Retailer of the Year/Food Industry Hall of Fame

too many bad things to say about me. Even people I’ve let go. You have to do that with dignity and you have to treat them fairly. It’s not that they went into the job trying to fail, but sometimes people just can’t be successful for a lot of different reasons.

The fact that you’ve been married 50-plus years is something. How did you balance your career and family?

My wife was terrific. She’s a great mother, a great lady. When I got promoted to senior VP at Albertsons, I was here in Boise, and I would travel every week. I would usually leave on Monday—I had the Southern division—and come back Thursday night, 48 weeks a year or something like that. Sharon ran our family, so I was very lucky. She raised three boys who all received master’s degrees in college. They are all good businessmen, and they are doing great.

Can you pinpoint a couple of things that your mentors did for you that you remember and you utilized yourself?

Well, certainly John Carley, who ended up being the president of Albertsons. He was a district manager in Southern Cal when I was a store director. Then he ended up in Boise. I ended up, over many moons, running the Denver division for Albertsons, and we really bonded. He would call me about once a week and we’d talk about life and business. He’d talk about what he thought it would take to be successful about anything, the people in our division, what are we doing about x, y and z. It was a great relationship that went on for many years.

Another mentor was Warren McCain, who was the

Albertsons CEO (from 1976-91) who really put the company on the map. He had run Denver for a while, which was a poorly performing division because of King Soopers, and then I was running Denver. He had a fondness for Denver, and we were able to make big progress there and get that thing turned around and doing much better. So, he would come down and visit and was really excited about what we were doing there. Warren always took me under his arm, traveled with me, talked to me about what I needed to do.

Warren also sometimes hit the automatic button on the door and sat me down and yelled at me. (When I came back to Boise as a senior VP, I was right down the hall from Warren and Joe [Albertson] and Carley.)

I heard about that—the door that closed automatically.

When that door closed you knew you were going to get something. We had some interesting times. We had some big arguments.

Because of philosophical differences?

Not necessarily that, but he wanted results. We had superstores coming to Baton Rouge and Lafayette where we were the No. 1 share and did big

TAYLOR CEO, United Supermarkets

Bob Miller has a way of building real relationships with people from the very first time they meet. I remember the day Bob walked into the room wearing a Texas Tech shirt and told me he wanted to buy our company. That small, but certainly intentional, gesture put everyone on the same level and was the beginning of a great relationship.

His relationship-based approach to business and leadership creates instant credibility and trust from everyone he works with.

Bob has the rare ability to create meaningful relationships with the most influential people in our country, and yet he can walk into a grocery store in rural Texas and immediately build that same rapport with a meat cutter back in the market.

I believe I can speak for everyone who has worked with Bob Miller for any length of time when I say that he is always available to support you and, in turn, you would do anything in your power to make Bob successful. Bob is definitely a man of his word and does everything he says he’s going to do. In my 50 years in business, I have never been around a leader who could create as much value as Bob does by being dynamic and down to earth at the same time.