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Title
Oral history interviews with Herbert Retzlaff [Sound Recording 09]
Date(s)
- 1989-02-22 (Creation)
Extent
Audiocassette; 00:29:41
Name of creator
Biographical history
Herbert Retzlaff was born in Königsberg, Germany (which is now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1903. During World War I, his family was evacuated to Berlin. He attended the University of Munich for three years. Inflation in post-World War I Germany drove him to seek employment abroad, ultimately landing him in Portland, Oregon, in 1924, where a fellow German American offered him a job at a gas company. In 1932, he and Lucile N. Martin were married. During the Depression, Retzlaff studied accounting at the Oregon Institute of Technology and became a CPA in 1933. In 1939, he began working as an accountant for Fred Meyer Inc. In 1955, he became a vice president of Fred Meyer Inc., and he retired in 1972. Lucy N. Martin died in 1978, and in 1980, Retzlaff and Helen E. Amacher were married. He was a patron of the Portland Opera, and established the Herbert Retzlaff Chair of Management Accounting endowment at Portland State University in 1986. He died in 1999.
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Scope and content
Tape 5, Side 1. In the second session, conducted on February 22, 1989, Retzlaff continues discussing the growth of the company during his career, as well as purchasing real estate for new store locations. He also revisits the topics of merchandising, the organizational structure of Fred Meyer Inc., and his working relationship with Fred Meyer and some of his colleagues. He talks about the formation of the employee union and its relationship with management. He then revisits the topic of his early years as an accountant at Fred Meyer Inc. from 1939 to 1955, and his role as vice president in charge of the controller department from 1955 to 1972. He discusses Fred Meyer Inc.’s acquisitions of other grocery and pharmaceutical chains; talks about legal challenges the company faced; and describes the process of the company going public. He also talks about Eva Meyer’s death and its effect on Fred Meyer and the company, as well as Fred Meyer Inc.’s relationship with the Salvation Army.
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Conditions governing access
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and the estate of Herbert Retzlaff. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/
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- English
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- Hansen, Clark (Contributor)