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Sidney Lawrence Hechinger attended Lehigh University and graduated in 1909 as a civil engineer. He hired out as a demolition expert for a Pennsylvania coal mine, but his father came to visit, saw young Sidney working with sticks of dynamite tucked in his boots, and insisted he come home to Washington.
After two years doing odd jobs, Hechinger persuaded a company that was tearing down a hotel to let him have the foundation bricks; he made enough money selling them to lay the foundation of his company.
In 1911, the Hechinger company began - wrecking buildings and selling the salvaged materials out of a horse-drawn van. When Hechinger bought new materials to fill customer requests, he found they sold even faster than the used materials.
In 1919 Hechinger opened his first store at 6th and C Streets, Southwest. By 1929 there were four Hechinger stores. The wrecker-turned-retailer was an innovator from the start. He bought in volume and pioneered the use of display advertising for building supplies. When World War II made it hard to get building materials, he turned to garden supplies. At war's end, Hechinger anticipated that returning veterans would turn into "Harry Homeowners" and created new do-it-yourself prooducts - then his staff taught customers how to use them.
Sidney Hechinger died in 1958, when the company had only seven stores. But John Hechinger, Sr. credits his father with sowing the seeds for growth and creating a corporate culture based on service to the customer, employee recognition, and attention to detail. Today a third generation of Hechingers runs the company's 96 stores with 13,000 employees and sales of over $1 billion annually.
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