Most of 1989 was at least as good. Sales continued to be strong, until Friday, November 24th, the day after Thanksgiving. That traditional kick-off day to the Christmas selling season, which had been so strong the previous several years was down twenty percent! Fear of recession had begun to have a direct impact on our customers' spending habits. And that was just the beginning of what was yet to come.

We finished 1989 with a slight sales decrease. 1990 was faltering from the starting gate. To make matters worse, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) began a major road construction project on the highway on which our store was located. We had heard of the horrors of road construction and its potentially devastating effects on business, and now we were getting a taste of this harsh reality. The first day of construction, traffic was backed up for miles in either direction. The second day, there were no lines at all! Commuters got the message in a big hurry: they needed to find alternate routes. In doing so, they also found somewhere else to buy their hardware. Years of building up a customer base were evaporating before our very eyes.

1990 was also the year that we successfully negotiated a new lease with our landlord, who had made a commitment to do some major remodeling to our thirty year-old, tired store. They would completely rebuild the storefront, replace the failing heating and air conditioning, install all new light fixtures and a new ceiling, and remodel the restrooms and employee lounge. We were also planning to enlarge our store by expanding into the vacant store adjacent to ours, which would be utilized for our business offices. We, too, were committed to participate in the remodeling effort. We would put in a new floor, all new store fixtures, furnish our new offices, and install a new, state-of-the-art computer system.

Between seven months of road construction, renovation of the exterior of our shopping center that took far too long to complete, and a recession gripping our country, we finished 1990 ten percent down in sales!

Our major focus for 1991 was our remodeling project. And IDOT's focus was once again, the highway on which we were located, only this time they were two blocks down from their previous location. Once again, we had to endure seven months of being quite inaccessible to our customers.

Our effort continued through most of '91. We were midway through our project when we learned that HomeBase, a home improvement giant from Southern California, and Menard's, another big retailer from Wisconsin, were both coming to town, each with a 125,000 square foot store, each about a one mile from us. We proceeded to wrap up our remodeling project. We launched our new Ace Store-of-the-Future with a grand reopening in mid-November of gargantuan proportions. However, we finished 1991 another ten percent down, but at least now our remodeling was behind us, IDOT was done with our highway, and our landlord had completed giving the shopping center a facelift.

1992 was a tough year to face. We were sinking, and we needed to take drastic action. We needed to go into "survival mode", which is an experience that one cannot possibly prepare for. It really causes you to lose all humility.

We fired our store manager, whose shoes I filled. We literally removed thousands of dollars of expenses. Dad and I both took pay cuts. We let go a twenty-year employee whose productivity was marginal. We dug in like never before. We were at war, man. It was a matter of survival. My dad wanted to sell the business, almost from the time we first heard of HomeBase and Menard's coming to town, both of whom were now in full operation. And we were feeling them, too. Our sales were down over forty percent from the time they began their decline that Christmas season of 1989! Our dilemma was how to make our company profitable at this new, reduced volume, which was obviously here to stay, at least for a while. And it really began to seem as if it couldn't be done.

I did not want to sell. I wanted to fight. In fact, my attitude was, if we were fighting, and still not making it, then we simply need to fight harder; work harder. By the end of 1992, were had made a lot of improvements to our store. In fact, we had laid the foundation for what looked like would be its ultimate survival. However, we finished the year one percent down! Think about that: Our first full year "under our belt" with our newly remodeled Ace Store-of-the-Future and we finished one percent down as compared to 1991, when for most of that year our store looked like a war zone! We couldn't even achieve those numbers. It was not only disappointing, it was downright debilitating... demoralizing!

By the beginning of 1993, Dad had persuaded me to at least explore the possibility of selling our store. I sure didn't know what I was going to do. My head was filled with thoughts of, "Where will I be a year from now? Where should I get a job? Where will I be working?" I began to see myself working at Corporate, perhaps in Retail Systems. I even began to inquire about such a possibility.

On Thursday, February 25th, Dad and I had a meeting with Ace's National Real Estate Development Manager, Earl. We sat down in Dad's office, and began by enlightening Earl about our situation. While chatting, Earl began to tell us of another store he'd been trying to sell. "It's a good store," he said, "but I'm not getting much interest."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's located in Missoula, Montana, and nobody wants to go to Montana!" It was almost as if he was telling a joke, and that was the punch line. But I wasn't laughing. In fact, I was on the intercom, paging Meg to come into the office, so she could hear about this. Dad couldn't believe that I was interested, at least not at first. Meg came in, and I made Earl go through the entire story once again.

Two weeks later, Dad, Meg and I spent the weekend in Missoula to see if this was as good as it sounded. It was. We met with Dale and Sue Mahlum, the owners of the store. We found Mahlum's Ace Hardware to be remarkably similar to Palatine Ace. Dale and Sue were pretty happy with Meg and I as the possible future owners of their thirty-three year old family business. Meg and I were already dreaming about a new life in the mountains, west of the continental divide. But we had to keep telling ourselves not to get too excited. After all, we had so much that we had to make happen. At that point, it was still an extremely long shot at best.

Within a couple of weeks, we had a buyer for the Palatine store. On June 30, 1993, the deal on Palatine Ace Hardware closed.

Exactly sixty days later, the deal on Mahlum's Ace Hardware closed. Meg and I had within that past month, staged a massive garage sale, sold half of what we owned, including two cars, and packed up what was left. On Monday, August 23rd, as soon as the movers had finished loading, we drove off into the sunset on a one-way trip west! By the way, that two-day trip west was about the only relaxation we've had in the last year.

In the ten years since we've had the store, we've made many changes; more than I would have hoped for in this amount of time. We have found ourselves welcomed into the community with open arms, warmth and friendship. And the feeling is mutual. Missoula is home to the nicest, most wonderful people we've ever met. Our employees really enjoy working for us, and we are extremely proud of each and every one of them. Our sales are strong and continue to grow. Our store has enjoyed a great reputation in town, thanks to the Mahlum's, and I'm proud to say that we've maintained it. It's a lot like Palatine was before 1989. But are we doing things differently? You bet we are! This entire experience has caused us to never, ever, take for granted any success that we realize, for it can change overnight.

In May 1998, Missoula Ace Hardware acquired a failing Trustworthy Hardware store located a short 2 ¼ miles away from the Tremper's location, at the northeast end of town in the Eastgate Shopping Center. Three months later, in July, Montana Ace Eastgate opened its doors, and became the Weis family's first "plunge" into the realm of multi-store operation.

August 2000 brought the acquisition of two additional Ace stores in Ronan and Polson, Montana, sixty and seventy-two miles north of Missoula, respectively. Ronan lies at the north end of the Mission Valley, back dropped by the stunning Mission Mountains. Polson lies at the south shore of Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Upon the acquisition of these two stores, our name was changed to "Montana Ace"

Probably the most significant change of all, though, is the reputation that the Montana Ace Team gained during those change-filled years. It became known, and to this day is still known, as the finest team of hardware professionals, and the most caring people in retail, not just in Missoula, but anywhere in the country! In fact, in 1998, Missoula Ace Hardware was presented with the very highest award, Ace Hardware's President's Cup Award, which recognizes the very best Ace Hardware store in the entire Ace chain of over 5,200 stores!

Yes, it's now 2003 and life, once again, is good…

Respectfully submitted,

Stewart Weis, President
Missoula Ace Hardware