Leonard("Sam") Shoen (1916–1999) was an American entrepreneur who founded the U-Haul truck and trailer organization in Ridgefield, Washington. After growing up in the farm belt of the United States during the Great Depression, he envisioned the market for rental vehicles for families who wished to avoid the expense of professional transfer and storage companies and move themselves around the country.
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Leonard Shoen was born in Minnesota. He worked his way through college by running a chain of beauty parlors and barber shops, attended Oregon State University, and did post-graduate work at the University of Oregon's medical school. See _A Noble Function_ for further details.
In 1945, at the age of 29, Shoen co-founded U-Haul with his wife, Anna Mary Carty, in the state of Washington. The company was started with an investment of $5,000. He began building rental trailers and splitting the fees for their use with gas station owners whom he franchised as agents. These early deals were based on little more than a wink and a nod. He developed one-way rentals and enlisted investors as partners in each trailer as methods of growth.
By 1955, there were more than 10,000 U-Haul trailers on the road and the brand was nationally known. While distracted to some extent by growing his business, Shoen also managed multiple marriages after the death of his first wife, and eventually had a total of 14 children, each of whom he made stockholders. Some observers say that Shoen saw it as his duty to confer upon his children the fruits of his labors, others say it was to avoid taxes. In either case, he had transferred all but 2% of control to his children when 2 of them, Edward and Mark launched a successful takeover of the business in 1986. "Had Leonard Shoen spent five hundred dollars for a lawyer in 1950," said one associate, "none of the rest would have followed." [1]
Mr. Shoen formed the Amerco Enterpreneurial Institute Inc., which purchased the Chaparral in 1996 at 925 E. Desert Inn Road in Las Vegas, Nevada, renovating it into the World Trade Center Casino. When it was discovered that two of Mr. Shoen's closest advisers were convicted felons, he lost a long and contentious battle to obtain a gaming license for the property from the Nevada Gaming Control Board in 1998. He later withdrew his application.
Family squabbling over the U-Haul empire turned to physical confrontations between some of his children at company meetings, even before the 1986 takeover. The takeover sparked a major family dispute that led to a $461 million judgment in favor of Leonard Shoen and others.
In 1999, 83-year old Leonard Shoen suffered fatal injuries when he crashed into a utility pole near his Las Vegas, Nevada home in what was ruled by the Clark County coroner's office as a suicide. [2]