Patrick "Pat" Farrah is an American former retail executive who is a co-founder of

Home Depot The Home Depot, Inc., is an American multinational corporation, multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the l ...

. Patrick Farrah was born and raised in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. Dropping out of junior college in the first year, in 1962 he took a job at National Lumber and Supply Company in the Los Angeles Area. As the company grew into a small chain, he worked his way up from stock boy to executive vice president and general manager of National Lumber and Supply. In 1977, following a disagreement with the owners, he left the company. With a background in merchandising, Farrah in 1978 started his own big box home improvement retailer called Homeco. At the time,

Bernard Marcus Bernard "Bernie" Marcus (born May 12, 1929) is an American billionaire businessman. He co-founded The Home Depot and was the company's first CEO, and chairman until retiring in 2002. Early life and education Bernard Marcus was born to Russian Je ...

and

Arthur Blank Arthur M. Blank (born September 27, 1942) is an American businessman and a co-founder of the home improvement retailer The Home Depot. He also currently owns two professional sports teams based in Atlanta, Georgia - the Atlanta Falcons of the Na ...

wanted to start a company that eventually became Home Depot. On seeing Homeco, Marcus realized that Farrah shared the same vision he had for a big box retailer. Marcus and Blank looked into buying Homeco, but the business had financing issues. When Homeco went out of business, they hired Farrah to help them launch Home Depot. He was offered a position as chief merchandising officer. In the early 1990s, Farrah left Home Depot to pursue his own interests. He rejoined in 1996 and retired in the early 2000s. At the first global DIY Summit held in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, on June 9, 2011, Farrah was awarded the first Global DIY Lifetime Award, presented by the European DIY Retail Association (EDRA), the European Federation of DIY Manufacturers (fediyma) and the Global Home Improvement Network.

References

* Patricia Sellers
''Fortune'' article
''Fortune'', 4 March 1966 Businesspeople from Atlanta Living people Year of birth missing (living people) The Home Depot people {{US-business-bio-stub