Systems that Serve

Tom Root

Managing Partner, Zingerman's Mail Order

Tom Root grew up near Youngstown, OH with a passion for business and entrepreneurship. After graduating from Miami University in 1993, he became a certified business counselor for the state of Michigan, advising entrepreneurs on business plan development and capital acquisition through the SBA’s Small Business Development Center program. Tom specialized in computer and software start-ups, and at the same time ran a consulting company to advise clients on website development. In January of 1995 Tom became the first employee of Online Technologies Corporation, where he was Director of Development and Training. Over the next year he taught weekly classes through Walsh College and led the development of over 100 websites. During one of his teaching sessions, Tom was introduced to a team of people who had been charged with the creation of a website for a Michigan public electric utility, Detroit Edison. By February 1996 Tom was the principal web application developer for Detroit Edison. During his three years at Edison he managed a budget of over $1 million per year and organized a team of seven to create and manage Edison’s eight external web sites and its 50,000 page intranet. In January of 1999, while attending a food conference in San Francisco with his wife Toni Morrell (then a manager at Zingerman’s Delicatessen), Tom struck upon the idea for a Zingerman’s website and began the process of becoming a Zingerman’s managing partner. On September 22, 1999 Zingermans.com took its first order, and Tom took on his first official role at Zingerman’s as Chief Information Officer. During the next two years he introduced Zingerman’s to email, established a wide area network, connecting all the various Zingerman’s locations and managed Zingermans.com (with lots of help from Toni!) In 2002 Zingerman’s Mail Order and Zingermans.com merged and Tom took on the role of controller of the resulting business (known simply as Zingerman’s Mail Order). As controller, Tom has championed open book management and taken the lead on educating staff about the financial ins and outs of the business. Tom teaches a number of internal staff classes for Zingerman’s employees and is also a frequent presenter for outside organizations. No doubt due to his technology background, Tom is the only Zingerman’s managing partner who routinely chooses to use PowerPoint.