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The first idea that we had for our first tool
came from a rudimentary repair stand.
Instead of putting it over on the floor and squatting down and having to pick it back up again,
then you could turn the bicycle over
— clamp it properly —
so that the wheels and the crank and the chain were exposed, you could clean them
— and it was a sight to behold, but it worked!
We started in the back of a bike shop.
My father, Howard Hawkins, and his partner, Art Engstrom, bought a little bike shop on the east side of Saint Paul.
So I stopped at his house one day and I said, "Lets buy the bike shop!"
And we looked at each other and said, "Do you have any money?" "No, do you have any money?"
No money, we borrowed it all and started in 1956.
My first unofficial job at Park Tool was test riding the bikes at the old bike shop.
Well, I remember as a kid thinking that if your dad could be in any business,
the coolest one was to have a bike shop, and especially a Schwinn shop.
Very shortly we expanded into the next building, and we were the largest Schwinn dealer in the nation
— and we began to get interested in maybe developing some tools.
They came out with frame alignment gauges and wheel alignment things and,
you know, all these great tools increasingly started to look professional.
We sold our bike shops in about 1981.
By that time we didn't have to think about bikes, we were thinking only about tools.
It was the product to have if you were going to own a bike shop or wanted to do some home…
work on their bike in their home — Park Tool is the tool of choice for that.
Park would deliberately deliver on time, they deliver error free, they deliver everything we ask for…
Park Tool has always had a philosophy of creating quality, long-lasting products.
We've grown from two employees, Howard and Art
— two guys, two friends that just wanted to make a living for themselves and their family —
to now around 50 employees and we sell all around the world.
Today, Park Tool is the number one tool supplier in the world.
Park Tool is synonymous with high-quality tools and with innovative tools.
Park Tool also has perhaps the highest fill rate of all our suppliers — we get between 95 and 100 percent fill rate from them —
and that makes it very easy to purchase from them.
There's no other brand that matches Park Tool in terms of the breadth of products that they offer;
mechanics enjoy, trust, and want to use Park Tool.
Hi, I'm Andy Stone with Team Type 1 — head mechanic, Jelly Belly pro cycling
— and I love Park Tool — I like Park Tools — and I use Park Tools
— Park Tool is one fantastic company!
Park Tool is a fun company to go visit because, I mean,
they have their quality control people there, they have their engineers there,
they have their tool designers; they are a fountain of creativity.
Our foundation is people.
They jump in with both feet, offer suggestions, contribute, and have fun.
We're a very close family here at Park Tool. Everybody works together.
The employees want to show that, "hey, I built that stand, that stand has got my initials on it!"
I think there's an adage in cycling that after you pass everyone in the field you start racing yourself,
and Park Tool's success over the years is based on always evolving a new standard of excellence.
We help people make sure that they can get out and enjoy their passion as much as and when they want to,
and so having the right tools and being able to fix them quickly is really important to our customers. That's where Park Tool fits in.
We owe a lot to the bike dealers because they've been faithful in giving us feedback,
they've been faithful in helping us create a whole other market.
We owe a lot to consumers and the fact that they are loyal to us
in buying our product to fix their bikes.
When we started Park Tool Company,
we wanted to build tools that were market-driven,
tools that people would use, tools that would look good,
that would hold up, and also that would be guaranteed to do the job.
I couldn't believe what was happening then, and now when I see this new building
and the 50 years that's gone by, I stand in amazement.
I think that we all now have a responsibility to find ways to be more efficient,
to find new products and new ways to innovate and using technology.
We've been extremely blessed over the years. We have a successful business
and there's still a lot to do and there's a lot of things that we can do as a company to get better.
If you want to narrow it down and say this is our mission, I'd say it's to make the best tools we can, to be innovative,
to stay on top of the changes in a fast-changing industry,
and to have fun doing it.
We believe we're going to be around for another 50 years.