Tower of Strength: The Home Depot Celebrates the Legacy of Faye Wilson

Originally published on Built from Scratch

The Home Depot and our associates remember and honor Faye Wilson, an industry trailblazer who was instrumental in our company’s expansion, a champion of The Home Depot’s culture, and our first female board director. She passed away Monday, July 10.

“Wilson is a reserved, unassuming woman who doesn’t look like a powerhouse, but she speaks with great passion,” said Home Depot founders Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus in their book, "Built from Scratch". “She is an articulate woman who is not afraid to stand up and be heard.”

Wilson, who had a 21-year career with Bank of America, secured funding to grow The Home Depot from 19 stores to 100 stores with Blank and Marcus. When banks began dropping out of an early financing round, Wilson worked around the clock and put her job on the line to convince her bank’s loan officer to fund the company’s expansion. In "Built from Scratch", Blank and Marcus say, “…she literally saved our company. …” They would commonly refer to Wilson as their “tower of strength.”

When Marcus and Blank set their sights on a 500-store expansion, they knew they needed Wilson as a member of the team. They asked her to join the board of directors, where she served from 1992 through 2001. Wilson joined The Home Depot as senior vice president (SVP) of value initiatives in 1998 and later became SVP of risk management. During her tenure, she created The Home Depot’s values wheel, which today appears on every Home Depot apron, throughout our buildings and facilities, and is a critical representation of the company’s culture. 

“She understood who we were, how we ran our business, the culture – she understood everything about The Home Depot,” said Blank in "Built from Scratch". “She also loved to be in our stores. This was a woman who loved The Home Depot as much as we did.”

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