Since 2001, Supervalu, Inc., the Eden Prairie–based grocery and distribution giant, has made a pair of exceedingly important and complex transformations.
First came Jeff Noddle’s hiring as CEO in 2002. A CEO transition is a challenging time for any company, and Supervalu had operated under the leadership of Michael Wright for more than two decades. Then last year, Supervalu acquired Idaho-based supermarket chain Albertsons, Inc., picking up in the process 1,150 retail stores across the country and assuming leading market shares in Chicago, Boston, and numerous western states. The acquisition lifted Supervalu’s sales: The company reported fiscal year 2008 first quarter sales of $13.3 billion, compared with $5.8 billion in the first quarter of 2007. The Albertsons purchase also significantly altered the company’s revenue stream. Before, it was split evenly between retail and wholesale; today, it flows far more heavily—80 percent—from the retail side. As Noddle observes, “It was really a transformational transaction for us.”
Noddle credits Edwin “Skip” Gage, a Supervalu board member since 1986, with helping guide the firm successfully through these critical transitions. “Skip is a senior director and a senior advisor for us—an absolute stalwart of our board,” Noddle says. “He made tremendous contributions.”
Gage launched Gage Marketing Group, a Plymouth-based promotions firm with specific expertise in Web-based marketing, in 1992 after ending his tenure as CEO of Minnetonka-based Carlson Companies. Gage had assumed the Carlson CEO position in 1989, when his father-in-law, company founder Curt Carlson, underwent open-heart surgery. “I think Curt thought he wouldn’t be active for a while after his surgery, but that wasn’t the case,” Gage recalls. “He really wanted to be more active, and we both ended up doing the same job.”
Carlson, Gage adds, “generally didn’t like his executives to go on other boards. But Supervalu had been one of his first major clients when he was in the trading-stamp business, and we respected the company very much. He sort of broke his own rule and let me go on the board.”
According to Noddle, Gage brought with him innovative corporate-governance strategies, including a CEO review process. Each of the 13 Supervalu directors fills out a formal evaluation and provides numerical ratings in several categories. Noddle then can look at the ratings, read the specific comments provided, and get a sense of his strengths and weaknesses.
“Skip put that in years ago, long before it [was seen as] appropriate and prudent to do those types of things,” Noddle says. “It’s good for the company, and it’s something I value very much. It helps me decide where I need to spend my time.”
Besides his seat at Supervalu, Gage sits on the boards of Carlson Companies and two affiliated firms, Carlson Holdings and Carlson Real Estate Company. In addition, he’s a board member of the Kellogg School of Management at his alma mater, Northwestern University. And he recently wrapped up a three-year term as chair of the board of overseers for the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
