MARIETTA, Ga. – William “Bill” Bennett, an early advocate of NACS and its 1974 president, died August 11 at the age of 84.

Bill was born on March 12, 1933, in Pontiac, Michigan, and was raised in Auburn Heights (now Auburn Hills), Michigan. He attended Auburn Heights High School where he met his wife Joan, and they married after graduation.

Bill spent nearly his entire career in the food industry. His first job, in high school, was for A&P supermarkets. He later worked for Allied Supermarkets, Campbell Soup Co. and Superfood Services. In 1963, Bill joined a new convenience store chain, Quik-Pik, before it even opened on July 11, 1963.

With only a thousand or so convenience stores in the country at the time, Bill said the new job “was a chance to get in on the ground floor of something… a chance to just prove what I could do,” he recalled in a 2001 interview with NACS.

Bill said that at that first store, he worked 16 hour days, seven days a week and didn’t take a day off until Thanksgiving Day—more than four months later.

Those early stores were typically 40 by 60 feet, and were open front: They rolled up the doors in the morning and rolled them shut when the store closed 16 hours later.

“Everybody worked in the stores. Everybody carried a key just in case they had to open the store in the morning,” Bill noted.

At the same time, Bill became involved in NACS. “We joined NACS before we even opened a store,” Bill noted. He soon was attending NACS seminars and annual meetings and became elected to committee positions, serving as chairman of the NACS Training Film Committee in 1972. As NACS chairman in 1974, Bill oversaw the association’s continued focus on education, adding a director of education and developing a long-range planning exercise to restructure activities. Also that year, NACS moved its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Falls Church, Virginia.

Bill later worked at Munford Inc., which operated Majik Markets, before establishing his own consulting company, Management Marketing Associates. He was an early advocate in growing the industry internationally, from South America to Europe to Asia and Australia. He later served as president of Adrest Inc. and he co-owned a chain of convenience stores called Minute-??, as well as two liquor stores named GoodTimes Package. Bill also was a partner in Indian Hills Country & Golf, a golf community/country club. 

“I hope I’m just remembered as a good guy—honest, moral, trying to do a job … do whatever I can to help people,” he said in 2001.

He was also active with the Association of Food Dealers of Detroit, Michigan Food Dealers, Food Industry Council of Detroit, Detroit Chamber of Commerce and Michigan Alcoholic Beverage Commission. He attended the University of Detroit, Wayne State University and Oakland University.

Bill is survived by his wife of 66 years, Joan E. Bennett; sons William P. Bennett Jr., Rodger Ross Bennett and Scott Michael Bennett; daughter Victoria Louise Bennett Vigh; 10 grandchildren; five great-grandchildren and brother Robert Bennett.

Visitation will be held at H.M. Patterson & Son Canton Hill Chapel on Sunday, August 20, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. A memorial service celebrating his life will be conducted at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, Marietta, on Monday, August 21 at 1:30 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to: Bill Bennett Memorial Fund, Care of Mount Bethel United Methodist Church, 4835 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta, GA 30068.