Fred G. Meyer (né Grubmeyer) was born in Germany in 1886, and immigrated to the United States with his family at age 2. In 1909, Meyer moved to Portland, Oregon, where he sold coffee and tea door-to-door and managed sidewalk stands. In 1919, he married Eva Chatfield Chiles (1887-1960).

In 1922, Meyer opened a Piggly Wiggly store in Portland with his younger brother Henry and a third partner. However, he had a falling out with his partners, and by 1927 had established Fred Meyer, Inc., a self-service store. In the course of his career operating Fred Meyer, Inc., Meyer added departments to his stores including clothing, pharmaceutical drugs, hardware, and toys, making him a pioneer in the development of one-stop shopping.

By the time he died in 1978, Fred G. Meyer controlled 63 stores in five states and had more than 10,000 employees. Although he had not been a generous donor during his lifetime, his will called for the bulk of his estate, valued at $120 million, to be used to create a charitable trust.

Sources: "Fred G. Meyer (1886-1978)," by Fred Leeson, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/meyer-fred/; vital statistics via Ancestry.com.

Oran Benjamen Robertson was born in 1917 in Turner, Oregon. In 1945, he began working for Fred Meyer, Inc. as director of engineering, a job that entailed designing new stores and remodeling older ones. At the start of his career, one of his challenges was proving to his boss, Fred G. Meyer, that nicer stores were more profitable. To that end, he upgraded some stores without informing Meyer. Though this angered Meyer, the redesigned stores sold more merchandise, proving Robertson's hypothesis correct.

Robertson became a vice president in 1959, and first vice president in 1972. The following year, he was appointed to the newly created job of vice chair. When Meyer died in 1978, Robertson became the board chair and chief executive officer. As CEO, Robertson adopted a consensus-based leadership approach that involved the whole management team. During his tenure as CEO, sales at Fred Meyer stores tripled from $645 million to $1.8 billion. Robertson retired in 1988 and died in 1999.

Sources: Obituary in the Oregonian, August 16, 1999, page B1; vital statistics from Ancestry.com.