Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9307300082
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KNOXVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Long
A painted bronze and steel sculpture blooms 30 feet high in the foyer's arched atrium. The arch reflects the company logo, a G in the center of an arch.
The arch also is a architectural touch in the buyers' quarters at the $20 million headquarters and distribution center that Goody's Family Clothing Inc. built 2 1/2 years ago along the interstate.
Goody's headquarters, on 44 acres with magnolia trees lining the driveway, is an extension of Goodfriend, son of the company's founder.
"I thought when I built this office that I'd never build another one," said Goodfriend last week. Besides, it's where he spends most of his time, he points out.
Some of the designer touches in Goodfriend's office are silk upholstered and cream-colored marble walls, black lacquer and mahogany cabinets, and a glass-top table with upholstered chairs.
He said he not only made his own suite nice, but tried to do the same for other company workers.
Employee restrooms have ceramic tile floors and walls. Artwork related to fashion, textiles and clothing is sprinkled throughout the headquarters.
Working in upscale quarters seems important to a company intent on upgrading its image.
Goodfriend, 43, took charge of the company in 1977 when it was still a discount-store chain named Athens Outlet Stores. He renamed it Goody's, his nickname at Babson College in Boston.
He said the name is sometimes confused with the headache powder maker but it also gets the clothing chain extra publicity when the headache powder race car does well.
With the name change, the company took on a new direction, selling known labels at lower prices than other retailers, a niche Goodfriend describes as somewhere between a discounter and a department store.
The company has been successful, Goodfriend said, but he admits making some mistakes including overbuilding stores in the late 1980s.
The Goody's store at Market Place in Christiansburg was one such store, he said.
The first year's sales there were not what the company had hoped for. Only after he began to advertise the store in the Roanoke market did it start to make revenue goals.
And Goodfriend said that when he took company public in October 1991, it was probably a year and a half later than it should have been.
"Entrepreneurially, I'd probably gone as far as I could go," he said.
He said at the end of 1991 he decided he could do one of three things: get a new management team and grow, go backward or sell out.
He opted for growth; he's aiming for $1 billion in annual sales. This year sales are expected to reach $500,000.
In the move to public stock company, the sale of 3.95 million shares at $15 each raised $59.2 million for Goody's and earned about $30 million for the Goodfriend family, which owns 63 percent of the stock.
In March, Goodfriend hired Roger Jenkins, one of his son's college professors at the University of Tennessee, to be the company president.
Goodfriend still calls him "Dr. Jenkins."
Jenkins already was on the company's board when he was hired for its top office, so the two knew each other well. So even when the conversation is about how Goodfriend has to let go of day-to-day operations, it's an easy discussion.
Goodfriend said Jenkins' challenge is to take the company from a one-man show to a "well-oiled" retail operation.
"Yes, the classical entrepreneur has to change style," said Jenkins. "He will never be far from the business. I and my staff will allow him that pulse."
Jenkins said Goodfriend has known where he wanted to take the company but not how to get there.
He said the company has "been far too reactive."
In the next 16 weeks, the executive staff and Management Horizons, a retail consulting company, will work on a five-year plan that also will provide a "blueprint" for how Goody's wants to look in 2000, said Jenkins.
The new president has assembled an almost completely new executive staff to help him carry out the plan.
Two of them, Joe Elles, vice president for merchandising, and John Thompson, executive vice president for systems and the company's chief information officer, came from VF Corp., Goody's second largest jeans supplier.
Jenkins and Goodfriend say the two were recruited separately. They were so concerned about VF's reaction that Goodfriend wrote a letter to VF chairman Larry Pugh explaining the recruitment process that netted them two of his executives.
One part of the Goody's plan, Goodfriend and Jenkins agree, is accelerated growth.
Goodfriend said the growth will be kept in the Southeast for the next two to three years because "we understand what the customer wants in this part of the country."
They want to be in 15 states by the end of next year.
Goodfriend said Goody's store also might get "a tad larger" as it moves into bigger communities. However, a lot of what happens depends upon the success of the company's planned entrance into the Birmingham market in early 1994.
by CNB