Friends, family and business and community leaders gathered today to pay tribute to Stu Thoms, a Quad Cities business innovator, philanthropist, public servant and family man.
Stuart W. Thoms died peacefully at his Rock Island home on Thursday, Aug. 10. He was 89. Together with his wife, Mary L. Jordan Thoms, who preceded him in death in 2008, Stu Thoms raised a family of future business and community leaders.
All five of Stu and Mary Thoms’ children would grow up in the then family-owned business Thoms Proestler Co., Inc. or TPC, (now Performance Foodservice – Thoms Proestler). While working there, their daughter Mary Beth Tennant and sons Steven, Michael, Thomas and Theodore, witnessed their father’s successful efforts to reimagine and grow a multi-generational family business formerly known as H.T. Proestler Co., Inc.
On Monday, Aug. 14, hours before Mr. Thoms’ visitation at Wheelan Pressley Funeral Home in Rock Island, Stu Thoms’ son, Rock Island Mayor Mike Thoms, spoke to the QCBJ about his father, “a man of integrity, honest and full of love.”
Mike Thoms said he had “the pleasure of working” with his father at TPC for 30 years. “He was a believer that you needed to learn whatever the process was from the ground up,” Mike Thoms said. “My first job, as an example, was in the freezer. For the first two and a half years of employment there I was on the third shift taking orders for our customers.”
While coming up through the ranks, Mike Thoms said he drove trucks, made deliveries and did other jobs. His three brothers and sister have similar tales to tell.
As children they may have grumbled from time to time, he said, but as adults they appreciated their father’s “fair but firm hand.”
“Later on in life you look back and say, ‘Boy, that made a difference in my life and how I grew up,’ Mayor Thoms said. “My brothers and sister were the same way.”
Ahead of his time
In the business world, Stu Thoms also proved to be “insightful,” Mike Thoms added. His father took over at the company founded by his great-grandfather in 1956 after Stu graduated from the University of Iowa, where he also played football and basketball.
In those days, Mike Thoms said, the company was largely a retail business that sold groceries – such as staples like eggs, butter and milk – to small neighborhood mom and pop stores around the region. As those corner grocery stores began to disappear, Stu Thoms began to convert TPC to institutional wholesale food for restaurants. He also helped form a buyers’ group of independent wholesalers that allowed TPC to compete against larger corporate buyers. Originally called Nugget, it exists today as part of PFG (Performance Food Group), which also took over ownership of the family-owned TPC in 2002.
“He was very good at having the insight of where to go,” Mike Thoms said of his dad.
For example, he added, Stu Thoms changed the company’s family-first management structure to one that enabled department managers to be part of TPC’s core team. That core included nine members – five non-family members and four family members.
“That’s who led the business,” Mr. Thoms said. They had a lot of control as managers and could even override the family when it came to decision-making. “Let the experts be the experts in their field,” Mike Thoms said. And as a result, TPC saw double digit profits every year.
Leading by example
Stu Thoms also gave back to the community and taught his children to do so.
“He would walk the talk,” Mike Thoms said. His dad’s community work included serving as a founding member of the Development Association of Rock Island (DARI), and he was on the board of the former Rejuvenate Davenport.
Stu Thoms also was a member of the board of the Rock Island YMCA since it was located in downtown Rock Island and a key fundraiser in the effort to build a new one. He served on the boards of the Illinois Quad Cities Civic Center Authority, Bethany For Children & Families, Junior Achievement and the former Franciscan Hospital. He also created a scholarship for Rock Island High School students.
Then there were the individual families and individuals the Thoms quietly helped get established, their son said. For example, a family seeking to buy a home and another who needed a used car to get around. “That’s the kind of things that he would do. He just tried to lift them up.”
As a result of their parents’ example, Mr. Thoms said, all five of his siblings are active in their community and they passed that legacy along to Stu and Mary Thoms’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The elder Mr. Thoms also was involved in politics. Though Stu Thoms never ran for office, he supported various candidates, including son Mike’s successful mayoral run and his recent unsuccessful bid for the Illinois Senate.
