Stanley P Goldstein

Stanley P. Goldstein, who in the early 1960s helped start a retail chain named Consumer Value Stores, which, after shortening its name to CVS — because, he said, fewer letters meant cheaper signs — grew into the largest drugstore chain in the United States, died on Tuesday May 28 2024 at his home in Providence, R.I. He was 89. Goldstein was frequently described as informal and no-nonsense — much like the airy, brightly lit outlets that he, a brother and a third founder opened in 1963 to sell cut-price toothpaste, aftershave, Band-Aids and other personal care products. When he retired as chief executive in 1998, the company had more than 4,000 stores. Today, it has more than 9,000 outlets in the United States and its territories. Goldstein graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. His brothers, along with Ralph Hoagland, a product of Harvard Business School who had worked for Procter & Gamble took over the firm when his father, Israel Goldstein, died. Stanley Goldstein was born on June 5, 1934, in Woonsocket, R.I., one of four sons of Israel and Etta (Halpern) Goldstein. He married Merle Katz in 1960. She survives him, as do two sons, Larry and Gene, and four grandchildren. His brother Sidney, who retired from CVS in 1987, died in 1995. Goldstein remained on the CVS board through 2006.