WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 B3
Years ago, Robert
Krughoff rolled
up his sleeves and
remodeled one of
the bathrooms in
his Capitol Hill
home.
If Krughoff was
rating his work for
the publication he
unveiled in 1976,
Washington Consumers’
Checkbook, he definitely would
have scored a check mark for
price. You can’t beat free labor.
He thinks the quality was pretty
good, too, though Krughoff’s
family had their gripes.
“The first thing they would say
is ‘Dad! That took forever! I had
to go down to the basement for
six months to take a shower!’ ”
Krughoff told me the other day.
He has plenty of time now. In
October, Krughoff, 79, stepped
down as the head of Consumers’
Checkbook. Just before we met
for lunch, he had been pouring
concrete in his backyard. He has
to paint the iron banister and
stair landing out front, too. His
wife keeps asking when he’ll get
to it.
Perhaps, I suggested, he
should just hire someone. I know
where he could look for
recommendations.
If you’ve never seen it,
Washington Consumers’
Checkbook is a no-frills, ad-free
magazine that comes twice a year
and revels in its rigor and
reassuring plainness. It is page
upon black-and-white page of
data: ratings of plumbers,
roofers, house painters,
locksmiths, doctors, fence
builders, nursing homes, etc., etc.
Its origin story begins with a
pesky and recurrent engine
problem in Krughoff’s 1968 Opel
Kadett. (Car and Driver famously
called the station wagon version
of the Kadett “a rolling potpourri
of mediocrity.” Krughoff had the
coupe.)
“I took it in for repair,” he said.
“I picked it up and within half a
mile I realized I’d have to take it
back. They’d [messed] it up. They
just didn’t do it right.”
Krughoff took the Opel back
two more times before it was
finally fixed.
“I said, ‘There ought to be a
Consumer Reports for local
service providers.’ That was how
I got the idea,” he said. “There
ought to be a way to find who
does good service work, not just
what the good products are.”
This was before Yelp, beforeAngie’s List, before the
neighborhood message group
asking for handyman
recommendations. If you didn’t
know a carburetor from a
crankshaft, you could never be
sure you weren’t getting ripped
off.
Krughoff grew up in White
Plains, N.Y., where his father
worked for Community Chest,
the nonprofit that later becamethe United Way.
“He was working to improve
the community,” Krughoff said.
Robert went to Amherst
College, then to law school at the
University of Chicago. He said he
liked pondering what the law
should be, not what the law is.
During a summer internship at a
Wall Street firm, he would
routinely turn in 25-page memos
only to have the partner circlethe first paragraph and say, “This
is all I need.”
Imagine not wanting as much
information as possible!
After deciding he wanted to
become a schools
superintendent, Krughoff went
to the Bronx to teach at a junior
high. He eventually taught a
room full of eighth-graders who
had been thrown out of other
classes.
He got in hot water with the
front office for helping his
students produce a school
newspaper. (One editorial had
demanded more gym.) Krughoff
figured he would prefer shaping
good policy to being hammered
by bad policy, so he wrote a letter
to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at
the time a special assistant to
President Richard M. Nixon,
angling for a job.
In 1969, Krughoff and his wife,
Gayle, moved to the house in
Southeast where they still live.
He took a job as a special
assistant in the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare,
where he was part of a team that
evaluated how well its programs
were doing.
It was parsing those detailed
evaluations that convinced
Krughoff he could do somethingsimilar with service providers.
He got $25,000 from Consumer
Reports and grants from the
Cafritz Foundation and the
Rockefeller Family Foundation
and launched the Checkbook.
Today, subscribers pay $34 for a
two-year subscription to the
magazine and a newsletter and
are encouraged to return the
long surveys that form the
backbone of the ratings.
For consumers, not much has
changed in 46 years. Customers
still get ripped off.
“I think it’s every bit as big a
problem as it was,” Krughoff said.
“Astoundingly, there’s very little
relationship between quality and
price.”
Krughoff has two kids and
three grandkids. He plays tennis.
He gave up playing basketball at
age 71 and still misses it.
“I love basketball,” he said. “I
always call it the sport of the
gods, because you know
something about a basketball
player within five minutes of
playing with them. Do they pass
the ball? Do they play defense?
Do they whine when they get
fouled? You know a lot of things
about that person very quickly.”
Unlike with, say, a car
mechanic.A consumer report: The founder of Checkbook magazine hangs up his spurs
John
Kelly's
Wa shington
JOHN KELLY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Washington Consumers’ Checkbook founder Robert Krughoff, 79,
sits in the backyard of his Capitol Hill home on Friday.THE DISTRICT
Police ID man shot in
tent at encampment
D.C. police have identified the
man who was fatally shot
Monday morning in a tent at a
homeless encampment at
Thomas Circle in downtown
Washington.
Emmanuel Lys, 32, who
police said had no fixed address,
had been pronounced dead at
the scene on a median strip near
14th Street and Massachusetts
Avenue NW.
Police said Lys was shot in the
neck about 9:45 a.m., and the
shooter escaped. No arrest was
made as of Tuesday evening.
Authorities said they have not
learned a possible motive.
After the shooting, District
officials ordered the small
encampment of three tents
removed, citing health and
safety concerns. Efforts to reach
relatives of Lys were
unsuccessful on Tuesday.
— Peter Hermann
VIRGINIA
Woman is killed in
Fairfax crash
A woman was killed in a two-
car crash that occurred in the
Baileys Crossroads area shortly
after 2:15 a.m. Tuesday, Fairfax
County police said.
A Honda Accord struck a
Volkswagen Jetta as it was
turning into Skyline Plaza in the
3700 block of South George
Mason Drive, police said. The
Jetta was headed southbound
on the roadway at the time of
the crash, while the Accord was
heading northbound.
The crash resulted in the
death of an adult female
passenger in the Jetta, and the
adult female driver was taken to
the hospital with life-
threatening injuries, police said.
The driver of the Accord and
a passenger tried to flee the
scene on foot after the crash,
but officers located them, police
said. The driver was taken to the
hospital with life-threatening
injuries. The male passenger
was arrested on a charge of
being drunk in public, police
said.
Detectives are still
investigating the cause of the
crash, and police did not
immediately say whether speed
or alcohol played a role. Police
have yet to identify anyone
involved in the crash.
— Justin Jouvenal
LOCAL DIGESTResults from May 24
DISTRICT
Day/DC-3: 8-9-8
DC-4: 2-6-9-5
DC-5: 8-8-3-8-0
Night/DC-3 (Mon.): 4-8-8
DC-3 (Tue.): 4-4-4
DC-4 (Mon.): 6-0-8-9
DC-4 (Tue.): 9-5-9-4
DC-5 (Mon.): 3-2-4-5-9
DC-5 (Tue.): 7-0-2-0-2MARYLAND
Day/Pick 3: 5-3-6
Pick 4: 8-1-5-9
Pick 5: 0-2-0-9-7
Night/Pick 3 (Mon.): 3-1-0
Pick 3 (Tue.): 8-2-3
Pick 4 (Mon.): 3-2-9-8
Pick 4 (Tue.): 4-2-8-9
Pick 5 (Mon.): 0-8-0-4-0
Pick 5 (Tue.): 8-7-0-2-7
Multi-Match (Mon.): 6-13-28-32-33-36
Bonus Match 5 (Mon.): 3-7-8-10-25 *32
Bonus Match 5 (Tue.): 3-4-12-28-36 *16VIRGINIA
Day/Pick-3: 6-4-9 ^8
Pick-4: 7-8-0-5 ^9
Night/Pick-3 (Mon.): 2-8-8 ^7
Pick-3 (Tue.): 2-1-5 ^1
Pick-4 (Mon.): 5-3-2-5 ^7
Pick-4 (Tue.): 1-9-6-3 ^7
Cash-5 (Mon.): 5-20-26-37-38
Cash-5 (Tue.): 18-22-24-29-31MULTI-STATE GAMES
Cash 4 Life:7-22-26-30-40 ¶3
Mega Millions: 3-5-6-63-68 **25
Megaplier: 3x
Lucky for Life:1-3-26-39-46 ‡10
Powerball: 1-33-37-39-42 †26
Power Play: 2x
Double Play: 33-45-60-62-65 †2*Bonus Ball **Mega Ball †Powerball
‡Lucky Ball ¶Cash Ball ^FireballFor late drawings and other results, check
washingtonpost.com/local/lotteryLOTTERIESAnd another to kill 11 more
people at a synagogue in
Pittsburgh.
And still another to kill nine
more people at a Black church
in Charleston, S.C.
So, I no longer shop at Home
Depot. No matter how
convenient and well stocked.
The store that I frequented,
in Prince George’s County,
employed a lot of African
Americans and had great
customer service. But the
corporation patronizes a
politician that promotes a
deadly, racist message. By
shopping at the store, I was
unwittingly helping to
underwrite the very kind of
propaganda that could get me
killed. That is not a business
model I can support.
In the aftermath of the
killings in Buffalo, many are
asking what can be done besides
sending thoughts and prayers?
Join protest marches, sure.
Attend anti-racist meetings, of
course. And by all means vote.
But you can also stop
supporting corporations that
support politicians who ferment
racial hate.
The list of those companies
that supported Stefanik was an
eye-opener. Many of them also
supported racial justice causes,
according to an analysis by The
Washington Post. “These
companies, including Anheuser
Busch and Walgreens, made
vocal pledges to use their
resources to combat racism
while at the same time
bankrolling a politician with a
message widely seen as racist,”
as The Post put it.
They cannot have it both
ways.
Comcast NBC Universal’s PAC
donated $10,000 to the “Elise
for Congress,” political action
committee. In 2020, after the
murder of George Floyd, chief
executive Brian Roberts said the
media giant would spend
$100 million over three years to
help fight racism and injustice.
General Motors gave the
Stefanik campaign $2,500.
Spokesman Pat Morrissey said
the automaker has committed
$22 million so far to groups that
promote inclusion and racial
justice, far beyond the
$10 million originally promised.
What is the thinking? Spend
millions on programs to foster
diversity and inclusion — while
funding a message that can
result in those newly included
people being taken out with
gunfire?
Fortunately, there are other
choices worth exploring —
different automobile companies
to consider, different TV service
providers to contemplate,
different brands of beers and
different hardware stores.
I have been pleasantly
surprised so far by what I
learned about Lowe’s, for
instance, Home Depot’s top
competitor.MILLOY FROM B1Lowe’s has a Black CEO,
Marvin Ellison, and from what I
can tell he doesn’t talk out of
both sides of his mouth on race.
He’s one of only four Black
Fortune 500 CEOs. And he says
he’s tired of seeing CEOs and
other business leaders pledge to
fight racism but do little.Or just make things worse.
“Sometimes, you have to
decide to talk less and do more,”
Ellison said at a virtual speaker
series hosted by the National
Retail Federation (NRF) in- “I’m very, very
appreciative that there’s all this
dialogue happening out there,
but I didn’t have to see the
horrific murder of George Floyd
to understand there was racial
injustice in America. I live it
every day.”
Some would argue that Home
Depot’s bottom line will not be
adversely affected by my
decision. Individual boycotts
aren’t even noticed, they say.
You need strategic, well-
organized efforts to make a
difference. Such as the 1955
Montgomery bus boycott in
Alabama, led by the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. to protest the
mistreatment of Rosa Parks.
“Boycotts can play a crucial
role in political change, but not
when they serve only as tests of
individual integrity,” Zephyr
Teachout, an associate professor
at Fordham Law School, wrote
in a 2020 issue of the Atlantic.
But what’s so bad about a
little integrity test? Might be
just the thing to spur greater
political action.
In the comment section of the
Post article about Stefanik’s
corporate support, a reader
noted a personal boycott of
restaurants owned by religious
and anti-democratic extremists,
and posed this question:
“Would you be willing to
hand wash your dishes for
several weeks if you knew it
might save 11 lives in Pittsburgh,
23 lives in El Paso, and 10 lives
in Buffalo?” Could you pass that
test?
I just have to bypass my
neighborhood Home Depot and
drive a few extra miles.
Ellison’s stewardship makes it
easy to contemplate. When he
took over at Lowe’s in 2018, the
company had only eight Black
employees at the vice president
level or higher — a number he
was determined to increase.
“I didn’t need social unrest as
a CEO for me to understand it
was an issue,” he said in the
NRF speech.
Two years later, Lowe’s hadtwo Black executive vice
presidents, two Black senior
vice presidents and 11 Black vice
presidents. Two of the
company’s top executive roles —
chief information officer and
chief brand and marketing
officer — were held by women.
Another Black woman was
promoted to executive vice
president of human resources.
Now, about 55 percent of its
executive leaders and
60 percent of its board are
women or ethnically diverse, abetter reflection of the
company’s customer base.
Without fanfare, Ellison also
invested $55 million in
minority-owned businesses,
about $25 million of that in
grants to help minority-owned
small businesses recover from
the pandemic.
Coincidentally, Ellison had
also worked at Home Depot
early in his journey to becoming
head of Lowe’s. Perhaps if he
had stayed with the company, I
would have stayed, too.COURTLAND MILLOYIt’s time to boycott businesses that support racist propagandaLIBBY MARCH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
A sign in the East Side of Buffalo, where 10 people were killed a t a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood May 14. The
shooter was allegedly inspired by the racist “great replacement” theory, which Republican campaign advertisements have echoed.“I didn’t have to seethe horrific murderof George Floyd tounderstand therewas racial injusticein America.”
Lowe’s CEO Marvin EllisonRetropolis
The past, rediscovered
wpost.com/retropolisS0364 1x1.75
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