Graco Oral History Project

Lee D. Harness Narrator James E. Fogerty Minnesota Historical Society Interviewer Interviewed on December 27, 1984 JF = James E. Fogerty LH = Lee D. Harness JF: I’d like to start with a brief comment on where you were born, whereProject you went to school, and how you came to Graco. Why don’t you start with those, and proceed at your own pace. LH: I was born in the small town of Milltown, Wisconsin, and actually lived at my grandparents’ home at that time, on a farm. I moved to Minneapolis in about 1934 andSociety went to school here at Marshall High School I worked all the way through high school, working nights, Saturdays and what-not, in the retail hardware business. History I decided that I wanted to get out of that field and get in with a manufacturing company. I’d heard about Graco through some friends, and went over and applied for a job with the stipulation that what I wanted to do was get into sales, and therefore I wanted to get into the factory and learn the product and learn the businessOral for a period of time, and then go into the sales function. This was in 1939. I had finished school then, and interviewed with both Rollie Gray, who was the factory manager, and Leil Gray, who was theHistorical President of the Company. They were brothers. As it turned out, I was reallyInc. exploring this possibility, and hoped that something might develop. One of the reasons that I became conscious of the Company is that I had seen a trailer with a Vitalizer on it—which is a device for motor cleaning. I saw it in a service station and was curious about it, and went up and asked a few questions. Then I found out that a friend of mine was acquainted with the Company, so I just pursued that. It looked intriguing. It turned out that I went for this interview, and they said, “When can you start?” I said, “Well, I have to give notice at the job GracoI’m on now, but I can probably make that fairly short.” So within one week I started with the Company. Minnesota I started working on the assembly line, where the pumps were made, so that it would give me the experience of what the product was, how it was built, who the people were, and give me the knowledge I’d need later on to sell the product. I worked for about six months on that assembly line, with no particular timetable as far as when I wanted to get into the sales field. I had some discussions with Leil Gray, the president, and apparently I had learned enough about the pumps so I would be able to answer some questions. I was pulled out of the assembly line to go down to Chicago to the show at Navy Pier, which is an annual automotive trade show. My job at that 1 point was to set up the equipment and to maintain the equipment and demonstrate it, as customers or people in the industry came through. This was my first move into sales as a product demonstrator. I was twenty-one years old at the time. JF: What product were they making at that time on the assembly line? What was the major product? LH: The basic assembly line product was pumps. Air-operated lubricant pumps for dispensing lube for service stations and garages. Then the hoses and the valves that would complete that package so it would pump the fluid from a bucket or a container and dispense it in the fittings on the automobile. That was the main business at that time, lubrication equipment. In fact, that’s what started the Company with Russell Gray back in 1926, I think it was. JF: So that was the major product that they were making at that time, almost everything. LH: That’s right. It was almost totally related to lube equipment duringProject that period of time. Now at that period of time, when I came aboard, my first contacts were with Rollie Gray, who was the factory manager—and essentially, I worked for him—and Leil Gray. Within a few days, I met Russell. He was down on the line. In fact, that’s how I first got pulled away toward the Chicago show, by answering some questions about the pump. Apparently there wereSociety some field problems, and it was through that conversation that finally I got picked for this Chicago show. At that time, Leil Gray was the president, RussellHistory was a vice president, Harry Murphy, Sr., was a vice president, and Grier Wheaton was the treasurer. Those were the four partners, together, essentially, after the crash in 1929. They had invested some money at that time. Harry Murphy and Grier Wheaton were investors, and Russell, of course, started it. Leil came in as his partner. After the crash, Wheaton and MurphyOral were looking for other things, and joined the Company as employees, and as officers. They formed the board of directors, too, at that time. Historical That’s how I came into the Company. I think in 1940 the Company was launching one of its first major promotional efforts toInc. demonstrate some of the new equipment that Russell had been developing. It was equipment that had some pizzazz to it, in terms of sheet-metal shrouds that made it look good and made it easier to clean, and to try to get a jump on competition. This was in the early fall of 1940, and there were three or four of us—I think it was three—that started out on a tour of the Midwestern states to attend some oil company meetings. One of the major oil companies was Skelly Oil Company. We had cars and a four-wheel trailer loaded with equipment,Graco packed as much as we could get on them, and then drove to each meeting during the night, set up the equipment.Minnesota The meeting then would be during the day. Following that, we would tear the equipment down, reload it, set on our way to the next meeting and drive sometimes two or three hundred miles in the night to set it up. So this is where I gained some of my sales experience, from a product demonstration standpoint. Kind of a continuation of the Chicago meeting at Navy Pier. JF: Who were the principal customers—at this time—of the Company? 2 LH: We had, first of all, our distribution system. We had distributors that we sold to, and then they in turn sold to oil companies-although in some cases we would sell direct to the oil companies if the distributor couldn’t handle that type of business. The major customers were all of the major oil companies who owned or leased the service stations and the garages, so that our product generally went through distributors, but sometimes direct to the oil companies. The oil companies had major building programs at that time, in which they were attempting to compete by modernizing their stations. They would install this equipment and try to outdo their competition. We had automotive distributors as customers, and then they in turn sold to the smaller oil companies, but in some cases we sold and packaged programs for the major oil companies. Standard Oil, Skelly, Pure Oil, Shell Oil Company, and some that are no longer in existence. Conoco is one of them. That was almost the total thrust of the business at that time. As a matter of fact, when I started, the Company had a hundred employees, total. I’ve forgotten the dollars’ worth of sales, but I suppose it was maybe three million annual sales at that time. Project JF: That included production employees as well as the sales force. LH: Yes, that was all employees. Society JF: You did not sell, then, at that time, directly to service station operators, for instance? LH: No, we normally did not sell direct at all. If anHistory independent service station operator or one that leased from a major oil company wanted to buy, he would buy through a distributor. We did not sell direct, but we did, on occasion, sell direct to the major oil companies, and they in turn would distribute to their lessees. We would ship it direct to the point of use, but we would actually sell it to the major oil companies.Oral In industry this is always a challenge, because of the fact that you try to retain and develop your distributors, but in some cases it becomes almost essential to sell direct to the major customer. YouHistorical usually try to work out some kind of a rebate system so the distributor stays in the fold and lets it go on, because they do want to sell that product that they’re representing—Inc.in this case, Graco. JF: Who were your major competitors? Did you meet your competitors coming in the door as you were going out? LH: That’s an interesting question, because one of the other projects that I got pulled out on— this was priorGraco to the show in Chicago-was to order in competitors’ equipment. We had a space up on the second floor Minnesotathat happened to be vacant at the time, and we set all of that equipment up and actually put it in operation and ran tests on delivery and pressure and any other performance criteria that we could, and kept a record of that.

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