Les Schwab - Tires

Tires

Les Schwab’s venture into the tire business began when he bought an OK Rubber Welders franchise store in nearby Prineville in early 1952. Schwab was 34, with an expecting wife and an 11 year-old son, and had never even fixed a flat tire. He sold his house, borrowed from a relative, and borrowed from his life insurance policy to purchase the franchise for $11,000, which had one employee and included a small shack that did not even have running water or a bathroom. By the end of the first year, he had improved the sales nearly five-fold, from $32,000 to $150,000. A second store was opened in 1953 in Redmond and a third in Bend in 1955. The name of the business changed to "Les Schwab Tire Centers" in 1956, dropping the OK franchise. From this grew a billion dollar tire empire based in Prineville that had 410 stores in the western U.S. and $1.6 billion in annual sales by 2007. The company he built was based on the loyalty of the employees that was earned by giving them generous shares of the profit (half of a store’s profit went to employees of that store), lucrative benefits, and only promoting from within the company.

In the communities served by these stores, the company became known for their advertising featuring employees running out to meet customers, an annual free beef promotion, and the company slogan: "If we can't guarantee it, we won't sell it.". Despite the success of the company, Les Schwab refused to take the company public.

The company moved its corporate headquarters from Prineville to Bend in December 2008. Announced two years earlier, it exchanged its modest one-story cinder block offices (externally resembling a tire store) for an upscale, three-story executive campus. The new site in Bend at Juniper Ridge is on 12 acres (4.9 ha) and cost $33 million.