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Tire king breaks $1 billion mark Schwab maintains daily presence at home office in Prineville By Jeff Nielson for The Associated Press PRINEVILLE � The tire king has a new jewel in his crown. Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc., the Prineville-based regional retailer of tires, custom wheels and other automotive products, will do a billion dollars in sales this year for the first time. Les Schwab himself can�t believe it. "When I went into business I never dreamed I�d do $1 million, so I guess I�m a thousand times more successful than I ever thought I�d be," he said. He now walks with a noticeable limp, and age has lined the face under the white Resistol cowboy hat that has become familiar to so many from print and television advertising. But 83-year old Les Schwab still makes the trip from his ranch east of town to his corner office at company headquarters for at least an hour or two, six days a week. On his office wall are about three dozen photos of some of the earliest stores he opened, and there�s no room for more. The company started in 1952 with a single outlet in Prineville; now, counting stores that are either run directly by the company or by dealers who sell Les Schwab products, there are 313. Looking at photos of more recent stores requires a walk down a hallway. Although Schwab still is keenly involved in the big-picture planning, and knows probably to the penny how the company is doing financially, he no longer is involved in the minutiae of day-to-day operations. That job has fallen to company president Phil Wick and Tom Freedman, the chief financial officer and senior executive vice president. But make no mistake: Schwab still is the Big Kahuna in the company offices, warehouses and distribution facilities. He knows every inch of every building � and that�s a lot of building to know. With the completion of two massive structures of 550,000 and 452,000 square feet on a ridge above town, the corporation now has 2.5 million square feet in Prineville alone. When Les talks, people listen. And when his blue GMC Jimmy comes around a corner on company property, everyone else waves and gets the heck out of the way. "Look out, the old man�s coming through," the chatter on the company radio goes. After 64 years of marriage, his driving still can make his wife, Dorothy, a bit nervous. "Watch out for that forklift," she�ll say when he swings into a tight corridor while showing off the buildings full of tires to a couple of visitors. "I know how to drive in these warehouses, dear," he replies sweetly. There are many reasons that Les still is the Grand Old Man to some 6,000 employees, but there�s one reason that stands out above all others: He takes care of them financially. Schwab�s family owns all stock, but the company believes in sharing. Ever since the company was established, Schwab has given at least half of the profits back to employees. Store managers can earn six-figure incomes. The first year, Schwab contributed $24,000 to an employee retirement fund; this year, the company will contribute $16 million to the fund, which already has topped $300 million. That�s in addition to healthy bonuses, medical insurance and dividend checks. The company�s philosophy is to promote from within. Both Wick and Freeman went to high school in nearby Redmond. Virtually all the top executives are from Central Oregon, Freedman said. Schwab�s belief in taking care of people comes both from his small-town values and some of the hard knocks he�s weathered in his life. As he documented in a book he wrote 14 years ago, "Pride in Performance Keep it Going," his father was an alcoholic and his mother died when he was 15, leaving him on his own as an orphan. Les and Dorothy�s only son, Harlan, died in 1971 in a car accident. Their daughter, Margie Denton, lives in Prineville. Family members aren�t involved in day-to-day operations of the company, but they do sit on the board of directors, attend weekly meetings and plan policy. At a ceremony this fall when Schwab was named dealer of the year by Modern Tire Dealer, the magazine�s retired editor, Lloyd Stoyer, talked about the Schwab family�s belief in rewarding employees. "Who in the history of the tire business has shared so much with so many?" Stoyer said. The question is inevitable: What direction will Les Schwab Tire Centers take when Les no longer is around? The answer from management is, the same direction it always has. The company�s double-digit annual growth has come chiefly from increasing sales at existing stores and opening new outlets, said Freedman, who joined Les Schwab in 1971. The company�s top-selling product still is tires, with alignment, shocks and brakes second and custom wheels third. Freedman said the company doesn�t do market studies, so it doesn�t have specifics on how big its share of the market in the Northwest is. He added that what the company does know is that it has more stores in Oregon, Washington, northern California, Idaho and western Montana than any other tire chain. According to Modern Tire Dealer, Les Schwab is the fifth-largest independent tire dealer in the United States, and the largest marketer of Toyo tires in North America. Next year, in California and elsewhere, the company plans to open 20 new stores. In the fast-moving world of Les Schwab Tires, there is one thing that isn�t likely to change: This empire will continue to be run from Prineville. For one thing, the company has invested a huge amount of capital, $18 million, on the two new buildings in the area. More importantly, perhaps, is that Les just plain is fond of Prineville. "I like small towns, and I think the work force is a little better here," he said. 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