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A clothes chain born of life's twists

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published August 13, 2006

Chico's FAS Inc. has a history of surprising people.

Born as a laid-back boutique that sold Mexican folk art and some apparel to Sanibel Island tourists, the chain's founders, Marvin and Helene Garlnick, paired his instincts as an importer with his wife's taste in fashion.

They hit pay-dirt with several emerging trends. Chico's was an early adopter in the shift to stateside design and offshore apparel production. They romanced aging baby boomers while competitors remain youth-obsessed. They discovered the growing appeal of upscale village-style shopping centers while others stuck to malls.

The unlikely chain's meteoric growth through the late 1990s lured a parade of Seventh Avenue fashion talent to end-of-the-road Fort Myers.

The greatest concentration of stores are in California, Florida and Texas. But ground zero of Chico's popularity is affluent, retiree-rich Scottsdale, Ariz., where one Chico's had annual sales of $7.8-million in 2005, almost four times the company average.

The Gralnicks are less active these days. At 71, Marvin is chairman. Helene, 58, is a director who has an oversight role in the fashion statement.

Three years ago they turned over the CEO's reins to a no-nonsense executive with 10 years experience in the apparel trade.

From a humble start driving trucks in high school for Virginia plumbing wholesaler Ferguson Enterprises, Scott Edmonds rose quickly to find himself at age 26 in homebuilding-crazed Naples/Fort Myers as the wholesaler's youngest-ever division president.

He never thought about "getting into the rag trade" until he "got restless after turning 30 and realizing I had worked all my life for one company."

Chico's hired him to supervise its move into a new headquarters in 1993 for a substantial cut in pay.

A decade later he became CEO and was credited with organizing the systems and back office infrastructure to support a $2-billion company.

Edmonds, 48, has set foot in college classrooms three times - two of them to deliver talks about Chico's to MBA students at Ivy League business schools. In June, he was named retail executive of the year by the Florida Retail Federation.

A calculated risk taker, Edmonds has a passion for deep sea fishing, water skiing and helping his wife, Mary, raise her 13 Appaloosa horses for national competition on their farm in rural Fort Myers. They have vacation retreats in Key Largo and Costa Rica. One of their two daughters, 19-year-old Haley, interned at White House/Black Market before enrolling at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

"I think my strength is hiring people smarter than me and letting them do their job," he said.

[Last modified August 12, 2006, 20:29:40]