5 Great Things About Robert Wegman

All from his Washington Post obituary:

1. I don't have to pray every Sunday that Timmy Trainee knows the PLU code for scallions or napa cabbage:

   He was a leader in adapting technology to the sale of groceries and helped introduce the Universal Product Code, the identifying computer markings now standard on most packaged goods.

2. His store treats customers like valued guests, not temporarily useful interlopers. That means you don't get the Portal of Unhappiness feeling common at a lot of other "super" stores:

   Each year, Wegmans receives thousands of requests from the public asking the company to open supermarkets in their communities.

3. His first moves after inheriting the business in 1950 were surprisingly atypical:

   He immediately raised the wages of the staff and inaugurated a comprehensive health insurance plan. He broke down the corporate hierarchy so completely that, in one of his first acts, he fired his mother from her position as vice president. She didn't speak to him for three years.

4. His corporate vision was expansive but sensible, and his philanthropy was generous but precise:

   "I always said we didn't want to be the largest," Mr. Wegman once said, "but we did want to be the best."

5. The results speak for themselves:

   In 1994, supermarket analyst Neil Stern told the Wall Street Journal that he considered Rochester-based Wegmans "the best chain in the country, maybe in the world."