Northwest Arkansas Business Journal 2009 Fast 15: Rand Waddoups
by February 23, 2009 12:00 am 235 views
Rand Waddoups, 31
Senior director of strategy and sustainability
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville
Claim to Fame: Helps make improving the supply chain a business opportunity rather than a cost.
Next Step: “I’d love to continue with Wal-Mart. I love what it’s becoming and where it’s going.”
As a member of Generation X, Rand Waddoups occasionally relates better to older co-workers than to those much nearer his own age in Gen Y as technology shrinks the traditonal generation gap.
While Waddoups has no trouble indentifying the wisdom that can come from sitting in meetings with current and former Wal-Mart CEOs Mike Duke and Lee Scott, he said he has to also pay enough attention “to know what a Twitter is.”
Unlike some of the younger set who rely increasingly on impersonal communications such as text mesaging, e-mail or the aforementioned Twitter, Waddoups still puts value on face-to-face encounters.
“I’m a believer in the coaching by walking around mentality that Wal-Mart creates,” Waddoups said. “When you can go see somebody instead of sending an e-mail, nothing can replace that interaction.”
Waddoups was a buyer for seven years working in dairy, frozen and dry grocery before taking his current position two years ago. As the director of sustainability and strategy at Wal-Mart, Waddoups said the best part of his job is “feeling great” when he goes home at night knowing the world’s largest company is making progress each day toward its “green” goals.
“Up until a year-and-a-half ago, Wal-Mart spent money on trash,” Waddoups said. “Today, Wal-Mart makes money on trash.”
Waddoups landed an internship at Wal-Mart heading into his junior year at Bringham Young Univeristy in Utah when he came across some clipboards with empty interview slots in the recruiting office.
A good interview led to a meeting with a corporate recruiter and a 1998 summer intership. Waddoups said his time with Wal-Mart then was “cool and all, but I thought there must be greener pastures.”
It turned out those green pastures were indeed in Northwest Arkansas and when faced with a choice of Bentonville or Manhattan, Waddoups and his wife chose the Natural State to settle down and raise a family while she went to law school and he got his MBA from the UA.
He said that working at Wal-Mart means, “There are more days when I say, ‘I get to go home and tell my kids about that.'”
(RELATED: Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 15 Young Pros on the Fast Track)