Les Schwab

Leslie Bishop Schwab (October 3, 1917 – May 18, 2007) was an American businessman from Oregon. He was the founder of Les Schwab Tire Centers, a company which Modern Tire Dealer called "arguably the most respected independent tire store chain in the United States." A native of Oregon, he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II before starting his business in 1952.

Early life Born in Bend, Oregon, his family moved to Minnesota two years later with young Les in tow. The family moved back to Central Oregon in 1929, where Schwab was schooled in a railroad boxcar at the Brooks Scanlon logging camp, with his mother as schoolteacher.

While an aunt and uncle offered to take him in, Schwab instead rented a room in a boarding house for $15 a month. He began delivering the Oregon Journal newspaper while continuing to attend Bend High School. 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. From this grew a tire empire based in Prineville that had 34 stores in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho in 1971, and 410 stores in the western U.S. and $1.6 billion in annual sales by 2007. for an upscale, three-story executive campus. The new site in Bend at Juniper Ridge is on and cost $33 million.

On Sep. 30, 2020, Les Schwab CEO Jack Cuniff announced that the company would be sold to a California investment fund, Meritage Group, ending the 68-year family ownership of Les Schwab Tire Centers. The family cited the difficulties of owning and running the company in the fifth generation as reasons for the sale.

Family and later life Schwab wed his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harlan (1917-2016), in 1936 and they were married more than 70 years. Their two children died before their parents; son Harlan Lee Schwab (1940–1971) was killed in an automobile accident and daughter Margaret Joyce Schwab Denton (1952–2005) succumbed to cancer. In 1986, he wrote an autobiography, Les Schwab, Pride in Performance, Keep it Going. In the early 1990s, Schwab and his wife donated funds to the local hospital to fund an expansion in honor of his son, Harlan. In late 2005, following the death of his daughter, his own health began to deteriorate. He died at age 89 in 2007. His wife died in 2016. They were survived by four grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren. He was buried in Prineville. The Hayden Homes Amphitheater in Bend was named the Les Schwab Amphitheater, up until November 2021, in his honor.