Les Schwab

Leslie "Les" Schwab
Schwab at age 85 in 2003
Born	October 3, 1917 Bend, Oregon
Died	May 18, 2007(2007-05-18) (aged 89) Prineville, Oregon
Resting place	Juniper Haven Cemetery Prineville, Oregon
Alma mater	Bend High School, 1935
Occupation	Businessman
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Harlan  (b. 1917) (m. 1936–2007, his death)
Children	1 son, 1 daughter

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.

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.

Les Schwab’s venture into the tire business began when he bought an OK Rubber Welders franchise store in nearby Prineville in early 1952. Schwab was 34, with an expecting wife and an 11-year-old son, and had never even fixed a flat tire. He sold his house, borrowed from a relative, and borrowed from his life insurance policy to purchase the franchise for $11,000, which had one employee and included a small shack that did not even have running water or a bathroom.