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When Ron Vachris began working as a forklift driver for Costco's predecessor in 1982, he probably didn't expect to be running the company four decades later.

Back then, aged around 18, he was likely earning little over $3 an hour and ferrying pallets around a new type of store - giant warehouses stacked to the rafters with washing detergent, boxes of cereal and toilet rolls.

After Christmas, the 58-year-old will be overseeing 300,000 staff in almost 900 of Costco's vast warehouses and will take home $11.5 million next year for doing so.

Costco has had only two CEOs in its 40-year history and when Vachris takes the reins in January he will become its third.

Ron Vachris, 58, will become the third Costco CEO on January 1 when its current boss Craig Jelinek, 71, stands down

A man operates a forklift inside a Costco warehouse in San Diego, California, in July 2007. In 1982 when Vachris was operating a forklift truck at a Price Club warehouse in Arizona he would have been about 18 years old

His retail career began in Arizona in 1982. While studying business at Glendale Community College he worked as a forklift driver at a Price Club - the first major members-only wholesale retailer.

By 1991, Vachris was general manager of a warehouse in Denver, Colorado, according to company database Crunchbase. Two years later in 1993, Costco acquired Price Club.

For the next 20 years, he continued to hold various management positions across warehouses and in 2010 started leading Costco's operations in the Northwest.

In 2015 he became a senior vice president, working in real estate and then merchandising.

Seven years later in 2022, he emerged as heir apparent after being appointed President and Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Now, at the helm of the $280 billion company, he will make a base salary of $1.15 million and receive $10.4 million in Costco shares, according to SEC filings.

Pictured is a forklift operator at a Price Club in 1992, nine years after Vachris started working for the company and a year before its acquisition by Costco

Pictured is a Price Club warehouse in San Diego in the 1980s. Vachris began his career as a forklift operator at a warehouse in Arizona in 1982

Costco has a long history of nurturing its own into executive positions.

Its second and current CEO, Craig Jelinek, 71, started from the bottom as a food stocker for another Costco predecessor, FedMart, which was founded by the wholesale tycoon behind Price Club, Sol Price.

At FedMart, Jelinek met and worked with Jim Sinegal, who went on to found Costco in 1983 and become its first CEO. Jelinek joined Costco shortly after and when Sinegal retired in 2012 he became Costco's second CEO.

Under Jelinek's leadership, beginning in 2012, Costco's revenue more than doubled from $99 billion to $242 billion in the 2023 fiscal year.

After Jelinek stands down at the end of the year he will stay with on in an advisory capacity until April. After that, he will continue to hold a seat on the company's board of directors.

Vachris and Sinegal 'worked hand in hand over the last twenty-one months in [Vachris'] role as president and for many years before that,' wrote the company in a release announcing the appointment in October.

'Costco has a very strong culture and a deep bench of management talent,' said Jelinek. 'I have total confidence in Ron and feel that we are fortunate as a Company to have an executive of his caliber to succeed me.'

Ron Vachris (left), 58, is pictured with a Costco employee in a warehouse in Indiana

Major decisions lie ahead for Costco executives as US retailers increasingly face problems with their business models.

The Covid pandemic taught consumers to spend money online and drawing them back to stores has been tough.

Meanwhile, investors are eagerly waiting for the publicly traded company to finally increase its annual membership fees of between $60 and $120 per year in a move that would boost revenue.

Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said during its most recent earnings call it's a 'matter of when, not if'.

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