Over to the left is an article publicly announcing that Raley's had just purchased the Eagle Thrifty Chain in Nevada.  If you read it closely, you will see that Tom Raley is a very active owner in this purchase.  And yet, Raley never knew Nordby.  And Nordby probably arrived on the scene shortly after Collings and Teel got their hands on these stores.  Also, this article claims that Raley's paid cash for these stores.  And yet, their history book stated that it took three (3) years for Raley's to pay off the purchase for these stores.  Also, there is a Sacramento Bee article from 1972 where Raley says in a few years he would like to expand after his Raley's stores reached the $100 million a year sales plateau-click here to read that article. So, in 1973, before Raley reaches that $100 million a year sales plateau, he goes out and buys a chain of stores that are losing money- and he purchased it without any money at all.   This article indicates that Raley's now has annual sales of $110 million with the acquisition of the Eagle Thrifty stores.

It appears that most of the articles written about Tom Raley and Raley's during the early 1970's were done specifically to mislead the community, and probably Raley's suppliers at the time. Trying to make everybody believe that they were doing well financially and that they weren't struggling. See were the article states:

"The Reno-based firm was purchased for cash, but the price was not announced."

If you notice that the date on this newspaper article is June 14, 1973, why did Raley's wait until November 7th of 1973 to publicly announce, again, that they had purchased Eagle Thrifty on July 1, and that they are now going to make a "name" change?

Well, the reason is probably a very simple answer.  Nordby told the three (3) men at Raley's who hired him, that it would take approximately one (1)  quarters business (13 weeks) for Raley's to see the results of his program that was being tested at six (6) stores that Raley's had given to him to implement his profit increasing program (this was happening right about the same time as Raley's purchasing the Eagle Thrifty chain.)  At the end of those 13 weeks, Raley's see's the great results.  They were so excited by the results, that Collings and Teel abandoned their plan to bankrupt the Eagle Thrifty stores (which had already been quietly incorporated to be the "Eagle Thrifty Corporation" at the end of June and early July of 1973) and ran this Ad in November of 1973.

And, do you know what is strange about all of this?  The fact that Nordby was never even told about Raley's owning the Eagle Thrifty stores until months after Nordby was hired by these three (3) over achievers.  Nordby never saw any small newspaper article claiming Raley's just bought the Eagle Thrifty stores.  In fact, Collings probably knew that Nordby didn't see it, because Nordby probably showed up at his door a number of days after that article.

The real reason Collings hired Nordby in the first place is probably because Nordby was going to be the scapegoat for when Raley's went bankrupt in California by 1974.  It also appears by the article to the left that Collings was going to make sure that Jim Teel was going to be the scapegoat for when the Eagle Thrifty Corporation went bankrupt in Nevada.  Why else did this press release state that  Teel was going to be directing operations of the Eagle Thrifty stores in Nevada?

Does anybody really believe that Tom Raley is calling the shots at Raley's in 1973? In 1972, in a Bee newpaper article written about Tom Raley (read the article below in a PDF file), Raley indicates that Collings and Teel are more or less in charge.  In fact, Raley states in that same 1972 article that "Raley's stores" almost run by themselves.  Nowhere in this article to the left is Collings mentioned-this is the same guy that likes to stand alone in the middle of the Church that he buys in Elk Grove.  Collings isn't mentioned because in my opinion Collings knows that these stores are going to go bankrupt very shortly and he wants no connection to these stores.  That is until Collings assists Raley's in writing Raley's history book in 1989.