Ace Hardware

Ace Hardware Corporation's mission is to be a total retail support company, providing its dealer-owners with merchandise and service at the lowest possible front-end cost. A strong board of directors, comprised of 11 dealer-owners and one non-Ace dealer-director, establishes guidelines for the professional Ace staff. Key Dates: Ace Hardware Corporation is the second largest dealer-owned cooperative in the United States. The co-op pools buying and promotions for its 5,100 local hardware, home center, and lumber stores located in all fifty of the United States as well as in 65 foreign countries and territories. Ace's emphasis on service and modern retailing techniques has helped locally owned and operated Ace retail stores confront intense competition from such home improvement powerhouses as Home Depot and Builders Square. The co-op manufactures its own line of paints and also supplies other products under the Ace brand. The Ace Hardware organization was founded in the early 1920s, when Richard Hesse, Frank Burke, Oscar Fisher, E. Gunnard Linquist, and William Stauber united to form a purchasing and advertising partnership among their Chicago-area hardware stores. Their combined buying power enabled the store owners to negotiate lower prices on merchandise purchased from wholesalers. The partners adopted the Ace name in 1927, and incorporated the following year. Within two years, Ace had evolved into a wholesaling organization, purchasing directly from manufacturers and storing merchandise in its own Chicago warehouse. This move further reduced costs by cutting out the 'middlemen' wholesalers, thereby giving Ace members the choice of a competitive edge (they could reduce retail prices) or fatter margins (They could maintain their prices and enjoy higher profits). Frank Burke served briefly as president of the organization, and was succeeded by Richard Hesse in 1930. Hesse served in that capacity for more than four decades, until the end of 1973. For its first half-century of operation, Ace was essentially a conventional wholesale group, and its profits were shared by its shareholders. The group's low-cost purchasing and distribution methods quickly attracted new members and some franchisees. During its early years, use of the Ace name was recommended but optional; it would later become mandatory for new affiliates. President Hesse expanded services to associates, including a semi-annual dealer convention featuring products and promotions available through the wholesaler. Those meetings continued through the 1990s. By the mid-1930s, the organization had 41 dealer/members and sales of more than $650,000. Growth was so strong, in fact, that the expanding roster of affiliates necessitated doubling warehouse capacity during that decade. The postwar era saw the dawn of America's 'do-it-yourself' (DIY) revolution. Industry analysts have attributed the spectacular growth of this market to several factors. First, the generally high cost of new homes drove consumers into widely available, but sometimes neglected, existing homes. The high charges exacted by repairmen and contractors impelled homeowners to attempt home repair and improvement projects on their own. Also, the emergence of new tools and products that were easy to use furthered the trend. Finally, some observers of the DIY movement have credited the more intangible, but undoubtedly strong, sense of satisfaction attained by consumers who completed a project themselves while saving money at the same time. On the strength of growing DIY sales, Ace's nationwide revenues increased to $25 million by the end of the 1950s. The organization opened its first distribution centers beyond the bounds of Chicago in 1969. A California facility served the expanding West Coast membership, and an Atlanta warehouse promoted growth in the south. These were the first of 14 retail support centers that came into being across the country by 1994. Before he retired in 1973, co-founder and long-t