PUBLISHER Ginnie Roeglin
EDITOR David W. Fuller 425-313-8510 dfuller@costco.com
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Anita Thompson 425-313-6442
athompson@costco.com
MANAGING EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR
MAGAZINES INTERNATIONAL
T. Foster Jones 425-313-6748 Tim Talevich 425-313-6759
Tod.Jones@costco.com
ttalevich@costco.com
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Lorelle Gilpin, Ottawa 613-221-2009 Lorelle.Gilpin@costco.com
Sue Knowles, London 011-44-1923-213113 sknowles@costco.co.uk
Sungwon Pae, Seoul 82-2-2630-2700 swpae@costcokr.com
SENIOR EDITOR
Stephanie E. Ponder, Seattle sponder@costco.com
ONLINE EDITOR
David Wight David. Wight@costco.com
REPORTERS
Will Fifield wfifield@costco.com
Steve Fisher Steve.Fisher@costco.com
COPY EDITOR Miriam Bulmer
CONTRIBUTORS
Rhonda Abrams, Joseph Banker, Arthur C. Brooks, Teri Cettina,
Elisabeth Handley, Susan Hirshorn, David Horowitz, Harvey Meyer,
J. Rentilly, Matthew Robb, Gretchen Roberts, Jeffrey Sachs,
Don Sadler, Marc Saltzman, Fran Schumer, Pat Volchok
ART DIRECTOR
Doris Winters dwinters@costco.com
ASSOCIA TE ART DIRECTOR
Lory Williams lwilliams@costco.com
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Ken Broman, Bill Carlson, Susan Detlor, Steven Lait,
Chris Rusnak, David Schneider, Brenda Shecter
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Pam Sather, Seattle psather@costco.com
ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER
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COLOR TECHNICIAN MaryAnne Robbers mrobbers@costco.com
ADVERTISING MANAGER
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ASSISTAN T ADVERTISING MANAGER
Kathi Tipper-Holgersen 425-313-6581 ktipper@costco.com
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR
Melanie Woods 425-313-2558 mwoods@costco.com
SENIOR ADVERTISING PROJECT COORDINATOR
Steve Trump strump@costco.com
ADVERTISING / PROMOTION COPYWRITER
Bill Urlevich
NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES
West: John McCarthy 805-870-4437
johnmccarthy1@sbcglobal.net
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fcmediapartners@optonline.net
Midwest: Stu Opfer 630-832-3600
stu@opfermedia.com
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CarlMischka@aol.com
BUSINESS MANAGER
Janet Burgess
CIRCULATION MANAGER
Rossie Cruz 425-313-6715 rcruz@costco.com
CIRCULATION / EDITORIAL ASSISTAN T
Dorothy Strakele 425-313-6899 connection@costco.com
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
D. Ted Harris 425-313-2937 dtharris@costco.com
COSTCO WHOLESALE
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Fax: 425-313-6718
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The Costco Connection is published by Costco Wholesale. All
editorial material, including editorial comments, opinion and statements of fact appearing in this publication, represents the views of
the respective authors and does not necessarily carry the endorsement of Costco Wholesale or its officers. Information in The Costco
Connection is gathered from sources considered to be reliable, but
the accuracy of all information cannot be guaranteed. The publication
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; FRONTend
from the publisher’s desk
COSTCO MEMBERS are truly inspiring. Sprinkled
throughout this issue are stories about Olympic athletes
who are Costco members, and a few of their inspirational
moms. We salute these athletes and wish them success in
the Olympic Games beginning in London this month.
Also inspiring are the Costco members who have
turned economic difficulties and other adversity into
opportunity. The Costco members featured in our cover
story, starting on page 24, followed their passions and
reinvented themselves in new careers, taking to the road
with food trucks. If you are looking for something new
and different for lunch, just look for the long lines of hungry customers at these hugely popular mobile eateries. Apps have sprung up for mobile
devices to help you track the daily whereabouts of your favorite trucks.
Speaking of apps, we are very pleased to announce our first Costco apps for Apple
and Android devices. You can use our free apps to find the closest Costco warehouse or
gas station while you are traveling, look up current warehouse and online special offers
and coupons, refill a prescription, renew your membership, upload and order photos
from your phone or other albums, read this magazine and shop online for thousands of
additional items for delivery to your home. Watch for more upgrades coming soon.
July is furniture month at Costco, our semiannual furniture rollout. This issue has a
special “For Your Home” section beginning on page 32, with decorating tips and instant
savings on top-quality new furniture and other items for your home. You can learn
about the new technologies in mattresses in our Buying Smart feature on page 76. You
will also find mattresses and many additional furniture collections online at Costco.com.
Finally, as we prepare to celebrate our country’s independence, we offer our sincere
thanks to the inspirational men and women who have served our country. Happy
Fourth of July from all of us at Costco! C
Ginnie Roeglin is Senior Vice
President, E-Commerce and
Publishing, and Publisher of
The Costco Connection.
from the editor’s desk
AS WE DEVELOPED this month’s cover story about
the rapid momentum behind the food truck trend, I
started wondering what causes what sometimes seems
like the spontaneous combustion of a business concept.
Doesn’t it seem like these trucks accelerated from zero
to 60 in a flash?
Then I came across the April issue of one of the
world’s most thought-provoking and enlightening
magazines, Wired. An article highlighted on the cover
as “ 7 Ways to Spot the Next Big Thing” (“How to Spot
the Future,”
www.wired.com/business/2012/04/ff_spot
future) provides some pretty darned interesting clues for answering my question.
Although the article, by Wired executive editor Thomas Goetz, focuses on innovative
technology concepts, the seven traits it describes—the cross-pollination of disciplines, ideas
that have built-in acceleration, ideas that liberate, audacity, deep design and an understanding of how people waste time—can be applied to just about any sort of innovation that is
likely to catch on. Not every hot new idea exhibits all seven traits, of course. I see food
trucks as demonstrating at least two of the traits:
1. They are “liberators,” providing a service that helps reset people’s routines, often
by making something available more easily or more spontaneously, as in, “Hey, look,
there’s that great food truck! Let’s do that for dinner tonight.”
2. They are “cross-pollinators,” deploying ideas that represent two or more disciplines. I am stretching Wired’s science-oriented definition of this trait a bit, but food
trucks are at the intersection of the massive movement toward mobility and the equally
epochal shift toward less-formal dining.
I would like to add an eighth trait to Goetz’s list: Hot new ideas are nearly always
head turners. They are not incremental; they put something into our visual or mental
landscape that causes us to pause, to anticipate the joy of finding something new. I don’t
know about you, but that’s how I feel when I spot a snappy-looking food truck! C
David W. Fuller is Assistant
Vice President, Publishing, and
Editor of The Costco Connection.
JULY 2012 The Costco Connection 5
