10 Things You Didn't Know about Core-Mark Holding CEO Thomas Perkins

Thomas Perkins was the previous CEO of Core-Mark Holdings. As such, he oversaw a corporation that was responsible for handling the distribution of fresh, chilled, and frozen products to a huge swathe of the convenience stores that can be found in the United States. Here are 10 things that you may or may not have known about Thomas Perkins:

1. Went to Northern Arizona University

For his education, Perkins went to Northern Arizona University. In short, said school came into existence when Arizona was still a territory rather than a state, but managed to receive a huge boost during the Depression because it did its best to accommodate its students by offering them jobs in its facilities to make it possible for them to afford their education. On top of this, Northern Arizona University was famous for its diverse students as well, which is why it was the alma mater for the first Hopi to receive a college degree.

2. Is a CPA

Curiously, Perkins has the right to be called a CPA, which stands for a Certified Public Accountant. Essentially, this means that he has the expertise and experience to provide interested parties with professional accounting services, which is important because accounting documents can't be trusted unless they have been prepared in the proper manner. In fact, this is so important that some states outright forbid people from being called accountant if they lack the CPA designation.

3. Became a Controller

In time, Perkins became a controller, which is responsible for supervising accounting as well as other financial reporting functions for a business. It is a natural step-up for ambitious business-minded accountants, which is why there are more than a few CEOs out there who have followed a similar path.

4. Has Business Experience From Before Core-Mark Holdings

Perkins has given more than 24 years to Core-Mark Holdings. However, it is interesting to note that he has business experience from before that particular corporation, seeing as how he was a controller at Pepsi Cola Company before moving on over to become a controller at Core-Mark Holdings.

5. Rose Up Through the Ranks

From the position of controller, Perkins managed to rise up through the ranks at Core-Mark Holdings. This can be seen in how he winded up becoming the person in charge of Spokane operations before becoming the person in charge of Arizona operations and so on and so forth. Over time, his responsibilities became broader and broader until he winded up on top of Core-Mark Holdings.

6. Saw Inefficiencies in Chosen Market

As CEO, Perkins spoke out about the inefficiencies of the distribution system for convenience stores in the United States. Essentially, there is a wide range of distributors responsible for distributing a wide range of products to convenience stores, meaning that a single convenience store would have to be supplied by multiple trucks operated by multiple companies.

7. Saw Opportunities in Those Inefficiencies

Perhaps unsurprisingly, eliminating those inefficiencies was one of the places where Perkins focused on expanding Core-Mark Holdings. Said course of action served to strength the corporation's position while enabling it to bring in more and more money at the same time, thus making it very beneficial when executed well.

8. Interested in Big Data

Like a lot of distributors and other companies involved in logistics, Perkins's Core-Mark Holdings was very interested in Big Data. After all, it was in the perfect position to collect a huge amount of information about what was happening, so it made sense that it would put in the effort needed to actually make use of that information by analyzing it with the necessary tools.

9. Saw a Gap in Independent Stores

Under Perkins, Core-Mark Holdings saw an interesting gap between chains and independent stores. In short, chains were much better at making a profit than independent stores because chains just had much more marketing as well as category management expertise.

10. Sought to Fill that Gap

Since Core-Mark Holdings was in the perfect position to understand said topics, it should come as no surprise to learn that Perkins pushed for it to fill that gap between chains and independent stores, thus enabling it to make use of its collected information in a very practical manner.

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