Bernie Marcus, the co-founder and former CEO of the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer chain Home Depot, has died at the age of 95.
Known for his sharp business abilities and longtime philanthropic work, Marcus served as a longtime public figure to the city of Atlanta and the primary financer to well-beloved Atlanta institutions such as The Georgia Aquarium and nonprofit organizations such as The Marcus Institute and The Marcus Foundation.
The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Newark, New Jersey, Marcus began working at 11 years old to help support his family.
After graduating from South Side High School, the low-income teenager attended the prestigious Rutger’s University, where he later obtained a degree in pharmacy.
Marcus began work as a pharmacist before working his way up in various business ventures. He found success as the CEO of Handy Dan Improvement Centers, a Los Angeles-based home improvement retail chain.
There, Marcus would meet future business partner and Atlanta resident Arthur Blank, who served as his senior vice president.
Marcus thought that he had finally landed a stable path to success until he and Blank were unceremoniously fired in 1978 after a corporate power struggle against businessman Sanford C. Sigoloff, who owned Handy Dan’s parent company, Daylin Inc. at the time.
“You read about these corporate pushes where it is done with very little sensitivity. We had taken this chain … from about 5 or 6 stores to 80 stores, and it was the most successful company in the United States at that time,” Marcus recalled to WABE’s Rose Scott in a 2018 interview.
“We were owned by a company that owned 80% of our company, and they were in bankruptcy … the guy who ran [the home company] basically fired us for personal reasons.”
A mentor convinced Marcus that his departure from Handy Dan’s was an opportunity to build the store he had always talked about creating, which would later become The Home Depot.
Research for affordable real estate, with a capital of $2 million, brought Marcus and Blank to the city of Atlanta in the late 1970s.
“Everything was on the line. I was 50 years of age that point … if Home Depot didn’t make it, we were broke,” Marcus recalled to Scott.
The billionaire also noted the initial fear he and Blank had regarding whether the American public was prepared for such an innovative business model for the time.
“[Today], you’re used to seeing Home Depot store; you’re used to seeing these gigantic stores, but back then, that didn’t exist in 78′ and 79′,” Marcus said. “[Also], home improvement was unique and unusual in the United States, maybe in the world, and we didn’t know if people would respond well to it.”
Their first two stores opened on June 22, 1978, in Atlanta. However, due to a mistake, their opening day advertisement was left out of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, leaving both stores empty and Marcus and Blank fearful about the company’s future.
The Home Depot soon built a slow but steady following among metro Atlanta residents.
So much so that in 1981, the private company went public, opening stores in Florida and later in states throughout the country.
“It was a ride that had its moments … it was hard,” said Marcus on the first five years of going public. “We were lucky to have found such great people to join us. We had wonderful people at the store level, at the merchandising level … and because we had those kinds of people, the product is still the Home Depot that we have today.”
The retail chain steadily grew in the 1980s and 1990s, accumulating over 200 stores in three countries.
To capitalize on their success story from what was at first a risky business venture, Marcus and Blank co-authored the book, “Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion.”
After over 20 years of overseeing the company’s daily operations, Marcus stepped down as CEO of Home Depot in 2002, determined to focus his time and influence on philanthropic work.
A Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service recipient, Marcus immersed himself in several nonprofit organizations, foundations and charities, many of which he founded or co-founded.
One of these foundations, named after the business leader, serves Jewish children and families through medical research and granting community resources.
To help create more job opportunities for out-of-work Americans, Marcus funded the Job Creators Network, a nonpartisan organization whose mission is “to educate employees of Main Street America, so we can protect the 90 million people who depend on the success of small businesses.”
Marcus also founded The Marcus Institute, which assists in providing financial and medical support to the families of children with brain disorders.
The Institute, alongside Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, collaborated to establish The Marcus Center, which, according to Marcus in a 2023 interview with the On Leadership with the Atlanta Business Chronicle podcast, is the largest autism center taking care of more children in the world.
In the same podcast, Marcus noted that his involvement with autism dates back to the early 1980s when an employee had a son who suffered from developmental and behavioral issues.
“Nobody understood what it was,” he remembered. “In my travels around the country … I stopped off at different universities, different facilities and see if they had problems [similar to] this kid. Turns out there were many kids like that. It was called autism. [Home Depot] established a place at Emory, and we started taking care of these kids.”
Other medical contributions include The Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center and The Marcus Trauma Center, gifted by The Marcus Foundation by Grady Health System, expanding space and medical care for brain injury and trauma patients on the medical campus.
Marcus’ most well-known financial contribution is that of $250 million to the city of Atlanta for The Georgia Aquarium, which he publicly acknowledged as a thank you to the city that allowed him to build his fortune.
With over 60 exhibits and over 10 million gallons of water, the aquarium is the largest in the United States and the fourth largest worldwide.
A longtime Republican, Marcus was openly vocal about his political views despite the controversy it sometimes garnered.
In a 2022 interview with the Financial Times, Marcus said he was “worried about capitalism” and bashed socialism, labeling the political theory as the reason for what he described as an “entitled workforce.”
“Nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money,” he stated in the interview. “I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.”
In 2019, Marcus was met with heavy criticism and calls for a boycott of Home Depot stores after announcing that he would financially support Trump’s 2020 presidential election campaign, an announcement he repeated in 2023 with Trump’s third presidential campaign for office.
“I understand the frustration of some of my Republican friends who do not like or are offended by things Donald Trump does and says. I, too, have been frustrated at times, but we cannot let his brash style be the reason we walk away from his otherwise excellent stewardship of the United States during his first term in office,” Marcus wrote, defending his endorsement in a 2023 op-ed for RealClear Politics.
“I was born here and can give testimony about The American Dream. I lost my job and was broke [in 1978] when I was 48 years old … only in America, the land of opportunity, could being without a job and broke be a great opportunity. In 1978, my partners and I built four hardware stores, and this small business grew and is known as The Home Depot.”
Marcus is survived by his wife, Billi, stepson Michael and son Frederick Marcus.
Correction: a previous version of this story incorrectly stated Marcus was survived by his daughter Susanne Marcus Collins. Collins died on June 19, 2021.
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