ATLANTA -- The future of Home Depot's convenience store and gasoline programscheduled to build 300 sites by 2010could be in question following the departure of one of the program's primary proponents.
Jim Stoddart, senior vice president of growth initiatives, has left Home Depot effective last Friday, CSP Daily News has learned. Eric Peterson, senior vice president of merchandising services, has taken over leadership of the Fuel stores from Stoddart.
Stoddart played a key role in launching the company's Fuel stores, said Tony [image-nocss] Wilbert, a spokesperson for the Atlanta-based home-improvement retailer.
The first Home Depot Fuel location opened in September 2006. Currently, there are four Home Depot Fuel locationsthree in the Nashville, Tenn., area and one outside Atlanta. Two additional locations are under construction, Wilbert said.
The change in leadership of Fuel won't have an impact [on the c-store concept], Wilbert told CSP Daily News. However, we are re-evaluating the concept to make sure it fits with our strategy of growing sales in our core big-box stores. While the Fuel locations are doing reasonably well, we need to make sure they are driving traffic into the Home Depot stores themselves.
Stoddart, who was hired by former company CEO Bob Nardelli in 2002, oversaw several projects that looked for sales opportunities outside the chain's big-box stores, said a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. At least two of themHome Depot Fuel and Landscape Supply, a standalone nursery formatseem to be in neutral, now that new CEO Frank Blake is refocusing all growth efforts on the core business, the newspaper
That is the guiding principle underlying the back-to-basics strategy put into place when Blake took the helm in January, the report said. Rather than chase new business outside Home Depot's retail expertise, as Nardelli did, Blake is looking for sales growth by trying to rejuvenate the product mix and service within the main stores. As part of that, Blake is considering selling HD Supply, a wholesale division that was on a fast-growth track under Nardelli. Stoddart had also explored Nardelli's plan to pursue pest control services, but that apparently never took root.
Stoddart joins at least four other executives hired by Robert Nardelli who have departed since the former CEO was ousted amid criticism his pay was excessive, added a report by the Orlando Sentinel.
Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,088 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico.
Click here to read a report on a visit to one of Home Depot's c-stores by CSP's Angel Abcede and Bill Donahue.
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