Rearview Mirror: Lex Brodie ran business with courtesy, honesty

Lex Brodie’s Tire Co. is a familiar business to many vehicle owners throughout the islands. Who was the man behind the company?

He was a beachboy, a pineapple company manager and the founder of a highly successful tire business. What makes his story compelling, though, is what he stood for.

Brodie valued being both straightforward and appreciative, and his actions showed it. Let’s find out about one of Hawaii’s legendary entrepreneurs.

EARLY YEARS

Brodie’s grandfather moved to Kauai in the 1800s to evade being conscripted into the Norwegian army. Lex Brodie was the third of five generations all named Alexander Brodie.

He was born in 1914 in Kekaha, on the west side of Kauai. His family moved to Oahu when he was 11 years old, and Brodie learned to surf at the Outrigger Canoe Club when it was located between the Moana and Royal Hawaiian hotels. He was one of many beachboys who provided ocean activities to visitors.

SAM KAHANAMOKU

Brodie and Sam Kahana­moku went into business together from 1933 to 1935. They gave tourists rides in a canoe that belonged to Alexander Hume Ford, founder of the Outrigger Canoe Club.

Kahanamoku would talk to tourists on the beach and offer them three rides in the canoe for $1. Brodie would take them out. Brodie, Kaha­namoku and Ford split the proceeds. Some of their customers included Shirley Temple, Jeanette MacDonald and Bing Crosby.

Brodie said that if there was an attractive young woman, he would put her right in front of him in the canoe. Often they would strike up a conversation, and she would sometimes invite him to dinner with her family at one of the hotels.

After dinner the parents would retire, and Brodie and the young woman would dance the night away. She would sign for all the drinks, he added with a wink.

HAWAIIAN PINE

Brodie was president of Roosevelt High School’s class of 1935. He played football for UH, he told me, because they traveled to the mainland, and he had never been there. The trip included games against UCLA and Denver University. One highlight was seeing snow for the first time.

While on the mainland, Brodie happened to meet an executive for Castle & Cooke, who offered him a job after he graduated. “We called it ‘Hawaiian Pine’ back then,” Brodie said.

He worked at the cannery, beginning in 1945, and by 1952 was the cannery superintendent. He got to know James Dole fairly well.

Dole had lost control of the company to Castle & Cooke during the Great Depression, but he would come every summer and Brodie would brief him on how the business was performing.

“He would spend all day talking with people about their families and kids,” Brodie said. “He remembered it all and would ask people about their sons in college or how their mothers were doing. Dole was well loved by the employees.”

CAN-MAKING

In 1957, Hawaiian Pine executives decided to stop buying cans from American Can and instead make their own.

Brodie told upper management that the best can makers, in his opinion, were in Germany, but the vice president believed they had all the talent they needed locally.

“When the harvest came in, the cans were found to be of poor quality,” Brodie recalled. “But we had to use them. Some would bulge and others would burst. We had to go through the cannery each night and pull them out.”

For months they’d take the unlabeled bad cans by barge and dump them in the ocean off Lanai. The company hoped they would sink in the deep water, but some gave off gas and floated.

“They ringed the island of Lanai, landed in Lahaina, Molokai, and some even made it to Windward Oahu,” said Brodie.

“We had to send out crews each day to pick them up. The papers never got wind of it.” By the end of the summer, Brodie calculated the debacle had cost them $6 million.

“A couple of days later, the vice president asked me to sign a resignation letter. One of us had to take the blame, he said. I refused. This was a result of his decisions, not mine. My boss then cried for 20 minutes. He ranted and raved, and then fired me.”

Workers at Dole threw him a party, and over 400 attended.

WINDWARD CITY

Windward City Shopping Center was under construction in 1958, and Brodie got the lease to run the Chevron gas station there. He named it Castle Service Station, honoring Harold K.L. Castle, who owned the land under the shopping center.

Brodie also owned the Marine Sports store in the shopping center. It sold outboard motors, water skis, diving gear, fishing supplies and accessories. The store closed after three years. I guess he knew the automotive business better than marine sports.

At Castle Service Station, Brodie sold tires so cheaply that motorists would often come from Honolulu, via the newly opened Wilson Tunnels.

By the end of 1962, he was selling tires at his service station and at two other stores in Kailua and Kane­ohe, as well as at 701 Queen St. in Kakaako.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

While at a tire show on the mainland, Brodie came upon a plywood sign with a caveman making a wheel out of a rock. It was about 10 by 24 inches. Two D cell batteries moved his mechanical arm.

“I’d been looking for a good logo and bought him for $25,” he said. “We named him Little Joe and put him in our commercials.” The “clink … clink … clink” sound as his hammer hit the rock was made by Brodie’s son, Sandy, hitting a concrete block with a wrench.

The caveman was popular, so Brodie had small decals made with his image. One day a young boy and his mother came in and asked if he could have a decal.

“I gave him one and he just stared at me,” Brodie said. “‘What do you say when someone gives you something?’ I asked him. His mother elbowed him, ‘Say thank you,’ she whispered, but he was silent.

“No, I replied. He should say thank you … very much.”

Later, Brodie thought about the incident. He didn’t think we did enough to teach our children common courtesies and decided to thank his customers for watching his commercials. “That’s what we’re thanking you for, for watching the commercials,” he said.

The ads with Little Joe and “thank you very much” were a hit. Everywhere he went, people would say, “There’s the thank-you man!”

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Lex Brodie’s Tire Co. expanded to Hilo, Waipahu, Kaneohe and Kalihi. He offered air-conditioned waiting rooms with coffee, a newspaper, TV and phone.

He trained his salespeople to sell only what customers needed. Never more. They were to ask, “How can I help you?” and to get the full story, then go over the car and show them their options.

“Many were told their tires were OK and to come back in 10,000 miles,” Brodie said. “We’ll send you a postcard reminder. Their jaws would just drop. ‘You’re not going to sell me anything?’ they’d ask. Others didn’t have money for a tire. We’d give them a used one at no charge. It got us great word of mouth.”

In 1976, Brodie founded Small Business Hawaii to advocate for small businesses at the Legislature.

In 1991, when Brodie was 77, he sold his tire company. He served on the state Board of Education for many years, until his failing eyesight necessitated his retirement to Kauai, where he owned property. He surfed until he was 90 and died in 2012 at the age of 98.

I had new tires put on my car at Lex Brodie’s Tire, Break & Service Co. in Kaneohe recently and told the staff that Brodie would be proud that they have maintained the values he taught them many decades ago.

Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.