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“I had always wanted to design the perfect tire store, so here at last was my opportunity.” |
WHEN I was suddenly transferred back to Columbus in 1964, it wasn't as a reward for doubling the sales in my seventeen counties in Southeastern Ohio and West Virginia. It was for their convenience, because they needed me back in the service department. I was on the road at Harrisville West Virginia one Friday when I had a call from George Willison, the district truck tire specialists. I assumed his call was about the assistance I had requested with some large off-the-road tire accounts. The competition was brutal for this business, and we had been having a price war with Firestone and Goodrich until we were actually selling tires for ten 10's (10% ten times) off list price! When I asked George when he was coming down to assist me with my problems, he replied, “You don't have any problems. We're transferring you back to Columbus. Ray Raduegue had a heart attack and you're taking over the district service department again. We need you here by Monday morning!”
On my return home to Marietta, I kept wondering how I could uproot my family and be back in Columbus with only two days notice. This was the third time that I had been assigned to that department -- a serious mistake if I expected to move up in the company. I should have climbed the promotion ladder as quickly as possible, making sure that top management looked at me as a “comer,” and should never have accepted an assignment that was a lateral move. I also should have done a stint as a store manager, which, unknown to me, was an important step in the “ladder.”
However, Mr. Don Carlstrom, our new District Manager, told me that I was the most qualified man to take over the District Service Department. He promised, that if I would do it, he would see that I got the job of manager, which was one of the four top jobs in the district -- just as soon as he got rid of Raduegue. I didn’t like the sound of “getting rid,” and determined to help Ray to recover his health. But when Ray returned to work, he started drinking again, and Carlstrom told me to quit helping him so that he could get rid of him. But I just couldn’t do that, and continued to help Ray and his family and to do all the department’s work myself. Then Clyde Griffiths, the District Wholesale Sales Manager, called me and also told me to quit helping Ray, so I wrote to Carlstrom and asked him to relieve me of my position and requested to be assigned to manage the Columbus territory. He did this immediately, and then appointed Griffiths to Ray’s job, and made Ray the Assistant District Service Representative under him. Ray didn’t live long after that, and I was glad that I had no part in the dirty work of getting rid of him by hounding him and working him to death.
The Columbus territory was a greater challenge than I thought. On my first day, I learned that my largest distributor was retiring and returning all his inventory -- a big minus figure to start my year! I also learned that the new I-70 freeway route would wipe out the truck and off-the-road tire distributor and retreader that was the district’s largest account. Also, my bicycle tire distributor, Goodyear’s largest one in the country, lost his Schwin distributorship and also decided to liquidate! Boy, did I have my work cut out for me!
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First, I persuaded the truck tire distributor and retreader to stay in business by having Goodyear build him two new stores and a new truck tire center. Then I went after the major marketing oil companies and converted 410 of Columbus’ 700 service stations to Goodyear. I supplied them through my four company stores and through Paul McMurray’s dealership, who was a close personal friend. I picked up the lost cycle tire volume by signing a large motorcycle parts distributor and selling him 32,000 tires as an opening order. After five years of tireless effort, I finally reached my goal of five million dollars in wholesale sales -- more than double the volume before I took over. Now it was time for a new assignment. One position that they offered would be working out of the Regional Office in New Jersey, and would require flying to a different district each week, and also of moving my family there. We respectfully declined that one, and also didn’t particularly want to try for one in the home office in Akron.
During that year, Goodyear was planning a new division called “The Goodyear Tire Centers.” They would build 300 state-of-the-art retail stores and sell them as “turnkey franchises.” My friend, Jim Barnett, had been a District Manager in two districts, and was promoted to direct the new division. He suggested that I retire, cash in my retirement benefits, and then buy one of his new stores. He said, “If you can raise $35,000 for working capital without borrowing it, you can have my first prototype Tire Center. Just pick a town and I’ll arrange unlimited credit for your company, and if you follow my plan, I guarantee that you won’t lose any money.”
Our own little town of Westerville was almost large enough and was becoming a prime target for a Goodyear dealership. I had been making franchise presentations to Westerville businessmen. They all agreed that the profit projections looked good, but none of them wanted to do it. They were already doing so well that they didn’t want to take on extra work. Dubs Roush owned Ohio’s leading hardware store and was building two new stores in his Westerville shopping center: One to sell Honda bikes and cars, and one to sell sporting goods. He was willing to build a third one to sell Goodyear products, but only on the condition that I resign from Goodyear and become his manager. When his general manager, a close friend and neighbor, told me that he had misgivings about how much Dubbs would allow me to earn, I turned it down. This was probably my biggest career mistake.
Then we cashed in our total net worth -- annuities and everything, borrowed more from my family, and signed that fateful twenty-seven page contract with Goodyear. I hired three mechanics and a young man to be my credit sales manager and allowed Goodyear to train them in local Goodyear company stores at Goodyear’s expense. MJ was trained to handle the accounting, I trained to be a store manager, Dave accepted the job of custodian, and even little Geri Lynn would help with the brightly colored bicycle tire inventory. MJ’s mom moved in with us and, with Celia’s help, ran our household. She also helped us trade up to a much nicer executive house just a block from the store.
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Then every possible disaster struck that project. The city of Westerville refused the building permit because the plans featured a plain wall of concrete blocks one-hundred and ten feet long that would face Schrock Road, a future cross-county four-lane road. Our neighborhood civic association had objected on the grounds of esthetics. I didn’t blame them, because the entrance to our subdivision was at that corner of the shopping center where the store would be located. The city also refused our request to install a forty-foot long sign, forty feet in the air. It would have been visible for a mile in every direction. We compromised by having it installed flush with the top of the building. Goodyear’s manager of store planning then sent me the blueprints and told me to change the design to comply with Westerville’s wishes.
I had always wanted to design the perfect tire store, so here at last was my opportunity. First, I turned the building around on the lot, facing Schrock Road, then put fifty-foot glass walls and entrances on both front and rear sides of the sales room. The remaining wall would be faced with attractive bricks The six overhead doors would face the street and there would be an access road and customer parking in front as well as in the shopping center lot behind. Then I added a shower for the employees and a 400 square foot appliance and TV repair shop over the employee and public restrooms. This used space that Goodyear was going to waste. I lowered the alignment pit so that the mechanics could stand in a comfortable position instead of lying or squatting in a shallow pit. I had the service department floor tinted Goodyear blue and sealed with a guaranteed plastic sealer. Since I would be selling a lot of truck and farm tractor tires and service, I put a concrete pad with air and water outlets behind the store on the side facing the shopping center where we did the dirty work of changing and repairing truck and tractor tires. There would also be a solid wall behind the service stalls to protect the six-tier high tire racks from dirt and dust.. I carpeted the fifty foot square sales room and put in a large sport wheel display because I felt that Goodyear was neglecting that lucrative line of hot selling products. I was very pleased with the final plan which I felt would be the most beautiful and most efficient Goodyear store in the country. Goodyear immediately approved everything that I had changed or added.
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Then an unbelievable succession of labor disputes wrecked the project, and it was delayed for thirteen months. The “turnkey” program was supposed to involve precise timing of the hiring and training of the staff, delivery of all of the inventories, pre-opening publicity and completion of construction and installation of equipment. The footers had just been poured when the national masons union went on strike and the walls could not be up before the winter freeze. After the walls were finally up, the carpenters union went out. Then the plumbers union, then the electricians’ union.
Worst of all, the building inspector turned out to be an enemy of the job foreman who had worked under him and had been fired by him. Out of pure malice, the inspector made them dig up the beautiful floor, tear out walls, and generally wreck the entire store. He was technically able to get away with his mischief by forcing strict adherence to obsolete rules that had not been used for many years.
But that wasn’t the end of that amazing procession of labor stoppages. When the building was finally up, there were no storage racks or catwalks for the tires because the manufacturer was on strike. In any case, a nationwide rubber strike had stopped all tire production, and eliminated the possibility of getting any tires form our distribution center or from Akron, and even if I could have, they couldn’t be shipped because the teamsters were on strike.
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Goodyear then advised me that my $2800 per month payments would begin that month anyway whether the store was ready or not, which violated that 27 page contract. I was going to be broke before we even opened! A friend at Goodyear’s distribution center in Cleveland said that he could help me out by personally loading a boxcar of tires for me from some he just received from Australia. The store was still thirty days from being ready, but it usually took thirty days for a rail shipment anyway. For some strange reason, the shipment came through overnight and demurrage would start immediately. Out of desperation, I rented two storage trailers and filled one with Goodyear’s new hot selling Polyglass tires, and the other with special bargain priced nylon tires.
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Instead of sitting on that investment on which I would have to pay interest, I decided to have a big “Tire Riot” at the Shell Service Station across the street. The owner agreed to install tires free if he could have the profit from wheel balancing. We donned “riot” hats and had a very successful sale. The Akron officials were surprised when I reported $37,000 in sales before the store was even completed. We had Westerville pretty well saturated with tires by the time we opened, and then had to rely mostly on profit from auto repairs. My head mechanic had trained for so long at the downtown Goodyear store that he had become their leading mechanic, so they stole him away from me which was another violation my contract.
My contract also required me to use their new computer data system which was worthless and later was scrapped. I spent hours, late at night, correcting their print-out garbage, and still couldn’t tell if I was making or losing money. Fifty-two Goodyear Tire Centers opened that year, but twenty-six failed the first year. To make a long story short, I worked myself into the hospital from the stress of trying to make a profit. Our Westinghouse appliance and TV lines required much of my time, but were not profitable. The quality was low, and the prices were not competitive with other Westerville appliance dealers. But our contract with Goodyear required us to sell them anyway. Our family doctor, fearing that I was nearing a physical collapse, put me in the hospital for ten days to recuperate. But lying there caused thrombo-phlebitis and I was hospitalized again for twenty more days after major surgery to remove the blood clots. That ended my venture and my Goodyear career because the doctor said I couldn’t work on my feet, ever again because he had removed a section of my vena cava along with blood clots the size of a football. He said, “Just be thankful that you’re alive -- we came within five minutes of amputating both of your legs when the blood wouldn’t circulate through your gut.”
So, I sold my store from a hospital bed and lay there regretting that I had told my insurance broker not to sell me any personal insurance -- just to cover the store, then after one year, maybe we could afford insurance for the family. But he didn’t listen, and included a small disability policy for me with the store insurance. When, I discovered that, I could have kissed him! The broker was Harold Hannahs, an old friend and classmate from Newcomerstown High School!
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After six months of convalescence, I began working at my old trade of selling tires, only now I sat with my feet propped up on my desk, and sold only by telephone. Gradually, my health improved and I began making a few calls and truck fleet inspections in Columbus.
After a year of this, I was beginning to get bored when I received a call from the National Sales Manager of Western Auto Stores. He was recruiting retired Goodyear sales executives to become District Managers to help them with their tire marketing. I jumped at the chance to go on the road again and to be doing something fun and exciting. I was assigned a district in Michigan and northern Ohio with dozens of stores and dealers. The expense account would pay for a new Chevrolet Impala and for first class travel. They had 22,000 items in their lines of products, but the tire one was their most profitable. However none of their managers seemed to understand the tire business. It was a labor of love for me to travel around, loading them up with tires and teaching them to sell and service them. The company urged us to buy a house in Jackson, Michigan, which was the center of my district -- assuring me that I would remain there permanently. We bought a nice new home in the Irish Hills of Michigan overlooking beautiful Clark Lake. It appeared that fortune was finally smiling on my career. Unfortunately, our efforts to help Western Auto Supply Company were too late, and the whole chain went bankrupt a year later, closed all my stores and cancelled all of my dealers. But it was fun while it lasted! For the next ten years, I managed a tire store in Worthington, then quit the tire business.
I was a long way from being wealthy, as the Goodyear recruiter had said I would be, when he hired me thirty-four years before.
