Costco vs. Walmart/Sam’s Club
Posted
on Sep 03, 2014
Costco’s $20.89 average wage vs. Walmart Stores’ $12.67 has been well publicized. But that cost differential has to be made up somewhere - how does Costco compete with the juggernaut Sam Walton built? Wednesday, September 3, retired HP executive and part-time CSU Adjunct Professor Stacy Plemmons will examine the different business models through the lens of a 2007 business book, Firms of Endearment...
Stacy Plemmons was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, but grew up in the major metropolitan areas of Rye, Swink and Haxtun, Colorado before coming to CSU as an agriculture major. After an initial lackluster academic record he discovered his passion in business, graduated in Marketing and returned 4 years later for an MS in Information Systems. He spent 32 years in business before retiring from Hewlett Packard-Singapore in 2001. His 24+ year HP career included 4 years as Vice President of HP-India, 2 years as HPCP Regional General Manager, based in Singapore, and 2 years in that other ‘foreign country’, California.
After retirement he volunteer as CEO of Maury Albertson’s non-profit, Village Earth, and spent 2 years in Samoa (the independent nation, not ‘American Samoa’) as the US Peace Corps Country Director, studying the differences between for-profit and non-profit leadership. In 2005 he joined the graduate faculty of the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, primarily teaching the ‘soft-skills’ of leadership, teamwork and organizational execution/performance. In 2014 he became part-time faculty in CSU’s College of Business.
Stacy and his wife Nancy, have two sons, Kris and Ryan, and enjoy walking, biking, cooking and learning other cultures through books, movies and travel. Returning to his agrarian roots, Stacy also enjoys gardening and home improvement projects.