By James R. Hagerty
When Starbucks Corp. was expanding so fast it seemed to pop up
on every other street corner, Orin Smith's role was to keep his
overcaffeinated colleagues from getting carried away. He insisted
on thinking things over and discussing alternatives before making
decisions -- a habit that earned him the nickname of
"tortoise."
Mr. Smith joined the coffee company in 1990 as chief financial
officer and oversaw its initial public offering in 1992. He was
promoted to president and chief operating officer in 1994 and
served as CEO from 2000 until his retirement in 2005, when the
company had more than 9,200 stores globally, up from 45 when he
arrived in 1990.
"Orin was a constant calming influence in the company and always
had a very clear strategic lens," said Howard Schultz, a former
Starbucks CEO who is now executive chairman.
Howard Behar, a former Starbucks executive and board member,
said Mr. Schultz was "the dreamer," while "Orin was the guy who had
to make it work."
Though known for his composure, Mr. Smith drank four or five
cups of coffee a day. "I'm always wired," he assured The Wall
Street Journal in 2003.
Mr. Smith died March 1 of pancreatic cancer at age 75.
It was always easy to read Mr. Schultz's emotions, said Deidra
Wager, a former Starbucks executive. Mr. Smith was different. When
presented with an idea, "he'd ask a few cogent questions," Ms.
Wager said, "and then you wouldn't know when and how you would get
an answer. He analyzed and thought about everything and collected
alternative opinions. Sometimes it felt like a slow process."
His deliberative approach, she said, was a useful counterpoint
to the more emotional and impetuous styles of some colleagues.
Orin Clayton Smith, the oldest of five children, was born June
26, 1942, in the logging town of Ryderwood, Wash., and grew up in
Chehalis, Wash., a small town about halfway between Seattle and
Portland. His father was a plumber whose health problems prevented
him from full-time work, leaving the family reliant on his mother's
modest wages from secretarial jobs.
As a boy, Orin earned money by delivering newspapers and picking
strawberries. He was a starting guard on a high school basketball
team that won a state tournament in 1960.
After attending nearby Centralia College, he transferred to the
University of Washington, where he earned a bachelor's degree in
business administration. William Greiner, who taught him
constitutional law, inspired Mr. Smith with the idea of aiming high
and applying to Harvard Business School. He was accepted and earned
his MBA there in 1967.
After graduating from Harvard, Mr. Smith briefly tried teaching
at Idaho State University. He then got a consulting job at Touche
Ross & Co., where he worked for 14 years and was
partner-in-charge of the Northwest practice. He later helped run
freight-transportation companies and headed Washington State's
Office of Financial Management.
As Starbucks began thinking about going public, it needed a
strong chief financial officer, Mr. Schultz recalled. Jeff Brotman,
a founder of the Costco store chain and an early Starbucks
investor, knew Mr. Smith and recommended him for that CFO job.
Messrs. Schultz and Smith bonded quickly. "He was the older brother
I never had," Mr. Schultz said.
One of Mr. Smith's tasks was to find ways to show Starbucks was
a good corporate citizen. He lined up a partnership with
Conservation International, a nonprofit group, to set guidelines
aimed at ensuring coffee bought by Starbucks was "ethically grown
and responsibly traded," as Mr. Schultz put it.
One challenge was that Starbucks had become so large and
standardized that it was often seen as an impersonal corporate
machine threatening to crush local coffeehouses with their charming
idiosyncrasies. In a 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal,
Mr. Smith argued that Starbucks had helped build up demand for
premium coffee that benefited its rivals. "We have created the
umbrella under which they are thriving," he said. "They can do well
right next door to us."
He conceded that independents could offer more-distinctive décor
and atmosphere. Still, he said, not everyone wants "old couches and
chairs to lounge around on."
At age 62, Mr. Smith retired and turned his attention to
philanthropy. He was particularly interested in helping his
hometown of Chehalis by funding educational programs there, as well
as a library named for his mother, Vernetta Smith.
He also served on the boards of Walt Disney Co. and Nike
Inc.
Mr. Smith is survived by his wife, Janet, and her two sons, as
well as by two brothers and a sister.
He had a long memory for people who helped him. Four decades
after Mr. Greiner encouraged him to apply to Harvard, Mr. Smith
tracked down his former teacher, who in the meantime had served as
president of the University at Buffalo, and thanked him for that
long-ago inspiration. Mr. Smith also made a donation to the
University at Buffalo, funding a William R. Greiner Law Faculty
Reading Room.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 16, 2018 10:14 ET (14:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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