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Title
Oral history interviews with Herbert Retzlaff [Sound Recording 12]
Date(s)
- 1989-03-01 (Creation)
Extent
Audiocassette; 00:30:32
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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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Tape 6, Side 2. In the third session, conducted on March 1, 1989, Retzlaff continues discussing Fred Meyer Inc.’s relationship with the Salvation Army, as well as other charities. He speaks at length about Fred Meyer’s personality; his relationships with family, friends, and employees; and his management style. He then talks about some of Fred Meyer, Inc.’s business ventures, including the Eve’s Restaurant chain of coffee shops, the Willamette Savings and Loan, and some of the company’s other acquisitions. He also talks about the sale of Fred Meyer Inc. to the Kravitz, Kohlberg, & Roberts Company. He discusses the company politics that led Fred Meyer to step away from the day-to-day operations of the company. He talks about his retirement in 1972, Fred Meyer’s death in 1978, and the management at Fred Meyer Inc., at the time of the interview in 1989. He closes the interview by sharing his thoughts about the future of Fred Meyer Inc.
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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)