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WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - Randy Edeker cannot imagine being anyplace other than where he finds himself - less than three months away from becoming chairman and chief executive officer of Hy-Vee Food Stores, a company he has literally grown up with.
Before the chain moved its headquarters here in 1995, its headquarters and original distribution center were located on Osceola Avenue in Chariton, Iowa - just down the street from where Edeker grew up.
"The Hy-Vee trucks went by my house all the time and, because Chariton was a town of just 4,000, we all knew the Hy-Vee executives," he explained.
So it wasn't a surprise when Edeker took a part-time entry-level job at a Hy-Vee store when he was 18. What was a surprise, he told SN , was that he's stayed with the company for the last 31 years.
"I didn't intend to stay," he said. "I wanted to be a football coach and to teach. But when you find something that works for you, you need to stay, and that's what happened with Hy-Vee.
"So I feel it's one of the greatest honors ever to be offered the position of chairman and CEO of a company I've grown up loving."
Because the store he originally worked at was so close to the company's offices, Dwight Vredenburg, the chain's first chairman, used to come into that store, Edeker recalled "so I had several opportunities to meet with Dwight and carry out groceries for him."
Edeker, 49, is scheduled to succeed Ric Jurgens as chairman...