Started on a Shoestring
The story of RadioShack begins in 1919 in Fort Worth, Texas, with a chance meeting of two friends, Norton Hinckley and Dave L. Tandy (1889-1966). During their visit, these ambitious young fellows decided to pool their resources and go into business together. Their venture, which the two gentlemen named the Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company, sold leather shoe parts (soles, heels and shoelaces) to shoe repair shops in the Fort Worth area.

Although the partners had no way of knowing it at the time, their humble beginning would evolve into RadioShack Corporation – a multifaceted, multibillion dollar company, and one of the nation's largest retailers of consumer electronics.

The First RadioShack Store
Two years later and half a continent away, two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston. They chose the name, "RadioShack," which was a term for the small, wooden structure that housed a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as "ham" radio operators.

Beginning in 1921, RadioShack would grow to a handful of stores clustered in the Northeast, and become a leading electronics mail-order distributor to hobbyists. This is how it would remain until the company and a young Texan named Charles Tandy crossed paths four decades later.

Charles Tandy Joins the Family Business
Meanwhile, the Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company grew modestly through the years. Although the company survived the Great Depression, it was nearly crippled when World War II began in 1941. Shoes were rationed – two pairs per adult per year – and leather for civilian use virtually disappeared.

Mr. Tandy's oldest son, Charles D. Tandy (1918-1978), while serving in the Navy during the war, observed how leathercraft was used as a therapeutic tool for patients in military hospitals and by servicemen in recreation and rehabilitation centers. He told his father that leathercraft was the way to steer the company during the war years – and to prepare for what he believed would be a healthy, new, post-war hobby market.

Tandy Leather Company Formed
Charles Tandy returned to Fort Worth in 1947 a driven and demanding man with big dreams. The Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company was a five-store and mail-order catalog operation with about $750,000 in annual sales. Pretty good for those times but not good enough for Charles.

Charles firmly believed in the high gross-profit margins of the leathercraft business and the growth possibilities of the leisure-time hobby market. His views clashed with those of the family's partner, Norton Hinckley. The disagreement ended in a split in 1950 when Charles and his father formed Tandy Leather Company, while Hinckley kept the shoe business.

Tandy Corporation Listed on the New York Stock Exchange
By 1954, Charles' enthusiasm for providing the leather parts and tools to make wallets and other items had grown the Tandy Leather Company to 67 stores in 36 states and Hawaii, with sales of $8 million. Although successful, the company had reached a point where coping with estate and management problems inherent in a privately held family business dictated selling the enterprise to gain a listing on a major stock exchange to attract investors and finance expansion.

Tandy Leather Company was sold to American Hide and Leather of Boston, a respected New England firm, which changed its name to General American Industries after the merger. Following a string of unsuccessful acquisitions, the firm soon found itself in financial trouble. Profits from the Tandy organization were used to cover losses of the parent company, instead of going toward expansion of the leathercraft business as Charles had originally planned.

Tandy began a struggle for control of the company. He prevailed four years later and was elected Chairman of the Board in November 1959. He moved the corporation's headquarters to Fort Worth the following year, and the name of the company was changed to Tandy Corporation. On Nov. 14, 1960, the company's stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TAN."

Tandy Corporation Acquires RadioShack
RadioShack continued to do quite well. It issued its first catalog in the early 1940s. In 1947, the company entered the growing high-fidelity market and opened the nation's first audio showroom that provided comparisons of speakers, amplifiers, turntables and phonograph cartridges. In the mid-1950s, RadioShack began selling its own private-label product line with the Realistic® brand name, a variation of Realist, which had been used earlier.

By the early 1960s, RadioShack had expanded to nine retail stores (plus a mail-order business) and was a leading distributor of electronic parts and products to do-it-yourselfers around the world. However, the company soon fell on hard times due to poor operating practices, coupled with a disastrous credit offering to its customers.

Charles Tandy, who had become intrigued with consumer electronics, saw the small RadioShack chain as an excellent opportunity for rapid growth. He bought the essentially bankrupt company in 1963 for the equivalent of $300,000 cash, and embarked on a plan that turned it into one of the great success stories of American retailing. Since then, RadioShack has grown to a nationwide network of retail stores, and its net sales and operating revenues have ballooned to $4.6 billion.

In 1975, Tandy Corporation became exclusively an electronics company after it spun off all other operations into Tandycrafts and Tandy Brands. In 1986, the company spun off its foreign retail operations into InterTAN, Inc.

Products That Took America by Storm
The decade of the '70s was pivotal for RadioShack. It was a time of incredible growth – not only in the number of stores that were opened, but in the quantity, quality and sophistication of the products available at the company's stores and dealers.

Following on the heels of the phenomenal popularity of citizen-band (CB) radios, the company had another instant hit. In 1977, RadioShack introduced the first mass-produced personal computer: the TRS-80® microcomputer. In contrast to build-it-yourself units available at the time, the TRS-80 was fully wired and tested. Although a primitive machine by today's standards, it was a technological and price breakthrough, and overwhelming customer demand caused a production backlog that lasted for months. Over 200,000 TRS-80 Model I computers were sold from 1977 to 1981.

The '80s continued to make RadioShack the "biggest name in little computers," as the company's advertising proclaimed. In addition, RadioShack offered the first affordably priced stereo receiver with digital technology, the first mobile/portable cellular telephone that consumers could install themselves and the first high-performance satellite TV system that could be installed by the do-it-yourselfer.

It wasn't long after that the company's "Solutions Strategy," a multi-year growth plan, was rolled out. The strategy – "To dominate cost-effective solutions to meet everyone's routine electronics needs and families' distinct electronics wants" – aimed at increasing operating efficiencies, revitalizing RadioShack's retail experience, and capitalizing on new initiatives that leverage the company's retail expertise.

Brand Names to Meet Customer Demands
In the late '90s, RadioShack responded to the growing consumer preferences for brand-name products and services. This meant creating alliances with some of the best-known and most-trusted brands in the consumer electronics and computer industries. Along with Sprint Nextel and Cingular Wireless, and HP computers, RadioShack offers satellite TV from Dish Network, Sirius satellite radio, PDAs by Palm, and MP3 players by iRiver, Creative Labs and Toshiba, as well as Apple's line of iPods.

In addition, RadioShack stores are filled with such well-known and respected brands as Aiwa, Panasonic, Casio, Fuji, Honeywell, Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung. This has helped make RadioShack even more relevant to a new generation of consumers and exposed them to the superior customer service RadioShack is known for delivering.

RadioShack in the 21st Century
- A Solutions Provider
Today, RadioShack offers a retail service concept that is unlike any other specialty consumer electronics retailer. This unique position allows the company to provide simple, cost-effective solutions to meet everyone's routine electronics needs and families' distinct electronics wants.

Customers need such things as batteries, A/V cables and electronic components, and RadioShack is uniquely positioned to fulfill those needs. In addition, customers want innovative, cutting-edge consumer electronics, including distinct wireless communications, digital imaging, portable computing, home entertainment products or services, or electronic toys that RadioShack is famous for offering.

In addition to these needs and wants, customers know they can turn to the trusted, knowledgeable sales associates at RadioShack to help them demystify technology and help them select the products that will provide the best answers.

The company's web site, www.RadioShack.com, first launched in 1999, has evolved into an online solutions provider, delivering a variety of useful functions for customers seeking answers to their consumer electronics questions.

Accessorizing the Industry One Product at a Time
The new century brings with it a focus by RadioShack to accessorize the industry by placing more emphasis on carrying a wide selection of accessories. This includes such things as high-end cables to maximize sound or video quality from digital electronic components, hands-free wireless devices, gaming controllers and cables, printer cartridges and various other products. The goal of this broad accessories line is to help customers get the most out of their consumer electronics products regardless of where they were purchased.

Innovation Holds the Key to the Future
RadioShack has long been known as a leading consumer electronics innovator, and today is certainly no exception. In 2003 RadioShack began a business innovation initiative to tap into RadioShack’s unique resources. The goal is to form affiliations with some of the world’s most innovative companies to best introduce new products, new technologies and new services to the marketplace.

Learn More About RadioShack's History
To learn more about the fascinating story of how RadioShack began, read Tandy's Money Machine – How Charles Tandy Built RadioShack Into the World's Largest Electronics Chain, by Irvin Farman (The Mobium Press, Chicago, 1992).

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