Les Schwab

Leslie Bishop "Les" 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 in high school in Bend at age 15, Schwab and his three siblings became orphans in 1933 when both parents died within months (mother died of pneumonia, alcoholic father found dead in front of a moonshine joint).

An aunt and uncle offered to take him in, instead he rented a room in a boarding house for $15 a month and began delivering the Oregon Journal newspaper while continuing to attend Bend High School. At the paper Schwab would eventually cover all the routes in Bend, nine in all, outearning his high school principal, and graduated in 1935. He married his high school sweetheart in 1936 and they became parents in 1940. Schwab became circulation manager for the Bend newspaper, The Bulletin, in 1942 and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.