Leonard Shoen

Leonard Samuel 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.

Youth, education

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.

Developing U-Haul

owners whom he franchised as agents. These early deals were based on little more than a wink and a nod. Something we do not see today. He developed one-way rentals and enlisted investors as partners in each trailer as methods of growth. See _A Noble Function: How U-Haul Moved America_.

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." [http://www.goodbyemag.com/sep99/shoen.html]

World Trade Center Casino

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 advisors 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 feuds

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. Four years after the takeover, one of his daughters-in-law, Eva Berg Shoen, wife of his son Sam, was murdered in Telluride, Colorado in 1990.

In 1999, 85- year old Leonard Shoen suffered fatal injuries when he crashed into a telephone pole near his Las Vegas, Nevada home in what was ruled by the Clark County coroner's office as a suicide. [http://gamblingmagazine.com/articles/28/28-413.htm]