Kmart Corporation. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores.
Charles T. Kresge and the Thomas Alva Edison Award in 2008. He was also honored by election to the US National Academy of Engineering (2007). In 2011, he was Honorary Chair of the 22nd North American Catalysis Society meeting in Detroit, Michigan. Charles T. Kresge Charles T. Kresge is a chemist and retired Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Saudi Aramco. He was R&D Vice President at the Dow Chemical Company. His area of expertise is inorganic synthesis and his primary field of research is in the area of crystalline aluminosilicate materials, particularly for the discovery of mesoporous molecular sieves. Kresge received his bachelor's