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Arthur Blank Bio, Founder of Home Depot

Sports owner and co-founder of Home Depot Arthur Blank was born September 27, 1942, in Flushing, New York. After graduating from Babson College in three years with a Bachelor's degree in business administration, he took a job with Handy Dan Hardware, a chain of home improvement stores based in Los Angeles. He worked his way up in the company over the next fifteen years before being terminated in 1978 after a disagreement with his superiors.

Fellow Handy Dan manager Bernie Marcus lost his job at the same time, and the two met with a New York investment banker to discuss a plan for a new home improvement store. Along with Ron Brill and Pat Farrah, they opened the first Home Depot in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1978, and incorporated some of the ideas that had made Price Club and Costco so prosperous, especially in the economic decline of that decade. Though no membership fee was required, as with those warehouse stores, Home Depot similarly benefited from the sheer size of its stores: while Price Club used size in order to stock items in volume and sell them at a discount, Home Depot used it to stock a wide variety of options in order to accommodate the growing possibilities of home repair and home improvement.

Blank served as Chief Financial Officer for 19 years, as the chain expanded rapidly nationwide; he succeeded Marcus as Chief Executive Officer in 1997 before retiring in 2001. After retirement, he has become involved in sports ownership -- in February of 2002, he purchased the Atlanta Falcons NFL franchise, and in 2004, he bought the Georgia Force, the Arena Football League franchise, relocating it to Atlanta from the suburbs. He twice entered talks to purchase the baseball franchise the Atlanta Braves, which was ultimately sold instead to Liberty Media in 2007. He has said he remains interested in purchasing other Atlanta sports franchises, which leaves hockey, basketball, and the more minor sports.

Blank also runs the AMB Group and the Arthur Blank Family Foundation. He continues to live in Atlanta.

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