Leroy began his career in 1948 at the age of 16 working with a small grocery chain in Southern California and leaving as part of the management team five years later.

For two years he owned 50% of two small neighborhood grocery stores while also attending California State University L.A. In his third year of studies, Leroy was drafted and received an Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1957.

In 1958, Leroy was the first employee of Trader Joe’s Markets/Pronto Markets, reporting directly to Joe Coulombe the founder for over thirty years. in 1979 the company was sold to a German Family in Essen, Germany, at that time Leroy was the largest stockholder in the minority stockholders group.

Throughout his forty-three tenure with Trader Joes’, Leroy opened and managed the first four stores, managed personnel, security, construction, distribution and real estate, maintenance and equipment. He also managed the buying department; created many new product lines from many countries; purchased and sold Cheese Licenses, purchased and applied for liquor licenses; and oversaw the warehouses, which included the closing and moving of several.

During the last six years with Trader Joe’s, Leroy was in charge of finding over fifty store locations including negotiating the leases and supervising the remodeling or the construction of new buildings. His last major project was relocating the corporate office building including supervising its construction from the ground up. Leroy retired as Senior VP of Operations in 2001, a key player in the 179 store chain with gross sales of $1.77 billion annually.

Over the past 13 years Leroy owned and operated an importing company of beer, wine and distilled spirits. Licensed in 30 states, the company imports products from England, Scotland, France, Spain, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand.

Leroy’s recreational interests include traveling, boating and winter activities with family and friends near his home at Lake Tahoe, NV.