I love celebrating people’s birthdays, don’t you?  Family, friends, even just casual acquaintances – Birthdays are just SPECIAL!  Today, I want to celebrate the birthday of a very special person.  His name is Jesse Lewis.  This is him (circa about 1985).

I want to share with you some things about what makes Jesse’s birthday so special to me.  

When I was just starting out in the secretarial field, Mr. Lewis (as we called him back then) was the Sr. Vice President of Store Operations for Red Food Stores, a Chattanooga, home grown grocery chain.  He later became Executive VP Operations and to those of us who worked under his leadership, we thought of him as the Captain of our ship.  In my opinion, Jesse was what Red Food was all about.   If you’re from Chattanooga you may remember the slogan, “No Stamps, No Limits, No Games, No Gimmicks, just everyday low prices!”  Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.  Jesse had cut his teeth on a paper grocery sack and had worked his way up the ladder, gathering a vast amount of operations experience along the way.  A man full of integrity, Jesse had genuine class and was always the perfect southern gentleman.  He gave me an opportunity at the young age of 22 to work in his busy office and to learn at the feet of his very professional Administrative Secretary, Nell.  (BTW, that’s what we were called back then….secretaries, which was perfectly fine with me.)  Anyhow, not only did we learn a lot about the grocery business from Jesse, we learned about life.  Jesse and his lovely wife Joyce would always take Nell and I, along with our husbands out for special dinners, whether it be for birthdays or secretaries day.  Special occasions were made even more special simply because he took time to think of us.  Oh and speaking of birthdays, many times through the last 30 years I’ve gotten a call from Jesse on my own birthday just to say "Happy Birthday".  It means so much just to know you haven't been forgotten.  Priceless, I’m just sayin. 

Back in the day, It was Jesse’s practice to spend Thursdays and Fridays out in the field, visiting stores.   He was a very hands-on type of executive and tried to know as many folks names as possible.  He loved the day to day interaction with the employees on the “front lines” and the stores (who were in good shape), loved to see him visit.  (Of course for those stores who weren’t prepared, it would turn out a little stressful to have the big boss in the store for a visit.)  Long before smart phones and Siri, Jesse would carry his mini recorder and make audio notes of things that needed attention store by store.   Nell would take that tape and type it up “memo style” to send to the District Managers for follow-up.  This follow-up would happen quickly and effectively.  I believe this is one reason I have such little patience for poor customer service today.  It CAN be done right, I’ve seen it. Anyhow, back to my story (focus Moe)….I can still see Jesse coming through the door of our office after a long hard day of visiting stores, plopping down in one of our side chairs in our office and telling us about his day.  Y’all, it was the highlight of my week when he did that!  We heard interesting stories from his early days in grocery, funny things he saw on the road or pleasant customers he had met that day.  We heard about his family, who was then and is still the most important thing to Jesse.  

I remember the morning he came in and he had been out for his morning walk.  Along the way, he saw a cat that had his head caught in a tin can.  Jesse tried to catch the cat and help it out of its predicament, but couldn’t.  In telling us the story, we could tell how upset he was that he wasn’t able to free the kitty and we just knew he would worry about it all day, which I’m sure he did.  I also remember when I got married and the gift that he and Joyce got me for my shower.  It was a super nice hand mixer.  When I opened it, Jesse said, “Now Moe, you got to stir up some good grub for Darrell with that.”  I said, “But I don’t know how”, to which he laughingly replied “Well, it’s time to learn.” Indeed it was.  

We were family at Red Food and I guess we all just assumed it would always be that way.  But as happens in life and in business, things began to change around our company.  Gradual changes at first, but then new upper management and a change with our parent company had developed a new course for us, a course that would eventually not end very well.  After a while, Jesse decided it was time for him to leave the company he loved so much and had dedicated his time and talents to build.  Let me just say, the memory of that day is still vivid in my memory.  Tears were shed, hearts were broken, not only by those who worked closely with him, but by an entire work force of dedicated employees in over 50 store locations, who believed in the same principles and philosophies that Jesse had stood for and had instilled in us.   We felt lost.  Those were some dark days for sure.  But you know what?  You just can’t keep a good man down and what we lost at Red Food, was gained by other companies who were blessed with Jesse's knowledge and expertise like we were.

  

Fast forward to 2015.  Jesse has gone on to touch many more lives and companies over the past 30 years or so and I have recently found out that they love him just as much as we do!  Who knew?But that’s okay, we’re glad to share him! 

As the Executive VP of Food City, who is now taking over the stores that used to be Red Food (now Bi-Lo), Jesse is effectively “coming home”.   I’m not going to give out his age (he can do that if he wants to), but let’s just say, most people have loooooong retired by now.  I’m thinking retirement is not in his short range goals, especially since he’s got 29 more stores to bring into Food City’s family.  

Here's a picture from the Press Conference announcing the buyout of 29 Bi-Lo Stores in Chattanooga.  Everyone in this picture worked with Jesse at Red Food.  Pictured (LtoR) Kim Moses (Accounting/Front Office), Bob Oldham (CFO), Me, Jesse, Don Haynes (VP of Real Estate) and Curtis Johnson (Human Resources/Community Involvement).  

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jesse Lewis!  I hope it’s a good one and to quote one of your favorite people (Paul Bear Bryant) “If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold someday, you gotta know the password and it's Roll, Tide, Roll!”  (I think you’ve got that one down pat so you're good!)