ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta Information First) – Bernie Marcus — who co-founded a house enchancment retail chain that modified the American enterprise panorama after which constructed a world-class aquarium for his adopted dwelling metropolis — has died. He was 95.
The Dwelling Depot introduced his passing on Tuesday morning.
“The complete Dwelling Depot household is deeply saddened by the demise of our co-founder Bernie Marcus. We owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Bernie,” they mentioned in an announcement. “He was a grasp service provider and a retail visionary. However much more importantly, he valued our associates, prospects and communities above all. He’s left us with a useful legacy and the spine of our firm: our values.”
Born in 1929 and raised by his Russian Jewish mother and father in Newark, New Jersey, Marcus went to work at age 13, abandoning his ambitions to grow to be a Harvard-educated physician to ultimately earn a level from Rutgers. He labored briefly as a pharmacist earlier than getting into retail gross sales. By the mid-Nineteen Seventies, Marcus was an government at Los Angeles-based Helpful Dan Dwelling Enchancment Facilities, the place he met Arthur Clean.
In April 1978 Marcus and Clean had been fired, and good friend and enterprise affiliate Ken Langone satisfied Marcus to open his personal enterprise. Collectively, Marcus, Clean and Langone based The Dwelling Depot, and opened their first-ever two shops in Atlanta on June 22, 1979.
Inside two years, The Dwelling Depot went public, and at present has greater than 2,300 shops in North America.
Marcus retired from actively working at The Dwelling Depot in 2002, after which donated greater than $200 million from his private fortune to construct the Georgia Aquarium, one of many world’s largest. Because it opened in November 2005, the aquarium has grow to be considered one of Atlanta’s and Georgia’s prime vacationer locations.
In 1999 and at the side of author Bob Andelman, Marcus and Clean co-wrote “Constructed From Scratch: How a Couple of Common Guys Grew The Dwelling Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion.” The ebook was launched to coincide with The Dwelling Depot’s twentieth anniversary.
In an announcement, Clean mentioned he was “heartbroken” on the information.
“Immediately, I’ve misplaced a father-figure, mentor, brother and enterprise and life associate,” he wrote. “Whereas this loss is profoundly painful, I’m grateful for the near 60 years we spent collectively, navigating challenges and celebrating successes, and I’m honored to have been a part of Bernie’s exceptional life.”
Atlanta’s company leaders have lengthy been concerned with the town’s philanthropic communities, and Marcus was no exception. In 1991, Marcus based the Israel Democracy Institute and the Marcus Institute, which later turned the Marcus Autism Middle after a merger with Youngsters’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In 2002, he donated $3.9 million to the Atlanta-based Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention to create an emergency anthrax response middle.
In 2009 Marcus was inducted as a Georgia Trustee by the Georgia Historic Society and the governor’s workplace.
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