Retail community loses a leader

by Larry Meyer
MRA Chairman and CEO

In 1972 when my career with Michigan Retailers started, Skip Ungrodt was the first person I met. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to MRA.

Skip, along with Ed Jones and Hugh Jarvis, were some of the most active members of MRA leadership, and that leadership brought strength and legitimacy to our association. It was an important time of growth for MRA, and our current success has been built upon the hard work of retail leaders like these.

Skip was involved in all MRA services. He also participated annually at the highest levels of MRA PAC contribution and vigorously supported MRA’s legislative and political agendas.

He was a man who spoke his mind, but he was always focused on supporting the common good—a perfect example of the successful independent retailer.

All of us who knew Skip were deeply saddened by news of his death on January 12 at the age of 72.

While taking on extensive responsibilities with MRA, Skip led his business to national prominence. Ideation Inc., which provides catalogs for 600 gift shops around the country, was Skip’s passion, and he worked tirelessly to get it off the ground. The fruits of his labor also live on today in the form of three successful gift shops: Crown House of Gifts in Ann Arbor, Dayspring Gifts in Chelsea and Crown & Carriage in Jackson.

One of the last things Skip and I worked on together was the fairness fight for Main Street retailers. He shared with me his opinions on how imbalances in the Michigan sales tax system have been hurting furniture retailers for years—and the gift market was coming next. Again, he was right. This outstanding foresight was yet another of Skip’s admirable business skills.

Skip had an amazing ability to spot trends and an uncanny feel for the economy and retail climate. These aren’t skills one is born with. Skip honed them in the trenches of the business world—always growing, always learning something new.

In Skip Ungrodt you had an outstanding business man who had savvy and foresight as well as fair-mindedness and a genuine charitable nature. He was a man who truly understood community service, and in his time gave back ten-fold.

He also enabled and empowered his son Tom to play a leadership role in MRA. Tom now serves Ideation Inc. and MRA well, just as his father did.

It was his kind of leadership that has made MRA so outstanding. Retail has lost a leader in Skip Ungrodt, and I have lost a friend.