W. Howard Lester

W. Howard Lester (August 14, 1935 – November 15, 2010) was an American businessman who took over Williams-Sonoma, Inc. in 1976 and acquired Pottery Barn in 1986, building a major catalog retailer that had more than 600 stores and annual sales of $3.4 billion by the time of his death.He dropped out of college and was drafted and served in the United States Army; he completed his degree after leaving military service.[2] Lester used his computer expertise to oversee the design of a database that tracked the buying habits of its 4.5 million customers.[2] Lester stepped down as the company's chairman in the months before his death, by which time Williams-Sonoma and its network of catalogs had grown to 600 stores and annual sales of $3.4 billion.[1] A resident of Indian Wells, California, Lester died at the age of 75 on November 15, 2010, due to cancer.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc.Pottery BarnDurant, OklahomaUniversity of OklahomaUnited States ArmySonoma, CaliforniaChuck WilliamsLester Center for EntrepreneurshipUniversity of California, BerkeleyHaas School of BusinessIndian Wells, CaliforniaThe New York TimesFortune