Home Depot Consolidates Western Operations

Detroit is synonymous with cars, San Francisco is known for sourdough bread and Milwaukee is hailed as a beer drinker’s paradise.

And Fullerton? It is becoming the home of home center headquarters.

Home Depot, the nation’s largest chain of do-it-yourself home improvement stores, said Monday that it has consolidated its operations west of Texas into its first regional division, based in Fullerton.

Fullerton also happens to be the headquarters of HomeClub Inc., the chain’s chief rival among warehouse home centers in the West.

A spokesman for Home Depot, which is based in Atlanta, said the company wants to restructure its management to keep pace with a rapid expansion.

“The move is in keeping with our philosophy of decentralized decision-making, which has allowed us to grow successfully while avoiding a chain-store mentality,” Home Depot Chairman Bernard Marcus said in a statement.

Home Depot, which has honed the home center concept into one of the big retailing success stories of the past couple of years, now operates 136 stores in 12 states. The new western division will include 49 of those stores. By 1994, the chain hopes to have 355 stores nationwide, with 126 in its western division. Marcus said that if the organizational “experiment” is successful, the chain may spin off other regions into separate operating divisions.

The western division will be headed by Bill Hamlin, now vice president of merchandising for the western stores. Hamlin will report to Home Depot President Arthur M. Blank.

The new division will have about 100 employees and will remain in the existing regional office in Fullerton.

Home Depot spokesman Lonnie Fogel said the organizational shake-up is expected to result in only a few new positions at the company.

HomeClub has 65 stores in 10 western states. It is the largest home center chain based on the West Coast.