Posted on 08/20/2026 7:22:50 AM PDT by xxqqzz
Forget a six-figure MBA—the path to the C-suite can start with a forklift certification. At least, that was the route for Ron Vachris, the CEO of Costco.
Today he leads one of the world's largest and most admired companies, with a compensation package worth nearly $14 million. But Vachris never set out chasing the corner office. Instead, he approached his career one step at a time, guided by advice from his father, a utility lineman.
"I wish I had the vision back in the '80s about what this industry and what this company could be," Vachris said last month at the Economic Club of Chicago. "But it rings true to my father's comments: Find this company that stands for what you want to stand for, and then the rest is up to you."
His father's lesson was simple: "Don't chase a title. Don't chase anything big. Just go make yourself your own success."
Vachris took the advice to heart. After graduating from high school in the early 1980s, he enrolled at Glendale Community College in Arizona, studying business while working part-time as a forklift driver for Price Club, the warehouse retailer that would merge with Costco in 1993. Before long, he was promoted to assistant warehouse manager—and never looked back on finishing a degree.
The climb continued steadily, including promotions in 1999 to regional vice president, chief operating officer in 2016, and by 2024, CEO. It's a career rise so unlikely that even Vachris struggles to believe it himself.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
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THE American Dream!...................
“THE American Dream!...................”
YEP!! Times 10!
Retail. Getting products from point A to point B. You don’t need a masters to figure it out.
The problem is, companies like Costco are the exception rather than the rule. Most companies reward credentials rather than work experience. That needs to change, but it won’t because there is too much money in academia.
The next c-suite occupiers will be citizens of India. It is happening right now.
Good for him!
My nephew started out at Home Depot stacking boxes, which lead to driving a forklift, then handling all the ordering in an inside office - was offered to go to their management training program but turned them down - all w/o a college degree. Don't know how far he would have gone w/o the degree.
He later finished his college degree at 30 and is now a forensic accountant making a very good salary.
This is a good story and lesson but is it applicable to most corporation today? Now so much focus is on sex and race it makes it more difficult for a white male to advance.
starting at the bottom and working your way to the top is the best way to gain a true understanding of how a company functions and what employees actually do and/or should be doing, as well as understanding the lives and work ethic of all levels of employees in a company ...
And that knowledge is reflected in the fact that Costco is known for treating its employees better than most corporations ...
In my life I worked for two manufacturing companies...first an ice cream company, much later a lighting manufacturer. Even as a virtual kid, I realized that we learn by doing, and the people who can see how to do things better are the ones who are doing it (the biggest tragedy of offshoring manufacturing to China). This man has an understanding of how Costco works that no business degree could come close to.
What? Costco couldn’t find an Indian H1B to be CEO?
Good for Ron!
My stepfather with only a high school degree rose to a very high management level with AT&T, and after retirement became a County Judge, when my mother married him he was a bar brawling ex-Marine working a blue collar job with the phone company that he would later have such a commanding job in.
I was the son of sharecropper. I was growing my farm operation, at 23 thinking the sky was the limit...
... then a guy named Jimmah Cawtuh threw a money wrench into my economic machine.
Always looking for the cloud and the rain.
You and Joe.
Instead of clapping in joy for these folks that came from driving a fork lift, to the top spot, you go negative.
Your life must be so piss pot sad, that looking for joy instead of sorrow, is too much for your sad existence.
I am sorry for you and Joe.
The dream is still there if you want it bad enough.
Bob Weiss began his long career at Disneyland as an outdoor ice cream and popcorn vendor before eventually rising to become the president of Walt Disney Imagineering.
Hamdi Ulukaya started Chobani after buying a closed yogurt factory in New York using a U.S. Small Business Administration loan. Rather than creating a new product category, he focused on improving quality and using simple ingredients. Chobani helped popularize Greek yogurt in the U.S. Ulukaya also built the company around employee ownership and community investment, showing that growth and social responsibility can co-exist.
Sara Blakely was selling fax machines door to door when she used $5,000 of her savings to develop Spanx (shapewear). Her business idea came from trying to solve a personal problem: finding undergarments that worked under white pants. Blakely handled everything from product design to sales calls herself in the early days. She never took outside funding and owned 100% of the company until she sold a controlling stake in 2021. ($1.2B)
There was a guy who came up with a revolutionary idea for resisters on sparks plugs. He had developed a company and was the ceo of it and wanted to use the resisters on their plugs. The rest of the board said no and got him to resign. He, of course still owned the patents in that company. He took his idea to another company and was allowed to purchase enough stock there to become a part owner of the company. The AC in AC/DELCO stands for Albert Champion.
In the late 40’s early 50’s there was a guy who came up with a new idea for small engines for lawn mowers with aluminum engines. He tried to sell the mower and it didn’t sell. He, almost went broke. He took on a more active partner for investing and better business practices, and marketed it right with a name change from Ace Lawnmowers, they sold like hot cakes. They company is now the largest seller of small engines in the world...Briggs and Stratton.
They are out there. And the dream doesn’t have to be riches or being famous. It can just be happy. And that’s covered in many scenerios.
wy69
You should clean your glasses, old man. Because you can’t read for shit if that’s what you took from my post. Clown.
Too much of the workforce is tied up in mega companies: Towers of Babel full of the pathologies of modernity. The “classic” America is a nation of (nearly) self-sustaining communities that function a lot like microstates.
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