John V. Shields, Jr., the former Chief Executive Officer of Trader Joe’s Company, has passed away at the age of 82.

Shields received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1954 and MBA in 1956 from Stanford University and served as an artillery lieutenant in the U.S. Army. 

He began his business career with Macy’s in 1958.  After 20 years, he left that retailer as Senior Vice President of Operations.  He then moved to Mervyn’s in 1978, and after nine years there, he retired as the Vice President of Operations. 

His retirement only lasted five weeks.  According to his obituary, his former fraternity brother, Joe Coulombe, then offered him a position as President of the Trader Joe’s Company in 1987. 

By 1989, John became the CEO.  In his 12 years in that role, he grew the retailer from 27 stores to a national company with 158 stores in 13 states.  In that time, sales increased from $127 million in 1987 to over $1.8 billion in 2001.

John was named the Master Entrepreneur of the Year in 1993 and honored as the Retailer of the Year by the Institute of Retail Management at California State University, L.A. the following year.

John is survived by son, John (Sandy) Shields III; daughters, Kathleen (Kelly) Shields and Karen (Kerry) Haake; son, Michael Shields; and five grandchildren, Courtney, Dominic, Cassidy, Michaela and Cole.

AndNowUKnow would like to offer our heartfelt sympathies to John’s family and friends. He will certainly be missed.