The following appears on deseretnews.com
Lee Benson -SALT LAKE CITY — On an otherwise routine, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary weekday afternoon in the spring of 1956, 42-year-old Les Olson pulled into his driveway, turned off his car, loosened his tie, walked in the front door, cleared his throat, and informed his family he had an announcement to make.
He’d just quit his job …
Instead, he planned to start his own company selling business machines.
But no way could he do this alone, he told his 12 kids. He asked them to go to their rooms and get their piggy banks.
A few minutes later, the kids were back, dumping their life savings on the kitchen table. All total, they had $63. That’s $578 in today’s dollars.
Les’s wife Reva wrote down every investment in a notebook, while Les, sensing history while he was making it, spoke of building a family business that would last. The next day, he used the family stash to buy a train ticket to the East, where the plan was to secure a line of dictating machines.
The Les Olson Company was born.
