Photo: The Hobby Lobby store in Onalaska, Wisconsin.
Patagonia’s founder recently made news when he gave away the ownership in his company to allow the mission and purpose to remain intact. His decision, while rare, reflects the decision of other business owners like Alan Barnhart of Barnhart Crane.
I experienced a similar decision-making process with my ownership of Hobby Lobby; I chose God.
— from an op-ed by David Green on FoxNews.com, October 2022.
It’s been almost 4 years since successful entrepreneur David Green — the founder, with his late wife Barbara, of Hobby Lobby — handed his business over to God. So to speak. The transition to a new CEO hasn’t hurt the company’s profits, as far as I can tell.
In 1970, David and Barbara took out a $600 loan to begin making miniature picture frames out of their home. Two years later, they opened a 300-square-foot store in Oklahoma City, and Hobby Lobby was born. The company now has more than 1,000 stores, with approximately 50,000 employees, and offices in China and Vietnam.
I find that surprising, that Hobby Lobby has offices in China and Vietnam, but as we know, God works in mysterious ways.
God’s annual revenue from Hobby Lobby, for 2024, was approximately $8 billion. That’s an unofficial estimate. Hobby Lobby is privately owned — as noted — and doesn’t have to publish a public annual report.
So I’m thinking, maybe I’m in the wrong business. Or else, the company I work for — the Pagosa Daily Post — has the wrong CEO?
Since I like doing math, I multiplied 50,000 employees by Hobby Lobby’s unusually high minimum wage for full-time employees ($19.50 per hour, or about $40,000 a year) and came up with a payroll of $2 billion. Seems like God is a generous boss. But we knew that already.
From David Green’s October 2022 Fox News op-ed:
We worked hard and God gave the results. As we were blessed by God, we saw it as a great privilege to give back. We’ve been able to provide hope through supporting ministries and planting churches all over the world.
That bigger mission and purpose helped me realize that I was just a steward, a manager of what God had entrusted me. God was the true owner of my business.
One of the fringe benefits of handing your multi-billion-dollar company over to God might be special treatment by the U.S. Supreme Court, when you want to deny your employees certain types of health insurance benefits, in violation of the Affordable Care Act.
I think it’s been pretty well established that God disapproves of ObamaCare. If we could just hand the whole federal government over to God, that would solve a lot of our problems.
That’s probably not going to happen.
But having Donald Trump as President is the next best thing.
Since the Green family didn’t actually expect God to show up for board meetings, they structured the ownership transition through a trust. I assume that the trustees are each having their own private conversations with the CEO… and bringing that input to the board meetings?
I doubt that God would have been interested in owning Hobby Lobby back in 2013, when social media was circulating negative comments about antisemitism at Hobby Lobby.
The company had got itself mired in controversy after a blogger reported that the chain neglected to stock Hanukkah items. After calling a New Jersey Hobby Lobby store and inquiring about the Hannukah items, the blogger was reportedly told: “We don’t cater to you people here.”
Ouch.
In a subsequently published statement, David Green’s son — Hobby Lobby President Steve Green — apologized for the alleged remark and indicated that his company has “deep respect for the Jewish faith.”
As we all know, God’s son was Jewish.
The lack of Hannukah items has since been straightened out.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.