Entrepreneur, philanthropist Macon Brock to speak, sign books at Longwood

First, they reshaped the American retail industry; now they are helping to reshape the Longwood experience.

Macon and Joan ’64 Brock, who in 2016 endowed the Brock Experiences for Transformational Learning with the largest-ever gift in Longwood’s history, got their start in 1986, when Macon Brock co-founded Dollar Tree, Inc.

That story is the subject of a new book, One Buck At A Time: An Insider’s Account of How Dollar Tree Remade American Retail. Part memoir, part company history and part handbook for any budding entrepreneur, the book recounts Dollar Tree’s rise from humble beginnings in Norfolk to explosive growth that has made it one of the fastest-growing businesses in America. Today Dollar Tree operates more than 14,000 stores, employs more than 165,000 people and is a Fortune 200 company.

Macon Brock and co-author Earl Swift will appear at Longwood University on March 22 to read from their book and sign copies in the Greenwood Library atrium at 3:30 p.m. The Longwood University bookstore will sell copies of One Buck At A Time.

Joan and Macon Brock are longtime benefactors of Longwood, notably leading philanthropy efforts to establish Brock Commons, which transformed the university’s physical campus, and now with a $5.9 million gift to expand the growing program of interdisciplinary transformational learning experiences.

Built on the success of the Longwood at Yellowstone National Park program, these new Brock Experiences will take students on place-based excursions where they will study problems and issues from a variety of disciplines.

The pair are committed philanthropists, giving not only to Longwood but also Randolph-Macon College, Old Dominion University, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the ACCESS College Foundation, among many other organizations. In 2015, they were honored as the nation’s Outstanding Philanthropists by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Macon Brock’s reading and book signing is free and open to Longwood faculty, staff and students, as well as interested members of the community.