Founder of Best Buy, Richard Schulze, to speak at this week's Rotary meeting

The Rotary Club of Edina will welcome Richard M. "Dick" Schulze as the program speaker at the Thursday, Aug. 25, meeting. He is the founder and chairman emeritus of Best Buy. Best Buy is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.

A St. Paul native, Schulze founded his own company, The Sound of Music, in 1966. The business expanded to six stores in Minnesota by 1983, when Schulze renamed it Best Buy, adopted a warehouse format, and expanded into many more kinds of consumer products. The company soon went public and began a period of remarkable growth when Schulze revolutionized the industry by introducing the superstore to electronics. He served as Best Buy’s Chief Executive Officer from 1983 to 2002 and then as Chairman until 2012. He rejoined the company in 2013 as Founder and Chairman Emeritus. 

Schulze has long supported nonprofit organizations in the Twin Cities and Minnesota, as well as made significant donations to the University of St. Thomas and other institutions. Schulze started The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation in 2004. In June 2013, Schulze announced plans to gradually expand the Foundation from $100 million to about $1 billion. Schulze chairs the Foundation’s board of trustees. In years to come, Schulze hopes to be remembered by a personal legacy involving three major contributions through business, entrepreneurship education and philanthropy.

 

Hannelore Brucker will give her classification talk at the meeting.