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Strong in spirit


Lee Badger (right) pauses to greet produce stocker Robert Price as he makes the rounds at Lee's Marketplace on Monday. (Meegan M. Reid/Herald Journal)


By Devin Felix
Published: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 2:15 AM CDT As Lee Badger walks through the aisles of his grocery store, his steps are rigid and halting.

He is greeted at every turn by customers, employees, friends. They smile and move quickly toward him. They grasp his shaking hands and look into his eyes and ask how he's been. In a shaking and labored voice, he answers and asks about them.

This is Lee's store. These are Lee's people.

Badger, the founder and owner of Lee's Marketplace, was diagnosed last year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. As his health has deteriorated, his level of involvement in the daily operations of the stores has diminished, but his presence and influence is still as strong as ever in the company's three stores.



He created a business where workers care about customers. It's also a business where customers care about Lee.

"I can't even tell you how many times people ask us how Lee's doing," said Shelly Bingham, a 13-year Lee's employee who works at the Smithfield store.

Something special

"There's something special when you walk into Lee's stores," said Jarad McDonald, manager of the Logan store.

The stores have a personal touch that is often missing elsewhere. The aisles are clean and presentable. The lights are bright and welcoming. Above the diaper changing table, a printed note - written in rhyme - instructs parents that they can pick up a free diaper at the service desk in case of an emergency. Checkers stand expectantly before their check stands, ready to receive customers.

Caring for his stores and his customers are Lee's passions, said Rock Boschetti, who has worked at the Smithfield store for nine years. Cleanliness, promptness and customer service were constantly on his mind, and he made sure his employees knew it. If it snowed, Lee would make sure the snow was cleared immediately. But he wasn't a leader who barked orders from the office.

When employees describe Lee Badger, there's a term that comes up over and over: hands-on.

Before his health failed, McDonald said, Lee was constantly at work in his stores, often carrying out duties usually assigned to young teenagers: fetching carts from the parking lot, pulling merchandise to the front of the shelves, sweeping the floor.

"I can't count the times Lee's been on the front end helping us bag," McDonald said.

Lee always took a few moments to talk to customers, McDonald said. He liked to bend down and chat with children and give them candy. He made sure people knew he appreciated their business and their company at his stores.

"He was always a vigorous hand-shaker," Boschetti said.

Those once-vigorous hands now hang mostly inert at Lee's side, victims of the disease that has seized his body. ALS affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and impairs muscular control and movement. It causes muscles to atrophy and weaken.

ALS is an unforgiving disease. There is no cure, no way to treat the symptoms, and very little can be done to slow its progress, one of Lee's sons, Jonathan Badger, said.

The stores have always been involved in charitable causes - donating food to the food bank and raising money for various causes - but they've recently become actively involved with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which raises money for ALS research. A recent donation drive raised more than $8,000 to support the search for a cure, Jonathan said.

A community business

Lee Badger became a grocery store owner in 1981 when he bought Jack's Food Town in Smithfield. Less than a year earlier, he and his wife, Shari, had returned to the valley they loved and called home.

Shari was a Cache Valley native and Lee had earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Utah State University after growing up in Rupert, Idaho. After he graduated they spent time in California, where Lee worked for K-Mart, and in Reno, where he worked with a friend who owned a grocery business.

He found that he enjoyed working in groceries and bought Jack's Food Town from its owner, Jack Allsop. Lee and Shari ran the small store together in the 1980s, when Smithfield's population was small and stagnant.

As the 1990s came, Smithfield started growing. In 1994, Lee moved the store across the street to a larger facility and changed its name to Lee's Marketplace. The store flourished, and in 1999, a second Lee's Marketplace opened in Logan. In 2007, the company opened a third store in North Ogden.

Lee and Shari Badger both said they are surprised by the success of the business.

"Every time we'd been ready to open a new store or expand, you almost have to just pinch yourself," Shari said.

While many independent stores have failed, Lee's has thrived and grown over the years. That success is due to the stores' involvement in the community and care of customers and employees, Lee said.

"We feel like the community's been very good to us and we want to stay involved in it," Shari Badger said.

It's also due to Lee's active involvement and hands-on care.

"After he became a successful businessman, he was still here every week. He put in the hours," said Pete Krusi, manager of the Smithfield store.

He also found time to be a good father to Jonathan, Jeremy and Jocelyn, his three kids, Jonathan said.

Jonathan has taken over as chief operating officer of the company. The younger Badger started working at the stores when he was 14 and has been well-versed in the grocery business over the years, Lee said.

"My dad always told me I had to work harder than everyone else as the owner's son," Jonathan said.

Employee care

When Jarad McDonald's 4-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002, Lee Badger assured him he could take all the time he needed to care for the boy, and his job would be safe. Lee always called to check up on the child's condition and visited him at the hospital.

"That was a defining moment for me in saying this is a company I want to make a career with," McDonald said.

Years later, after McDonald's son had recovered, Lee still makes a point of checking up on him.

Working at Lee's is like being part of a family, Wiley said. The management treats the employees with respect and dignity, and Lee is always genuinely concerned about his employees, he said. That bond has made Lee's failing health difficult for everyone, he said.

"That's been a challenge for us," Wiley said. "It's like a family member has suddenly been stricken ill."

Lee's Marketplace has a long tradition of hiring people who might struggle to find a job elsewhere, including several people with mental disabilities. Employing people with disabilities is a benefit to the store and the employee, Lee said.

"We were first involved with the schools to give them (those with disabilities) some work experience, but then we saw how well they treated our customers," he said. "I'm amazed how loving they are."

Lee has also hired people who have been in trouble with the law but who hope to turn their lives around - including some directly out of prison.

"Lee's willing to overlook the past and see the future," McDonald said.

For all his success, he's never been one to show it off, said Pete Krusi, manager of the Smithfield store. He drove the same battered green truck for years, Boschetti said. After years of teasing by employees, he finally bought a new truck, only to keep driving the old one every day.

"He's never been showy. He's never wanted that, never needed it," Jonathan Badger said.

For him, being a good businessman and taking care of people was enough.

"I've never met a business owner who loves what he's doing more than Lee Badger," McDonald said.

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