William Hampton Waite

At home in business

SELF

PORTRAIT

Date and place

of birth: Nov. 4,

1969, in Kansas

City, Mo.

Occupation:

Owner, Dickson

Street Liquor

Family: Wife

Lara, daughters

Finley and Callan,

son Raines

I’d like to be

remembered as

a good father, a

good husband,

and someone

who made a

difference.

My favorite

item we sell is

wine, especially

big California

Cabernet

Sauvignons and

earthy Pinot Noirs.

The best show

I’ve seen at the

Walton Arts

Center lately: It’s

tough to pick just

one, but I thought

Memphis was

outstanding.

What Bikes,

Blues and

Barbecue week

is like for me:

Intense, loud,

nonstop. A lot of

work, but a lot of

fun.

My goal for the

next year is to

put the fi nishing

touches on our

store expansion,

begin in-store

product tastings

and hopefully

catch up on my

lengthy to-do list.

As a fan,

my favorite

Arkansas sports

memory is

April 4, 1994 -

Arkansas 76,

Duke 72.

If I had more

time, I would

spend more time

with my children,

read more and

exercise more

regularly.

One place I’d like

to visit is: I would

love to tour Italian

wine country.

The thing that’s

stuck with

me from my

engineering

degree is my

strong background

in math and my

problem-solving

skills.

My favorite

book is The Little

Prince.

A word to sum

me up: dedicatedFAYETTEVILLE - Bill Waite is exactly where he wants to be.

He’s in Northwest Arkansas, wrapped up in the community with his volunteer work on the boards of directors for Walton Arts Center and Bikes, Blues and BBQ.

He’s in Fayetteville, where he has lived virtually his entire life, sharing an increasingly fun and chaotic house with his wife and three young children.

And he’s on Dickson Street, keeping a watchful eye on his hometown’s entertainment district from his perch at Dickson Street Liquor, the store he has owned for a decade.

“Bill understands what it means to be invested down here as a business,” says Steve Clark, the president of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. “He brings a nice perspective, [with] good experience and judgment. Bill is a first-class man with a real commitment to the city of Fayetteville.”

Waite arrived in Fayetteville before his first birthday, and has been here ever since. There have been tempting opportunities to leave the area, serious consideration given to attending the Universityof Kansas in his teens, and the possibility that he could further a promising career in retail in his mid-20s.

But every time, he has decided to stay. There’s simply no place he would rather be, and no place whose future he’d rather help guide.

“He just loves the community,” says Justin Tennant, a longtime friend and the Ward 3 alderman for the city. “He’s very concerned not only about the growth of Fayetteville but how it grows. Billy really cares about the kind of city his kids inherit.”

It’s a balancing act for Waite. When he bought Dickson Street Liquor from longtime owner and mentor Bernice Harner in 2003, he could spend as many hours as he wanted there, planning ways to increase the store’s inventory and make the building larger. The former has been accomplished gradually, dating to when Waite became the store’s manager in 1995. The latter was completed in 2012, when Dickson Street Liquor wrapped up a major renovation.

Today, he can’t bury himself in work, leaving time only for his volunteer activities. With three children age 4 and under and a wife who works full time herself as a pediatric physical therapist, he describes his house as “complete chaos,” but his smile reveals it’s a good chaos.

“His passion is with his family, with his little children,” says Bob Blalock of Fayetteville, a friend and longtime business colleague. “He’s just the real deal. I wouldn’t say this about many people, but he is truly a wonderful human being. The one thing that strikes me the most about Bill is that he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.”

Waite traditionally worked seven days a week, using Sunday as the day when he would get caught up on paperwork, checking the inventory of his increasingly wide selection and filling orders.

Since the Waites’ third child was born last year, Sundays are family time now. It has been difficult, he admits, but he doesn’t regret the decision.

Although he’s still very hands-on, he has been able to delegate some of his responsibilities, whichis possible only because he trusts his employees so much. Waite likes to hire students attending the University of Arkansas, and strives to be flexible with their scheduling.

He takes pride in the fact that 30 of his employees have completed their degrees while working at Dickson Street Liquor. Waite doesn’t take credit for that number, but says it’s merely a reflection of the quality of people who work at his store.

“I’ve got a great crew that works for me, so I’m able to take time to do a little more dance classes and gymnastics,” he says. “I learned from Bernice that my employees are family. When I interview a [potential] new employee, I can teach anybody to run the cash register; it’s harder to get someone to buy into the family concept, and how you treat customers.”ACTIVE KID, ADULT

One of the things Waite has had to sacrifice in recent years is reading.

He’ll read it if it’s related to work, or if it’s the daily newspaper, but the days of being able to devour books are gone. His mother, Nancy, was a librarian with the Fayetteville Public Schools, and Waite took advantage of his access to books, reading anything he could get his hands on.

Waite was definitely a bright kid, and a decent student. He excelled at math and science, but often found that he had a hard time getting excited about his school work.

“My parents were both avid readers, and so I became an avid reader myself,” he says. “That does so much for you in school. My struggle was finding something that interested me.

“[Reading] was one of the things I’ve had to sacrifice. My reading now consists of Goodnight Moon or any other of hundreds of children’s books.”

What interested Waite a lot more than school was basketball. A self-described “basketball junkie,” he played untold thousands of games with friends, and was a backup when Fayetteville High School won a state basketball championship.

He played other sports as a kid, and was pretty big into student council in high school, but everything took a back seat to hoops.

Tennant remembers Waite’s house as a popular place for pickup games, and when there weren’t a lot of players there, they would lower the hoops to dunking height, 8 feet or so.

“Some summer nights he would have probably 30 people there until the late hours,” Tennant says. As a kid “he was a lot like he is now - an extremely intelligent person, who was always thoughtful, a great friend to a lot of people.”

Waite loved growing up in Fayetteville. When he wasn’t playing hoops or reading books, he was finding some way to be outside.

Whether it was play or work, Waite has always loved the outdoors. As an adult, itwould spur him to serve two terms on the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, from 2007-2012. It was the same board Waite’s father served on decades earlier, when Bill was growing up.

Waite’s parents were always volunteering their time in civic organizations, a model he strives to follow now that he’s a parent.

“He was very, very good on the parks board, because he just wanted to provide the best recreation programs we could,” says Connie Edmonston, the director of the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department. “Being a second-generation member on the parks board, he knew the heritage, and he understood the need of parks and our programs.”

Edmonston says Waite played an important role when the board was considering what should be donewith the Wilson Park pool. He insisted that it needed to be renovated, rather than replaced, because it was such a long-standing icon in the city.

Keeping alive the city’s history is important to Waite, who chose to renovate his own store rather than demolish it and build a new one, a decision that likely wouldhave been less expensive but cost Fayetteville some of its history. (Dickson Street Liquor originated as a gas station in the 1930s.)

And like much in the city, Waite’s connection to the Wilson Park pool runs deep, back to when he worked there as a lifeguard and assistant manager in the 1980s. Even in those days, Edmonston says, he was showing many of the same qualities he would exhibit decades later at his store.

“He was mature beyond his age,” Edmonston says. “He was extremely responsible. He was kind of quiet back then, but he had this glimmer in him; he had a lot of fun in him, too.

“He has a lot of kindness toward people. He valued family, loved sports, loved recreation, and was good to everyone he was around.” ALL BUSINESS

In reality, retail was in Waite’s blood. It just took a while to figure it out.

The youngest of four children, Waite and family came to the city when his father, Bill, accepted a position in the electrical engineering department at the UA. The younger Waite spent a lot of time on campus as a boy, andhe decided to major in electrical engineering when he enrolled at Arkansas.

Between his dad’s background and his aptitude in math and science, he thought it was a natural fit, but about halfway through college, he realized he wasn’t going to pursue a career in the field.

“I was too far along to change majors, I thought, and with the things you learn in engineering, the problem-solving skills, I knew I couldn’t go wrong with a degree in engineering,” Waite says. “But I was at a loss for what I wanted to do.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1994, Waite accepted a position as a personnel manager in training and development at the Sam’s Club in Springdale. He did a little of everything there, learning all aspects of the mega-retailer.

“I really got to see everything,” he says. “That experience was invaluable, to see how a large box retailer works. It helped me identify things that they did that I could incorporate in this business, and also things I didn’t want to incorporate.”

Waite found himself fascinated with retail, and decided his future was in that field - just not with Sam’sClub. Signing on there would require him to move away from Fayetteville, and he wasn’t willing to do that. He strongly considered going back to school and earning a master’s degree in business administration, but instead was hired as the manager of Dickson Street Liquor.

The store was a lot smaller back then, and Waite knew little about the retail-alcohol business, but he made it a point to learn. He asked lots of questions of people like Blalock, a key account manager for Glazer’s Distributors, Inc., as well as the customers who came through the front door.

“He learned how to be a merchant, which is radically different from being a regular retailer,” Blalock explains. “It’s not just selling a bottle of wine; it’s wanting to completely know the industry. He would go to shops down in Dallas and better his business model, by picking the best of everything.”

In the liquor store, Waite found a place that reminded him of his grandmother’s dime store in Osceola, Mo., Waite’s Variety. It was a small-town store that sold everything, Waite says, and as a boy he loved spending time there and watching hisgrandmother interact with her regular customers.

“It was so much fun,” he says. “I was just fascinated by the people who would come in there and buy things. I didn’t know that would be my calling in life, but one of the highlights of my childhood was getting to go there and hang out with her.”DREAMING BIGGER

Waite didn’t have backup plans.

It wasn’t long after he began working at Dickson Street Liquor that he started thinking about buying the store. He had no idea whether it was possible - or whether Harner, who had owned the store since its 1964 founding, was interested in selling - but that didn’t stop him from dreaming.

He broadcast his intentions to friends and family in the early 2000s, most of whom tried to temper his enthusiasm. They questioned him about his backup plans, which drove Waite crazy, because he had none.

The only person who never asked about Waite’s backup plans was his sister, Amanda, his closest sibling in age. As she battled osteosarcoma (a malignant bone cancer), and ultimately lost her fight, she encouraged her brother to follow his dream.

Waite bought the store from the retiring Harner in 2003, months after his sister passed away in her mid-30s.

“She was always my biggest fan,” Waite says. “She wanted to know what I was going to do when I got the liquor store, what it was going to be like. I think that was her way of helping me get through that.”

There’s an apartment for rent atop Dickson Street Liquor.

It was part of the 2012 renovation, which saw the store double in size. Owned by Waite, the apartment is managed by Dickson Street Inn, and has a balcony that offers a to-die-for view of Dickson Street.

If Waite ever needs a moment to clear his head, there may be no better spot for him to go than the balcony. Dickson Street has been on his mind since he was a junior high student who would eagerly open the Sunday newspaper so he could read the business section.

Over the past 18 years, he has had a front-row seat to the revitalization of Dickson Street. He’s excited about the future of the entertainment district, and would love nothing more than to start a Dickson Street business owners association, similar to the one that exists on nearby Block Street.

If Waite helps establish one, it will be another way he’s shaping his hometown - a process that’s likely to continue for years to come.

“Dickson Street runs very deep with me,” he says. “Looking out the front window, it’s like looking out Fayetteville’s front porch. You’re in the middle of everything that goes on here. The people you get to see on an everyday basis, I love it. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Northwest Profile, Pages 33 on 06/23/2013

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