Joey Hamm from AutoZone Speaks to Rotary
Joey Hamm, with AutoZone Distribution Center, was the special guest speaker at the September 14, 2021 Lexington Rotary Club meeting.
Photo by: W. Clay Crook / The Lexington Progress
Article by W. Clay Crook-
The special guest speaker for the September 14, 2021, Lexington Rotary Club meeting was Mr. Joey Hamm from the AutoZone Distribution Center. Joey was introduced by Rotary Vice-President Jamie Hall.
Joey and his wife are both natives of Henderson County and he has served manager of the AutoZone Distribution Center for fourteen years, and with AutoZone for over twenty-eight years. After high school, he saw an advertisement for AutoZone in The Lexington Progress and applied to AutoZone and has very much enjoyed his time there.
AutoZone was started in Memphis on July 4, 1979, and came out of a grocery business, Malone and Hyde Foods. By the 1970’s Mr. Hyde had grown Malone and Hyde to a large national business, but the growth had begun to plateau. He started looking at other avenues, including sporting goods, but decided on auto parts. Parts stores weren’t exactly user friendly, and he went with the idea of making it more like a grocery store and started out as Auto Shack, and then AutoZone. There are now over 6,000 AutoZone stores across the country.
In 1981, the express parts program was started, and deciding what needs to be on the shelves and what is stored in the Distribution Center is still a major factor, and all geared towards customer service. “We make sure the customer has what he needs to start a job and finish it.” Duralast battery was an AutoZone line, and AutoZone is one of the leading battery marketers. A hub program started in the 2000’s, and a…
For the complete article, see the September 15th edition of The Lexington Progress.
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