August 4, 2017

Costco co-founder and board chairman, Jeff Brotman, dies at 74

Jeff Brotman, who co-founded retail titan Costco and served as chairman of its board of directors, died at his Seattle home. He was 74.

        The evening before his death, Brotman attended a dinner in Seattle for roughly 2,000 Costco managers from around the world.

        Brotman and Jim Sinegal opened the first Costco warehouse in Kirkland in 1983. Within two years of the first Costco location opening, three more locations opened in Spokane, Wash., Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City, Utah.

        Today, Costco operates more than 700 warehouses around the world, more than 500 of those are in the US and Puerto Rico. Last year, Costco generated revenue of nearly $119 billion.

        Costco was founded using a simple formula; sell a limited amount of products, keep costs low, depend on high volume, entice upscale consumers and small business owners and have consumers buy memberships, according to media reports.

        Brotman was born in Tacoma, Washington on Sept. 27, 1942. He attended the University of Washington where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1964 and a law degree in 1967. He is survived by his wife, brother, two children and two grandchildren.

 

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