SEATTLE — Robert Craves, a founding officer of wholesale giant Costco and, later, a nonprofit devoted to helping more students attend college, died Wednesday after being diagnosed with cancer a month earlier. He was 72.
Family and friends described Mr. Craves as a larger-than-life entrepreneur unafraid of tackling big ideas and as a family man with a self-deprecating sense of humor. After helping build Costco,. Craves cofounded the College Success Foundation, a nonprofit that provides mentors and scholarships to low-income and first-generation college students.
Craves was born in Bay City, Mich., in 1942, the oldest of five children. At age 13 he left home to join a seminary, intending to become a Catholic priest, but later decided to pursue a career in business. He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a master’s in international studies from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
After college he moved to San Francisco to work in hardware stores, where a mutual friend introduced him to his wife, Gerri, whom he married on April 28, 1973.
