W. Howard Lester
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W. Howard Lester (August 14, 1935 – November 15, 2010) was an American businessman who took over Williams-Sonoma, Inc. in 1976 and acquired
Pottery Barn Pottery Barn is an American upscale home furnishing store chain and e-commerce company, with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc. The company is headq ...
in 1986, building a major catalog retailer that had more than 600 stores and annual sales of $3.4 billion by the time of his death.


Biography

Lester was born on August 14, 1935, in
Durant, Oklahoma Durant () is a city in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States that serves as the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The population was 18,589 in the 2020 census. Durant is the principal city of the Durant Micropolitan Statistical A ...
, and worked in a series of jobs before enrolling at the University of Oklahoma. He dropped out of college and was drafted and served in the United States Army; he completed his degree after leaving military service.Martin, Douglas
"W. Howard Lester, Williams-Sonoma Owner, Dies at 75"
'' The New York Times'', November 18, 2010. Accessed November 19, 2010.
Following a series of careers, including working for IBM, Lester founded an employment agency. By 1976, he built and sold a computer software company he had established and was looking for another prospective business opportunity. A friend told him about Williams-Sonoma, and Lester analyzed the business for months in detail. The company had been established in 1956 in Sonoma, California, and had grown to four stores. Its catalog business had grown substantially under the guidance of Edward Marcus, and the firm's founder Chuck Williams was looking to move on after Marcus died in 1976. Lester said, "I felt like I could run it better," and together with partner James McMahan bought the company for $100,000 and the assumption of $700,000 in debt, at which point the company was generating $4 million in annual revenue. Lester worked as the company's chief executive officer and initially focused on building the company's catalog sales. He focused on finding prime locations in malls starting in the 1980s at a pace of five new stores per year. Lester used his computer expertise to oversee the design of a database that tracked the buying habits of its 4.5 million customers. In 1986, Lester acquired Pottery Barn, a division of Gap that had sales of $6 million at its 25 stores.Shambora, Jessica
"Williams-Sonoma's secret sauce"
''
Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'', July 15, 2010. Accessed November 19, 2010.
Lester stepped down as the company's chairman in the months before his death, by which time Williams-Sonoma and its network of catalogs had grown to 600 stores and annual sales of $3.4 billion. Lester's contributions helped create the
Lester Center for Entrepreneurship The Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program is a program and the primary locus for the study and promotion of entrepreneurship and new enterprise development at the University of California Berkeley. The offices are located in the Faculty Building ...
at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. A resident of Indian Wells, California, Lester died at the age of 75 on November 15, 2010, due to cancer. He was buried at the Mountain Cemetery in Sonoma, Sonoma County, California.Duggan's Sera Mortuary
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lester, W. Howard Businesspeople from California People from Durant, Oklahoma People from Indian Wells, California United States Army soldiers University of Oklahoma alumni Deaths from cancer in California 1935 births 2010 deaths Williams-Sonoma people People from Sonoma, California 20th-century American businesspeople