Joe Nocera, Columnist

A CEO Who Made the Tough Choices on Guns

A Q&A with Ed Stack, the steward and conscience of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., about his new book.

October 8, 2019 at 3:30 PM UTC

Joe Nocera is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is the host and writer of the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."

Ed StackPhotographer: Michael Cohen/Getty Images

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Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. started as a single store in Binghamton, New York, catering to fishermen. In short order, the owner, Dick Stack, added hunting gear, including rifles. When Dick’s son Ed began working for his dad as a teenager, handling rifles was part of his job. Guns were second nature.

By his early 20s, Ed Stack was essentially running Dick’s (though his father remained the owner). Once he hit 30 and was fully in charge, he embarked on an expansion that’s never ended: Dick’s now has around 750 stores, which generated $8.5 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year.