Harps Food Stores promotes Van Hoose to president

Springdale-based Harps Food Stores announced Tuesday (Feb. 1) that longtime executive J. Max Van Hoose is the company’s new president. Van Hoose assumed the role on Jan. 3.

“J. Max has demonstrated his value to Harps in a great many ways during his tenure as executive vice president and I am very happy to see this well-deserved promotion take place,” Chairman and CEO Kim Eskew said in a statement.

Van Hoose is a Northwest Arkansas native and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. In 1997, after earning his master’s degree in business administration at the University of Kansas, Van Hoose joined Harps as director of construction and equipment.

In 2002, the company promoted him to vice president of store planning and then later to executive vice president.

Van Hoose will continue to oversee the company’s store development, acquisitions, construction and real estate activities.

Harps started in 1930 and is the largest employee-owned company in Arkansas with more than 5,000 employees and 120 grocery stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas.