Doug's Personal Profile
I started my retail grocery career in 1976 with Canada Safeway’s Ontario Division in the Store Construction Department gaining expertise in Store Construction, Refrigeration Systems, Equipment Procurement, and Store Maintenance.
In the Spring of 1979 I moved to Oshawa Foods in Ontario with their Engineering Department where in early 1981 I was personally instrumental in developing what was quoted as being “the nicest food store in Canada”, Oakville Place Food City.
A few years later in 1987 I was directly involved in Oshawa Foods opening of North America’s largest “KOSHER” supermarket which became an instant success and has been expanded and upgraded several times since then.
In the late ‘80’s, our then president Doug Stewart, challenged me to take Food City into the ‘90’s and “let’s have some fun”! This resulted in the development of the award winning “Market Style” Food City Store, which instantly became the industry model for future stores across Canada!
As time moved on, 1991 brought the introduction of the new “Discount” format Price Chopper stores. I was very involved from day one in their design, concept, budgeting, and ultimate implementation. This included conducting customer surveys as well as store opening presentations to our staff, helping them better understand the cultural changes that we used in the development of their new Price Chopper.
In 1996 I relocated to Oshawa Group’s Corporate Offices and was asked to implement a national engineering department which would bring together all our regions across Canada while at the same time the company changed their name to AGORA FOODS.
1997 saw Sobeys purchase The Oshawa Group. This presented many new challenges for me as I moved to their National Equipment Group to negotiate national equipment programs for Canada by leveraging the size of this new company.
In 1999 I moved to the IT department where I completed the implementation in all our Corporate and Franchise Ontario Stores of the new “Store ISP’s”. Following this I was asked to become the “Director of Store Communications” within the IT department. As computers were new, store personnel required additional support to understand how they functioned, as such, this position became the “go between” for all store IT communications and training.
The natural transition to “Director of Retail Technology” followed in 2001 where I managed a department of some 25 plus people to successfully replace all the front end Point of Sale Equipment in all the Sobeys and Price Chopper banner stores. This was followed in 2005 by the upgrading to wireless technology in all 385 stores in Ontario in less then nine months. This project was completed not only on time but also below budget.
In the Spring of 2006 I accepted the challenge to return to my engineering roots and take over the position of “Director of Store Maintenance” in a national roll to work with our four regions across the country. The main focus was to successfully implement a Facilities Maintenance Call Center program while also managing the Floor Care Program for our Ontario region. This program proved to have many financial benefits.
At the end of 2008 I retired from my very successful and rewarding career at Sobeys and started on my new venture, HUMPHRIES RETAIL CONSULTING SERVICES.