to take a peek at a Kwik Trip but
the milk is delivered in these red totes, red plastic totes.
Well, 10 years ago, the red plastic totes were solid pieces of plastic, if you will.
takes a lot of plastic to make A couple things about that, it
that and a solid piece of plastic isn't as strong as a honeycomb design, if any of you
have engineering backgrounds. So one of our coworkers said why
They're stronger, they'll be don't we make our milk totes so that they're honeycomb designed.
able to hold more weight, and it uses much less plastic. So that would be an example of a
bright idea.
Now in terms of that entrepreneurial spirit, for our coworkers we have what's called
a bright idea submission online.
If your bright ideas are So you can submit that bright idea and all those bright ideas go to the right department.
implemented then at the year-end meetings we talked about you get
We call you up on stage and say here's the great thing you did, you helped the company, here's a a hundred dollar bill.
So at all of our meetings there's always a handful of people that come up for bright hundred bucks.
Hi, I'm Laura and I'm just ideas.
wondering what made you make the switch from being a principal to
Excellent question, Laura. working at Kwik Trip?
for Kwik Trip. I was recruited by Don Zietlow. He wanted somebody to do public speaking and additional training
wanted somebody that has an Anethical perspective as well.n the back, that ethics piece was real important to Don, so he
And I used to teach a lot of that, kinds of things.
So he had heard me speak on different occasions and said, hey, would you be inclined to come work for us.
And I'm going to honest with
you, I was hesitant because as a teacher, especially in a
I always thought corporate parochial school system,
America, big bad corporate greed, I don't want to go work
But then I went down to Don's office and he talked about the for that kind of establishment.
Our profits come back to all of our coworkers. fact that we're not traditional corporate America.
Nobody gets treated with special privileges here.
Don, himself, drives a stripped down Toyota Tacoma pickup truck.
You will not find in the parking lot at Kwik Trip a spot reserved
for CEO.
He park at the end of the lot where all the rest of us park. None of us wear ties.
It's an environment where, some you might be familiar with the
term servant leadership, that we really are as leaders we're
really here to take care of our coworkers, fellow coworkers, and
follow and because they follow take care of the community. That's the model that they
that model it did fit my perspective so it didn't feel like going to corporate America,
if you will.
explain a little bit of kind of your day-to-day activities that >> Hyou do with the company.ie. I was wondering if you could
Yes. >> For me personally, Natalie?
>> No day is the same. I get called out to do speaking engagements like this.
So as a matter of fact, tomorrow
I'm going to be giving a real similar talk at the University of Saint Mary's in Winona,
Minnesota.
I also handle the large, we call it the large corporate
So if somebody calls Kwik Trip complaint calls.
Some days successfully, some and they have some huge major complaint, I'm the guy that has to handle that.
days not. I do all the coordination of all of our training departments at
Kwik Trip.
We have 10 trainers who are training our people. I help come up with that
curriculum, help write that curriculum, help deliver that curriculum. I will also do the public face
of Kwik Trip whenever we're on
the news. So if channel 19 or channel 8, whatever, says, hey, we need to
do an interview, I'm the one
that gets sent out for that. So no two days are the same.
love my job, love what I do. That's part of the reason why I
And they also, because Kwik Trip is very philanthropic, they're
business time to do what I do. the ones that give me the
For example, Jeanan and I sit on the Wisconsin Public Television friends board together.
That obviously takes time away
from my regular job, but Don Zietlow, he was the one that
you be willing to do this because we think Wisconsin came to me and said, John, would
We would like to commit not just Public Television is a huge asset in this state.
money but also some personnel resources to that cause. So they give me time and energy
to do that as well. To give back to the community because we receive so much as a company.
I'm glad you mentioned that at the end, John, because so
much you what you shared with us today is your corporate face,
but we know that you give back
personally as well as professionally so very much. I know the students join me in
thanking you for being with us
today. [APPLAUSE]