Sol Price - Biography

Sol Price (January 23, 1916 – December 14, 2009) was the founder of FedMart and Price Club (since merged into Costco). He is considered a pioneer of the "warehouse store" retail model.

Born in New York City, Price was the son of Samuel and Bella Price, immigrants to the United States from Minsk (Russia), in the early years of the 20th century. The name Price, which later became so apt, was assigned at Ellis Island; the original name may have been Press or Preuss. The family relocated to San Diego in the early 1920s.

Price was a 1934 graduate of San Diego State University, and in 1938 earned a law degree from the University of Southern California Law School, by which time he had married his girlfriend Helen Moskowitz, the couple eloping to Las Vegas. Price was admitted to the California Bar in November 1938.

Price launched the first FedMart in 1954 and founded Price Club in 1976. The company went public in 1980. In 1993 Costco merged with (bought) Price Club to form PriceCostco. Leadership in the new organization was shared between Sol Price's son, Robert, and James Sinegal. After eight months, PriceCostco spun off a separate company called Price Enterprises, led by the younger Price. The company eventually evolved into PriceSmart, which operates warehouse clubs overseas, while the domestic operations became Costco.

Sam Walton of Wal-Mart wrote in his book Made in America that he "borrowed" "as many ideas from Sol Price as from anybody else in the business". He added that he especially liked the idea of calling his discount chain "Wal-Mart" because he "really liked Sol's FedMart name". In 1983, Walton dined with Price and later that year the first Sam's Club was opened in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

In the late 1980s, Price donated $2 million to the construction of a new student center on the campus of University of California, San Diego. Named for Price, the Price Center, which houses the main student bookstore, food court, movie theater, ballrooms, and meeting rooms, opened on April 21, 1989.

In 2011, the Price Family Charitable Fund donated $50 million to the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning, and Development. The school was renamed the Sol Price School of Public Policy as a result of the donation.

Price is responsible for injecting money and aiding the renaissance being experienced in the San Diego mid-city neighborhood City Heights, where he resided in the 1930s. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., the Board of Directors for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Consumer Affairs Advisory Committee of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the San Diego Financial Review Panel.