Do it Best adds one exec, promotes another - Dave Haist, Bob Taylor - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Nov 20, 2000

FORT WAYNE, IND. -- Do it Best has added two senior vps to its executive staff. Dave Haist, the co-op's current vp-retail development, has been promoted to senior vp-member services; he will oversee retail development, information technology, finance, human resources and the legal department.

Do it Best tapped one of its dealer-members, Bob Taylor of Taylor's Do it Center in Virginia Beach, Va., to fill the newly created position of senior vp-operations. Taylor will be responsible for retail logistics, hardware, lumber and building materials purchasing and marketing.

The co-op's six vps -- who previously reported directly to its president and CEO, Mike McClelland -- will now work under Haist and Taylor.

The 4,200-member buying group, whose wholesale sales increased by 10 percent in its latest fiscal year, required another level of management, according to McClelland, whose travel schedule often puts him out of the office for several days at a time. "We've grown in both size and complexity, and I didn't want my vps waiting for me to come back to discuss a problem and get the go ahead on a project," he said.

The 53-year-old McClelland told NHCN he has also begun working on a succession plan. "I'm making plans, but I'm not putting dates to them," he stressed. "I've looked at other transitions in the industry [which] convinced me that when I leave, it has to be a non event." Taylor, who served as Do it Best's chairman in 1999, will resign as president of Taylor's Do it Centers, which operates five hardware stores in southeastern Virginia. A sixth location in Norfolk, Va., that it purchased this year is currently being remodeled. Taylor's two brothers and a third partner will continue running the business.

Taylor said it is hard to leave a business and a community that he had helped build over the past 25 years. "But it's not like I'm going to work for Proctor & Gamble," he noted. Taylor hopes to bring a retailer's perspective to distribution, info technology and advertising services, but he doesn't see himself as an agent of change at the co-op.

"All I want to do is help keep it going in the right direction -- only a little bit faster," Taylor said.