Robert Michael Haft is an entrepreneur, primarily in health care, and became a household name in the

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Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

, and

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markets for his

Crown Books Crown Books was a bookseller headquartered in Prince George's County, Maryland, with a Largo post office address. It was founded in the Washington, D.C., metro area by Robert Haft in 1977. Crown Books (retail) is of no relation to Crown Bo ...

television commercial tagline, "Books cost too much".

Education

Haft earned a B.S. in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

from the

Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...

of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1974. He simultaneously earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from Harvard Business School as well as a master's degree from Harvard's School of Design.

Dart Group

Based on a thesis he wrote in business school, Haft founded

, a discount book chain and a subsidiary of the Dart Group, in 1977 after traveling around the country for five months learning about the book business. His father,

Herbert Haft Herbert H. Haft (August 24, 1920 – September 1, 2004) was an American businessman who was famous first for the development of discount stores in the drug store, bookstore, and auto part businesses in Washington, D.C., and later as a corpor ...

, funded the initiative. In 1979 he and his father founded a discount automotive chain called

Trak Auto Trak Auto Corporation was an American retail chain specializing in automotive parts and accessories based in Landover, Maryland. Founded by Robert Haft in 1979, at its peak in 1993 it operated 333 stores around the United States under the Trak ...

, which sold auto parts and accessories such as mufflers, batteries, pressure gauges, and seat cushions for 35% to 51% below suggested retail price. They also founded Cabot Morgan real estate company, Dart Financial, and purchased an interest in Shoppers Food Warehouse. In 1982 he was appointed president and chief operating officer of its parent company, Dart Group, which made him "one of the youngest executives to head a major national company" at 29 years old. Crown Books enjoyed booming success in the early 1980s and 1990s, and Haft expanded the chain rapidly, and envisioned expanding the name to other lines, including Crown Software and Crown Music, some of which never saw actualization.

Other businesses

In the heat of a bitter divorce, Robert's father,

, then Chairman of the Dart Group, which owned a controlling share of Crown Books and Trak Auto, fired the Board of Directors of Dart Group, Crown Books, and Trak Auto, and Robert Haft as the book chain and automotive chains president. Robert countersued and won all claims; Dart Group and Crown Books were ordered to pay him about $34 million in compensation.Keith Bradsher
"Jury Rules Haft Wrongfully Dismissed Son"
''New York Times'', September 21, 1994 After he left, both previously successful chains fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. With a portion of the money from the sale of his interest in Dart Group, and proceeds from a 1994 wrongful-termination lawsuit, Haft purchased

Phar-Mor Phar-Mor (stylized as PHA℞-MOR) was a United States chain of discount drug stores, based in Youngstown, Ohio, and founded by Michael "Mickey" Monus and David Shapira in 1982. Some of its stores used the names Pharmhouse and Rx Place (purchas ...

discount drug chain in 1995, founded and grew Vitamins.com, which had internet, retail, and catalog operations, and has led National Diabetic Pharmacies and other health care businesses. In 1997, he founded Morgan Noble Healthcare Partners, a private company that invests in healthcare services and healthcare technology, which has invested in companies like Privia Healthcare, Captify Health, and Carestream Health. In 2005, he founded MainStreet Lender, which provides lending services for small business borrowers.

Personal life

He is married to Mary Haft. In 2007, he donated $2 million to the

of the

to establish the Robert Haft Entrepreneur-in-Residence Endowment Fund. He is additionally on the board of directors for Canadian book company Indigo.

References

External links

"The Haft Rivalry rides herd on the Internet"
''Nightscribe.com'', 1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:Haft, Robert American chief executives Harvard Business School alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni Living people American people of Russian-Jewish descent American real estate businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni