Floyd Hall

This article is about American businessman. For American pilot, see Floyd D. Hall. For University of Florida building, see Griffin-Floyd Hall.

Floyd Hall (born September 4, 1938) is an American business executive and sports team owner.

Life and career

Hall was born to a modest family in Oklahoma.[1] He left school at the age of 15.[1] He attended Southern Methodist University, but did not graduate.

Hall started working at Montgomery Ward in August 1956. From 1970 to 1984, he was regional vice president at the Singer Company. Later he was hired by B. Dalton Booksellers, where he was subsequently promoted to chief executive officer (CEO). He was appointed as chairman and CEO of Target Stores in 1981.[2] James Goldsmith appointed Hall as partner and CEO of the Grand Union grocery chain, which he controlled, in February 1984.[2] Goldsmith sold his shareholding in Grand Union's parent Generale Occidentale to French conglomerate Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE) in 1987, who sold the chain onto a management buyout led by Hall for $655 million in 1988.[3][4] Grand Union was sold a year later, with Hall leaving and jointly setting up the museum reproduction company Museum Co..[5]

Hall was appointed president and CEO of Kmart, which was struggling, from 1995.[6]

Hall was the chief executive officer of Kmart from June 1995 – 2000. During Hall's term in office, the chain sold off several specialty businesses to focus on its core discount store business, remodeled the stores into the Big Kmart format, and acquired the Martha Stewart line of household products.

In 1997, Hall formed a partnership with the state of New Jersey and Montclair State University, Floyd Hall Enterprises, which supervised construction of the 4,000-seat Yogi Berra Stadium, home field for the New Jersey Jackals baseball team, and a two-rink ice arena, Floyd Hall Arena,[7] both located on the campus of Montclair State University.[8] Hall sold the Jackals to Al Dorso in 2017[9] and the ice arena back to Montclair State in a transaction finalized in early 2020; the university then renamed the building the Montclair State University Ice Arena.

In 2006, after the New Jersey Cardinals were relocated to Pennsylvania and became the State College Spikes, Hall started a second team to play in the Cardinals’ former home of Skylands Park in Augusta, New Jersey. The team, known as the Sussex Skyhawks, began play in 2006 and won the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball championship two years later, but the team did not draw well and Hall folded the team after the 2010 season citing significant financial losses, the lack of an interested buyer, and the desire to focus on the Jackals and his other operations. (Oddly enough, current Jackals owner Al Dorso did the same thing that Hall did but in reverse; he started the Sussex County Miners, a replacement for the Skyhawks, and later purchased the Jackals.)

Hall was nominated [10] on February 10, 2006, by President George W. Bush to serve on the Amtrak Reform Board for a five-year term of office. Hall was earlier appointed [11] in a recess appointment to the same position on January 4, 2006.

He is a resident of Montclair, New Jersey.[12]

Hall completed Harvard Business School's advanced management program in 1977.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b Fallon, Ivan (1991). Billionaire: the life and times of Sir James Goldsmith. Hutchinson. p. 407.
  2. ^ a b Cuff, Daniel L. "BUSINESS PEOPLE; Target Store Chairman To Head Grand Union", The New York Times, February 17, 1984. Accessed November 11, 2007. "Floyd Hall, chairman and chief executive of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation's Target discount store chain, has been named chairman and chief executive of the Grand Union supermarket chain."
  3. ^ "A management group has organized a leveraged". Los Angeles Times. January 13, 1988.
  4. ^ "La Générale occidentale revend sa filiale Grand Union à ses cadres américains". Le Monde. January 13, 1988.
  5. ^ "Ex-Californian Is a Surprise Choice to Head Kmart Stores : Retailing: Troubled chain turns to Floyd Hall, a former Target executive. He promises to broaden customer base". Los Angeles Times. June 6, 1995.
  6. ^ Gilpin, Kenneth N. "A Specialist In Rebounds To Run Kmart", The New York Times, June 6, 1995. Accessed November 11, 2007. "The Kmart Corporation said yesterday that it had hired Floyd Hall, a specialist in pumping new life into sagging retailers, as its new chairman and chief executive."
  7. ^ "Floyd Hall Arena". RinkAtlas. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
  8. ^ "Contacts". New Jersey Jackals. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
  9. ^ Speddon, Zach (May 5, 2017). "Al Dorso Purchases New Jersey Jackals". Ballpark Digest. August Publications. Retrieved May 5, 2017.
  10. ^ White House Nominations Sent to the Senate press release dated February 10, 2006
  11. ^ White House Personnel Announcement press release dated January 4, 2006
  12. ^ Wald, Matthew L. "Amtrak's Own Board Sows Alarm About System's Future", The New York Times, February 20, 2005. Accessed November 11, 2007. "Mr. Laney, a Dallas lawyer and Bush campaign donor who is a former chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, declined a request for an interview, as did the other two outside members of the board, Floyd Hall, of Montclair, N.J., a retired chairman of Kmart, and Enrique Sosa, of Miami."
  13. ^ "- NOMINATIONS OF ROBERT CRANDALL, FLOYD HALL, AND LOUIS THOMPSON, TO BE MEMBERS OF THE AMTRAK REFORM BOARD". www.govinfo.gov.