Leo Kahn | Staples cofounder, 94

Leo Kahn, 94, who cofounded the Staples office-supplies chain and helped start the age of "big box" retail stores, died Wednesday in Boston.

Mr. Kahn first made his name in the grocery business in New England. He started Staples with a former competitor, Tom Stemberg, in 1985, after they decided to go into business together and were seeking new ideas outside groceries.

At the time, there were no office-supply superstores. Mr. Kahn and Stemberg were touring different types of stores each Friday afternoon and one day during a trip to warehouse clubs, they noticed an abundance of office supplies on sale.

"I said to Leo, 'Let's do a Home Depot or Toys R Us for office products,' " Stemberg said. "He said, 'Let's go open a store.' "

Stemberg became CEO and Mr. Kahn, in his late 60s at the time, chairman. They started the chain the next year with investments from Mitt Romney and the investment firm Bain Capital.

While smaller rivals OfficeMax and Office Depot soon emerged, Staples has remained the largest and best-performing office-supply retailer, with revenue of $24.55 billion and 1,900 stores at the end of 2010.

Mr. Kahn, born in Medford, Mass., served in World War II and went to Harvard College and the Columbia University School of Journalism.

After Staples, he went on to open the natural-foods supermarkets Fresh Fields and Nature's Heartland, which Whole Foods bought in 1999.

"He was a guy who cared about people," Stemberg said. He remembers Mr. Kahn being upset with himself when he couldn't remember the name of someone he met 12 years before. - AP