Julian Paul Raines (April 4, 1964 – March 4, 2018) was the CEO of GameStop, the largest retailer of

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s worldwide, from 2010 to 2017.

Early life and education

Raines was born in 1964 in Costa Rica and raised in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

as an only child. His mother, of Costa Rican descent, worked as a secretary and occasional translator, and his father, a

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

veteran, became a district manager for a major convenience store operator, after a career in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. Raines spent his summers in Costa Rica visiting his grandmother. In 1985, Raines graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...

and a minor in

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

Career

Raines worked for 10 years at

Kurt Salmon Kurt Salmon was a global management and strategy consulting firm formed by the merger of Ineum Consulting and Kurt Salmon Associates (KSA) in January 2011: *Ineum Consulting was formed as a spin-off from Deloitte France's consulting division, a ...

, 4 years at

L.L.Bean L.L.Bean is an American privately-held retail company that was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean. The company, headquartered in the place in which it was founded, in Freeport, Maine, specializes in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment. ...

, followed by 8 years at

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

, where he was executive vice president for U.S. stores and president of the more than 2,000-store Southern division. There, in 2005, he prepared for Hurricane Katrina by preparing extra supplies and generators to run the stores in the storm’s strike zone. He joined GameStop as

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

in 2008, became CEO in June 2010, and stepped down due to brain cancer in November 2017. He received total compensation of $9.1 million in 2015 and $7.8 million in 2016. Raines was a member of the board of directors of GameStop, J.C. Penney, and

Advance Auto Parts Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (Advance) is an American automotive aftermarket parts provider. Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, it serves both professional installer and do it yourself (DIY) customers. As of July 13, 2019, Advance operated 4 ...

Personal life

Raines was married to Claudia, a native of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, and had two children: Victoria and Julian. In 2008, they moved to

Southlake, Texas Southlake is a city located predominantly in Tarrant County with minor areas extending into Denton County in the U.S. state of Texas. Southlake is a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth. As of th2019 census estimateit had a population of 32,376. Histo ...

. To understand his customers and to have fun, Raines played video games for 4 hours each week. Raines funded scholarships for Hispanic students at Georgia Tech and created GameStop's Gamer Fund to help employees in times of need. Raines was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 2014 and died of the illness on March 4, 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raines, J Paul 1964 births 2018 deaths Georgia Tech alumni GameStop people Deaths from brain tumor American people of Costa Rican descent