Retail Outlook:
2005 Holiday Season and Beyond
Panelist Bios

William (Bill) Baxter, CAE

Bill is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Retail Merchants Association.  He is only the 4th person to serve as the CEO of the Association in its 99-year history.

The Retail Merchants Association was a natural step considering Bill’s extensive retail background.  He served as Senior Vice President of Store Operations and Budgets for Thalhimers Department Stores where he had the responsibility for 3,500 employees in 27 department stores located in 4 states.  His retail career spanned 26 years.

Through his leadership, the Retail Merchants Association has invested well over 5 million dollars in initiatives and events across metropolitan Richmond.

Bill serves as Chairman of the Board of the Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority, and is the only non-governmental member of the 5 person Authority which owns and operates the new 700,000 plus square foot Greater Richmond Convention Center – the largest in Virginia.

In addition to representing the Retail Merchants Association’s 1000 member companies in all areas of local and state government, Bill serves on multiple other local and regional boards and is a past President of the Virginia Society of Association Executives.

Bill is a graduate of Virginia Tech, and the Executive Program at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

Ken Gassman

Ken is a veteran of 20 years on Wall Street.  As a Retail & Consumer Analyst, he worked with major national retailers including Wal-Mart and May Department Stores.  He also analyzed the publicly held jewelry retailers and suppliers such as Zale Corporation, Signet Group, Movado, and others.  He formerly served as the Senior Vice President for Davenport & Company, LLC.

Ken now focuses exclusively on financial analysis of the global jewelry industry.  He has authored two major publications on the jewelry industry for financial investors and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The Washington Post and other major newspapers.

He writes a monthly column on Jewelry Economics for the Rapaport Diamond Report, and he publishes the Rapaport Research Report.

Ken is on the Board of Directors of Reeds Jewelers, a retail jewelry chain, and Concepts Direct, a direct marketing retailer.  Most of Ken’s free time is spent in shopping malls where he is a “mystery shopper” or in Europe with his grandchildren.

Gregory (Greg) Gilligan

Gregory J. Gilligan has been the editor of the Sunday business and real estate sections for the Richmond Times-Dispatch since January 2005.

Before that, he covered the retail industry for the newspaper since 1993.  He has written about every major development relating to the retail industry in Virginia, from the demise of catalog showroom retailer Best Products and home furnishings retailer Heilig-Meyers to the ups and downs at consumer electronics retailer Circuit City and automotive retailer CarMax. He spent a considerable amount of time in 2003 writing about the two new malls that opened in the Richmond area, including a weekly feature called "Mall Watch."

Gilligan regularly sits down with top executives at some of the country's leading retailers. Wall Street analysts call him regularly for his articles, his insight and knowledge about companies.

In addition to being the Sunday Business Editor, Gilligan also continues to write a weekly column, called Biz Buzz, that has appeared in Monday's Metro Business section since 1993.

For the past seven years, Gilligan works one day as a clerk during the holidays at a different retailer and then writes a story based on that experience to give readers an idea of what the job entails.  In the past, he has worked as a clerk at Wal-Mart, Bath & Body Works, Circuit City, World of Mirth, Costco, Saks Fifth Avenue and Build-a-Bear Workshop.

He appears regularly on WWBT-Channel 12 in Richmond to provide analysis on the retail industry. And, several years ago, was one of the anchors of the "Tomorrow's Headlines Tonight" segment that aired on WTVR-Channel 6.

In addition to his job at the Times-Dispatch, Gilligan teaches journalism classes at Virginia Commonwealth University.

He has been at the newspaper since 1987.  He is a graduate of The Ohio State University.  He is past president of the Richmond chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a past national board member of the organization.

Si Lee

Mr. Si Lee is President of the KAGRO (Korean-American Grocers Association of Greater Richmond and owner of Meadow Square Shopping Center on Richmond Henrico Turnpike.  He came here to the US at the age of 19, attended American college and worked as a researcher for a company in Chicago.  In 1986, he settled in Virginia and opened his grocery store in Richmond and since then had been in the grocery business. His store has 25 employees.

Mr. Lee as well as KAGRO are very actively involved in the Korean community in the Greater Richmond area and he strongly believes that Korean Americans must work wit the community and integrate into the mainstream in order to be successful.

In 2000, Mr. Lee's sister was gunned down in Richmond by a robber, he, himself was wounded once.  Since then, he is a strong advocate for and plays an active role as a representative for the Korean store retailers and works closely with Asian organizations such as the Asian American Business Assistance Center and the Richmond police department to help create safety awareness among business owners and learning crime prevention measures for his community and other Asian communities alike.