Experience
Sam Crowley has spent more than 30 years in the retail business
developing and refining store concepts for both small and large
chains. The first ten years of his career were spent in the retail
record business, helping to grow a mall-based chain of record
stores called Disc Records. He developed a successful free-
standing store concept for the company before it was sold to
Western Merchandisers in 1979. The next ten years were spent in
the consumer electronics arena, developing a Dallas-based chain
called Videoland. The chain grew to 13 stores before being
acquired by the Federated Group, a California-based consumer
electronics chain. Mr. Crowley spent four more years in the senior
management group at Federated, taking over the leadership of the
140 store chain when it was purchased by Atari. He left Federated
in 1989 to join the start-up of Soft Warehouse, which grew into the
$5 billion CompUSA chain. As an EVP at CompUSA, Mr. Crowley
was responsible for sales and operations for retail, corporate
sales, tech support, and training. He helped to lead the company to
a dominant position in the industry before leaving in March of 2000
after the company was purchased by Grupo Carso. Most recently,
Mr. Crowley was brought on board as Senior VP of New Ventures at
the Michael’s Arts & Crafts chain to develop and launch a new
scrapbook store concept. The Recollections stores have had a
successful launch and achieved significant industry recognition.
Michaels has committed to opening 10 more stores in the next year
and is touting the stores as an important part of the company’s
growth plans. In addition, Mr. Crowley has served for the past 7
years as a Director and Audit Committee chairman at U. S. Cellular,
a $3 Billion cellular telephone company based in Chicago, Illinois.
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