A local store and its manager have been recognized as being one of the national company's "best-performing teams."

Al Phillips, store manager of JCPenney at Southpark Mall in Spencer, was recently presented with the Chairman's Award, the company's highest honor for performance excellence, by Myron "Mike" Ullman III, JCPenney chairman and CEO.

"The managers and teams receiving the Chairman's Award delivered exceptional results in an increasingly challenging environment," Ullman said. "Albert and his team rose to the top by always putting our customers first and consistently performing at a high level. We congratulate him for this outstanding achievement."

The American retailer, which operates 1,074 department stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, as well as apparel and home furnishing sites on the Internet and the nation's largest general merchandise catalog business, presents Chairman's awards annually to its top-performing stores, districts and teams within the company. Of the 125 stores and four districts awarded this honor for fiscal 2007, Spencer is the only JCPenney store in Iowa named among the top 15 percent of stores and districts to qualify for the Chairman's Award.

Phillips, who has served as manager of the Spencer location for 10 years, deemed it an honor to be recognized with this during a celebratory banquet held last month in Dallas.

"It gives you a sense of pride that your efforts, and your team's efforts, are being recognized as achieving one of the top 15 percent results in the company," he said.

In order to meet the mark of a "best-performing team," Phillips said the Spencer branch had to meet a goal set by the company based on its past performance in sales and profits.

"I think it speaks well that the Spencer store achieved this once 15 years ago and just this past year," Phillips said, "because we have been a good steady-growth store -- and don't experience the peaks and valleys quite as severely as some of the other stores. Stores in the south and in the west are experiencing some tougher times because of the housing issues; where they were experiencing boom times the last several years."

Countering a recent rumor that the local store will be closing in the near future, the store manager added, "That is so far from the truth. Because, as I said, this market has experienced pretty steady growth. Spencer is a very profitable store and there is no need to think that it is closing. The truth is far from that.

"So far in 2008, our sales have been very positive locally. If you're in tune to the national news, business for JCPenney, and for that matter other retailers in general, is pretty soft. Probably the top three retailers -- Wal-Mart, Target and Costco -- have all experienced some pretty good sales, which reinforces that the economy may be tough because consumers are shopping discounters vs. department stores and mid-range retailers. So, I think Spencer is very ideally located in that we're, really, 100 miles from anywhere: Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Mankato, Fort Dodge, Mason City. And, I think people are traveling less further distances and shopping more locally for their immediate needs."