Arkansas Visionary: Howard Hurst

Photos by Steve Lewis

Bloom where you are planted: Third-generation owner of Tipton & Hurst has built a career on making life’s events more beautiful

There is precious little that remains the same from Howard Hurst’s first engagements with the family firm, Tipton & Hurst, but what there is is significant.

No, flower stock does not arrive by rail car to be picked up at the train depot anymore as it did when Hurst, as a boy, tagged along with his father. No, the company does not maintain a downtown location as it did through its first century or so, and no, the Tipton family is no longer present in anything past the name above the door.

At its heart, however, what remains and has preserved Tipton & Hurst for 139 years is the attention to detail, level of customer service and constant innovation that has grown the company into one of Arkansas’ most recognized brands. That, as Hurst said with pride, remains as glorious now as the day it first bloomed and has only grown stronger during his four decades at the helm.

“I always knew I was going to take over Tipton & Hurst,” he said. “I was the third child, and there was none after me, and so it was either me or nobody. That’s one big reason why companies don’t pass on through the generations — because there’s nobody to pass it to. A lot of [the next generation] don’t want do it, so that’s why they sell.

“For me, it was a little bit of both loving the business and the obligation to carry it on. The legacy part was huge. I wanted to work with my family. I watched my dad, and I thought, ‘You know, that’s a pretty good life. He gets to do a lot of different things.’ As an entrepreneur, you just wear a lot of hats, and I liked that. I didn’t want to do one thing and be in one little niche every day for my whole life.”

Tipton & Hurst began in June 1886 with greenhouses in the Little Rock Central High School neighborhood and a retail presence in the downtown business district. The company is among the oldest in Arkansas, and to fully appreciate that, consider how far the company predates some of the places that, for most people, generally call for fresh flowers. For instance, St. Vincent Infirmary, now CHI St. Vincent, did not open until 1888; Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, where the florist would eventually have a retail location, did not open until 1920; Roller Funeral Home would not appear in Little Rock until the mid 1950s; and Griffin Leggett Funeral Home, now Griffin Leggett Healey & Roth, did not open until 1964.

As each of those entities came online, as well as legions of individual households looking to accentuate special family events from weddings and christenings to holidays and just because, the company grew, offering expert advice, talented floral arrangers and unparalleled customer service. That required expansion, and with that came the challenge of maintaining across multiple locations the ethos and standards of a single store run by the owners.

“Florists tend to serve an area, not unlike a neighborhood restaurant,” he said. “Obviously, you can ship things, but traditionally, you’ve got a certain area, and once you’ve covered an area or covered a community, like Little Rock, the only way you’re going to expand into new markets is by having a physical presence.

“A strong brand is very important. If you think about Dillard’s, you know, the Dillard family runs it, but you’re going there because Dillard’s is a brand that you’re familiar with. When you’re a small boutique, you don’t have that, and I always wanted to make sure that we grew big enough so that we became a brand. We’ve evolved in that way.”

The company’s longevity also gave it multiple opportunities to innovate and challenge the status quo. The company’s diversified inventory of gifts to go with the fresh flowers dates back to the very beginning and still stands out from many competitors today.

“According to my dad, it was my grandmother in the 1920s who started going to market and buying gifts,” he said. “She had china and tabletop, a lot of different things. It’s been part of the product mix for a long time, and even today, we’ve got a much larger mix of gift items than almost any florist. Not very many do all the things we do.”

Hurst continued that legacy of innovation by nudging the company into the digital age with a robust web presence over the past decade. He said while one has to be careful not to chase every fad that comes along, companies that do not pay attention to legitimate business trends are setting themselves up for failure over the long haul.

Hurst augmented his real-world education with his studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he earned a degree in business.

“Never say never,” he said. “I would tell you one of the reasons why we’re so diverse is because our business can be very seasonal. Christmas comes along, and Christmas is very busy because we’re decorating homes and commercial buildings, and we’re a holiday store. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, there’s a lot of deliveries, along with the weddings and sympathy and events of all kinds.

“When you’re very diversified, if any one thing goes up or down, you’re not going to go under because all your eggs aren’t in one basket. It’s harder to run a business that has a lot of different things, but overall, the valleys and peaks are smoother.”

Hurst has come to all of these business strategies via a combination of learning from his father, Joe Hurst, and decades served in the store, working in a variety of customer-facing and back-office roles. Talking about it, a detectable note of fondness comes into Hurst’s voice.

“My earliest memories are of going with [Joe] to pick up flowers for the store,” he said. “I remember going to the railroad station and picking up flowers off of refrigerated railroad cars. That’s the way they used to ship them. I’ll never forget the carnations were from Denver, Colorado, and we’d call them Denver carnations. Then, of course, we had greenhouses, too, and we grew flowers at 14th and Park, so I’d go there and work on that or go with him to do weddings in churches and reception halls. There was always a need for a lot of extra help.

“I put all my friends in high school to work helping us deliver or cut flowers or whatever. They were always like, ‘Man, you get to work with your dad all the time. My dad is a banker. I can’t go help him,’ so I always thought that was kind of neat to be able to work with my father.”

Hurst augmented his real-world education with his studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he earned a degree in business and learned the formal blocking and tackling of commerce and management.

“In many ways, our business is the same as everybody’s, you know? Everybody’s got finance and accounting and sales and expenses, no matter what you’re doing,” he said. “You’ve got to hire and fire people, do marketing just like every business does. It’s just a different product mix and, in our case, a different timetable. We’re really busy during holidays, when other people are slow, for example. You kind of have to wrap your arms around that.”

Hurst also made a point of affiliating with other successful business owners both in the floral industry and other businesses in Arkansas and elsewhere to glean as much information as he could about various aspects of business. That was particularly important considering how young he was when he was named president.

“My father was 39 when I was born,” he said. “He was at the University of Arkansas, and Pearl Harbor happened when he’s a junior business student, and like everybody else, he joined up. When I turned 26, he turned 65, and that’s when he decided, ‘I’m going to take Social Security. You’re going to become president. I’m going to start slowing down.’ For me, it was, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t know anything about this.’

“That got me started in peer groups at an early age. One group I belong to to this day has eight or 10 of us florists who are noncompeting around the country, and we get together and share finances, buying tactics, which is a huge thing. We share everything you know? What’s going on? What’s working for you? How do you set up your organization? How are you managing your people?”

At age 67, Hurst can today look back with pride and look forward with hope now that his daughter, Josie Hurst Clark, is pursuing her Master of Business Administration with plans to become the fourth-generation owner of the family business. The idea that the firm will remain in family hands brings a smile to his face, but until then, there are brides to serve and tables to dress and a business plan that keeps unfolding. The company is set to christen its first northwest Arkansas store in Rogers to join locations in Little Rock, located in the Heights since 1966, North Little Rock, Conway and Pine Bluff.

“I’m very excited about my daughter and our legacy going forward,” he said. “Change is inevitable, but I think something that the business today has in common over the long term has been our family’s commitment to excellence and commitment to keeping it going and just being in it for the long term.

“I mean, it’s not easy. It’s hard work. Retail is very hands-on, and with a growing operation, you have to get your hands dirty. Some people see that, and they run. They go, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ Then another sees it, and they go, ‘Ooh, I’d love to do that.’ Thank God in our case, we’ve had a succession of four generations that have said, ‘You know what? I’m there.’”

HOWARD HURST ON RECRUITING TALENT

“My wife likes to say, ‘You’ve got to have really good horses in the stable,’ meaning you’ve got to have thoroughbreds, people who are good at what they do. People are talented in different ways, and so you have to figure out where that lies and just run with it and take advantage of those skills. As CEO, you want to surround yourself with people who are better than you and who know this field and are specialists in what they do, and then you just work to try and put them all together. That, to me, is what makes a good leader and a good entrepreneur.”

HOWARD HURST ON THE VALUE OF MENTORS

“I would say that the most important thing to do to really learn how to run a business is to seek out and get with the best people in the country that are doing this. Go get with them and figure out what they’re doing, and do what they’re doing. There are specifics to being a designer or being an accountant or whatever it is, and the best way to learn all of those, I have found, is to see what other successful CEOs, other owners are doing.”

HOWARD HURST ON OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

“Something you always have to think about is a business is not static. People come and go. Accidents happen. Change is inevitable. Sometimes you just have to make the best with what you’ve got. I would also say, however, that with change comes the opportunity to further evolve and improve. Every time something happens, you’ve got to embrace that change by always thinking about it as an opportunity to do better.

“The people that we’re in competition with now, they didn’t exist 25 years ago, and who knows who will be here 25 years from now? That’s why taking care of your people is so important, so that they will in turn do whatever it takes to take care of customers. This is a long game, so being consistent in what you’re doing as a business is absolutely critical. We’re not trying to pull one over on somebody for a short-term sale. We’re in it for relationships over the long term.”

HOWARD HURST ON PERSPECTIVE

“About six months after I started, a guy who was our general manager left and went down the street and opened up to compete against us. I thought it was the end of the world. I was like, ‘Oh my God, Dad, what did I do wrong?’ He gave me what was probably the best business advice I ever got when he said, ‘Well, you haven’t done anything wrong. This is just the evolution of what happens. You’re just going to have to evolve and figure out new things and new paths. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.’

“It didn’t bother him much, and what I learned is when these things happen, the important thing is to take every change as an opportunity, no matter how hard or how terrible it feels at the time. In that particular case, I focused on finding a replacement with the attitude that the replacement might be even better than the one who left. Very often, it works out just like that.”

HOWARD HURST ON THE FACTS OF LIFE IN BUSINESS

“As an entrepreneur, you’re not going to make a ton of money all the time. It’s just not going to happen. There’ll be times when you’re not making any money or you’re losing money where you’re going to feel totally negative. When that happens, you’ve just got to keep working and work hard, and you cannot let yourself get down. You’re the leader of the team, so you have to show confidence in what you’re doing and show others things are going to be OK. Lord, as a company we’ve faced the Depression and war and maybe a little COVID-19 here and there, but in the end, it was all about just keep on going. As a result, we’ve outlasted our competition. We’ve just continued to be here.”