Jeff Rein

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jeff Rein is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Walgreens, a drug store chain in the United States.

Rein was born in New Orleans in 1953, lived in Phoenix, and came to Tucson at age 10 when his family relocated. He lived in Tucson for about 25 years, but currently resides in a Chicago suburb. He has two children, one son and one daughter.

After graduating from Sahuaro High School, he enrolled at the UA, majoring in accounting because he wanted to own his own business. During college, he worked at a Defender Drug, at Fifth and Craycroft. “I enjoyed it because I like science and enjoyed the business. I thought, ‘This is great. I’ll own my own drug store.’” He graduated from the University of Arizona in accounting in 1974 and pharmacy in 1980.

Rein says he became interested in pharmacy as a profession because of the interaction with customers and patients.

While he was working on his pharmacy degree, he interned for the man who was to become his father-in-law. Rein recalls, “A girl walked into the pharmacy and talked with my boss for a while and then left. I asked, ‘Who was that?’” She was Susan Naber, the boss’s daughter. Rein and Susan, also a UA graduate, have two children.

Rein worked his way up through Walgreens ranks, as a pharmacist, store manager, district manager, treasurer and president prior to taking the role as Chief Executive Officer, succeeding David Bernauer to the position in July, 2006. As of July 2007, Rein succeeded David Bernauer for the position of Chairman.

Rein publishes a weekly article on the Walgreens intranet called ReinDrop where he relates current store events and words of wisdom and encouragement to Walgreens employees.