Gordon Reid (businessman) - Early Life (1933-1961)

Early Life (1933-1961)

Reid was born in Vancouver in 1933 and as a boy moved to the working-class Montreal suburb of Verdun. Reid's mother worked in the retail industry, behind the lunch counter at the Woolworth's in downtown Montreal. His own retailing career began at age 13, gift-wrapping parcels part-time at the Robert Simpson Company in Montreal. In 1949, at age 16, Reid went to work full-time in the men's furnishings department at Simpsons after he had been expelled from school for what he describes as "misbehaving, setting a bad example, something that was quite small." Over the next six years he gradually rose in the company. At age 22 he completed the company's management training program, but left Simpson's when he learned that his pay would remain fixed at $65 a week.

In 1955, Reid was hired by Frank Hacking, a Toronto-based importer, to sell Japanese-made sporting goods to retailers in Quebec. In 1957, he moved to Windsor and set up an office for Hacking across the river in Detroit, to sell to American retailers. It was in the American Midwest during the subsequent two years that Reid first saw discount stores—a new concept at the time. He was particularly impressed by Uncle Bill's, a chain headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The discount store concept did not yet exist in Canada, and it therefore represented a business opportunity.