Tom Peterson

Thomas Howard Peterson (February 23, 1930 – July 25, 2016) was an American retailer, pitchman, and television personality from Portland, Oregon. Peterson opened his first store in 1964, which grew to a regional consumer electronics, home appliance, and furniture chain in the 1970s. His memorable television commercials and unusual promotions made him a widely recognized personality in the Portland area by the 1980s, leading to several cameo appearances in the films of Gus Van Sant.

In the early 1990s, having acquired and been unable to successfully integrate a competing chain of electronics stores, Peterson filed for bankruptcy protection before reemerging as a scaled-down furniture retailer that offered minimal electronics. He continued appearing in his own commercials into the early 2000s, and the store's final location closed in February 2009.

Early life

Peterson was born outside St. Paul, Minnesota, where he grew up on a farm, the son of a federal government worker. He studied business at the University of Minnesota. Peterson met his future wife Gloria, also from the St. Paul area, at a Lutheran church camp at Green Lake in northern Minnesota at the age of 14. The two were married on September 20, 1952. and moved with Gloria to Portland on the advice of friends. It was during this period that Peterson first achieved fame in Portland and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Peterson continued to operate the franchise's locations at Jantzen Beach and Washington Square Too without a branding change until March 1991, when he renamed them Tom Peterson Super Stores, as he did his original home electronics store at 82nd and Foster. Peterson explained that the original stores were performing better than the newly acquired outlets, so he decided to combine them. His other two stores and car specialty store were unaffected.

The former Tom Peterson's store at the corner of SE 82nd and Foster.In August 1991, Peterson closed his Jantzen Beach location and in October filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing liabilities of $7.5 million owed to 283 creditors on assets of $2.7 million. He also faced lawsuits from suppliers and AT&T Commercial Finance. At the time of the filing, Peterson said: "I should have listened to my wife. She said, 'Don't buy Stereo Super Stores.' She was right." Peterson said sales shrank 16 percent in the company's 1991 fiscal year compared to 1990, and that his business had been in the red every month but one in the 25 months since the buyout. Peterson said at the time: "They should have been called Stereo Stupid Stores."

Peterson closed his furniture store at 82nd and Foster, consolidating all operations in his two remaining stores, but kept his ads on the air. However, Peterson did not lay all of the blame on national retailers, saying "In life, we are all carpenters of our own crosses. Don't blame someone else." at 8130 Southeast Foster Road, and Gloria Peterson resumed duties as chief financial officer. Peterson himself remained the primary public face of the company, and resumed his familiar advertising. Condon raised a portion of the new venture's seed money from the sale of Tom Peterson memorabilia, having bought hundreds of wristwatches and alarm clocks from the bankruptcy trustee, then reselling them at a profit. The final location closed on February 28, 2009.

Television advertising

Peterson is widely known in Portland for writing and starring in his own local TV commercials, for his trademark flattop haircut, and referring to his store as "the happy place to buy."

In 1987, Peterson experimented with hiring an outside firm to produce a series of commercials, a first in 23 years on the air. The new commercials parodied daytime soap operas, featuring a housewife named Monica whose domestic problems are solved by merchandise from Peterson's stores.

Commenting on his television advertisements in 1987, Peterson said: "It's probably the best-known commercial in town, but not the best-liked one." He continued offering free haircuts for the next two decades and as of 2002 was still giving away about ten haircuts per week. and Van Sant bought his Magic Chef refrigerator from Peterson. He also played bongo drums on Where's the Art?, a public-access television cable TV show with Stephanie Pierce, proprietor of the 24 Hour Church of Elvis.

Peterson's face was also appropriated by Portland stencil artists who spray-painted graffiti with the caption "Trust Tom",

Personal life During his bankruptcy, Peterson started a second business as a motivational speaker, which he continued until 2001. In later years, he suffered from Parkinson's disease. He died on July 25, 2016, at the age of 86.