Brad Beckham, CEO, O'Reilly Auto Parts

Join Behzad Rassuli, as he explores Brad Beckham's journey from his humble beginnings in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to becoming CEO of O'Reilly Auto Parts. We'll uncover how Brad's early passion for cars and the decision to bypass college carved a unique path fueled by practical experience and community support. This episode promises to reveal the mindset shifts and personal habits that have helped Brad lead one of the largest auto parts retailers while still maintaining a strong balance between growing a business and growing himself.

Listen in as Brad shares his rise through the ranks at O'Reilly, from starting as a 17-year-old store employee to embracing leadership roles within the company. Discover how teamwork, mentorship, and personal experiences have shaped his leadership style, emphasizing servant leadership and humility. Brad's journey illustrates the value of learning from both positive and challenging experiences, through strategic expansions and pivotal moments that honed his ability to manage and inspire older, more experienced teams.

This episode also delves into O'Reilly's culture of promoting from within and maintaining a family-oriented environment despite significant growth. Brad reflects on the strategic choices that have allowed O'Reilly to thrive in an ever-evolving retail landscape, with insights into leadership succession and the delicate balance between preserving family values and embracing innovation. This conversation is rich with lessons on continuous improvement and aligning professional success with personal commitments.

To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.

To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast

Transcript

From High School to CEO

Behzad Rassuli 0:00

Yeah , oh , this is good . This is good , it's right .

Brad Beckham 0:03

I may let you do whatever you think .

Behzad Rassuli 0:07

Okay , one thing about this role , this endeavor that I'm doing here , is I'm learning the personal habits of CEOs . One common theme is they just let go of so many little things . Whatever , I don't care , whatever . Whatever you do I'll do it , I'm I , it's amazing , because I get so like persnickety , you know .

Brad Beckham 0:33

Yeah , I think I'm controlling in so many other ways , though you know so yeah , so it's , but you let go of these .

Behzad Rassuli 0:37

Yeah , yeah you have to yeah , randy was the same way , greg was the same way , bill was the same way . I was like do you want to sit there ? He was like wherever you want , man . When did the jingle come out ?

Brad Beckham 0:50

Let's see the jingle came out in 1998 . So you ?

Behzad Rassuli 0:53

were pre-jingle , I was pre-jingle . Have you ever had the jingle as your phone ringer ?

Brad Beckham 1:00

No , no , I haven't . Maybe I should have fibbed about that .

Behzad Rassuli 1:05

So if I call you right now . It's not going to ring the O-O right now , no , no , it won't . No , it won't . All right , Well , it was worth a shot . Welcome to Auto Care On Air , a candid podcast for a curious industry . I'm Bezad Rasouli , Senior Vice President of Strategic Development at the Auto Care Association , and this is the Driver's Seat where we embark on insightful one-on-one conversations with leaders steering the companies that are shaping tomorrow's landscape landscape .

Brad Beckham 1:53

Brad Beckham , CEO of O'Reilly Auto Parts . Thank you so much for sitting down with me today ?

Behzad Rassuli 1:55

No , absolutely , it's my pleasure . Yeah , can you just tell me a little bit about your background ?

Brad Beckham 1:58

Yeah , sure , Well , I'll go back to . I grew up in Oklahoma , grew up in a town called Muskogee , Oklahoma . You may be , uh , you may be too young for Okie from Muskogee , a little Merle Haggard .

Behzad Rassuli 2:09

No , no , I'm , I'm a little young , but tell me about it , Okay .

Brad Beckham 2:12

Okay , well , merle Haggard , uh old country singer he's , uh , he's from my hometown . He wrote a song called Okie from Muskogee . So I'm a true , true Okie from Muskogee .

Brad Beckham 2:21

You just have to go with it . But grew up in Muskogee , just kind of south of Tulsa , and you know , just grew up in kind of a middle-income family . I was an only child and you know , just grew up kind of in the country there in Muskogee area . And you know , when I went to high school I just really didn't love school . You know there was something about it I just didn't really love . But I had a 68 Camaro and I had a dirt track car in high school and so , as any young kid that thinks he knows more than what he really does , I thought I knew a little bit more about cars than what I really did . So I learned pretty quick as I went to work for O'Reilly that I didn't know quite as much as I thought I did .

Behzad Rassuli 3:07

Where were you getting your parts for those uh at the time ?

Brad Beckham 3:09

at O'Reilly at .

Behzad Rassuli 3:11

O'Reilly , Yep and uh , so you didn't love school ? Um , did you graduate high school ?

Brad Beckham 3:19

to college . Yeah , I graduated high school , but I went to work for O'Reilly two weeks after I graduated high school , so I didn't . I didn't go to college . College wasn't going to be for me .

Behzad Rassuli 3:27

And uh , did your parents go to college ?

Brad Beckham 3:29

Yep , yep . Both my parents went to school .

Behzad Rassuli 3:31

Were they okay with that ?

Brad Beckham 3:32

Yeah , no , they were . They were real supportive . You know , um , I was fortunate . You know , at the time O'Reilly only had less than 200 stores . You know it was in 1996 . I didn't know anything about O'Reilly other than that's again where I got some parts and had a pretty cool store in my hometown . But I was fortunate enough that my dad had a good friend that owned a construction company in my hometown and he was a big customer of O'Reilly and him and my dad I think it had conspired a little bit and realized that O'Reilly had gone public , uh , three years before I started with the company and I think they kind of figured out that if I wasn't going to go to school that'd probably be a pretty good opportunity for me .

Behzad Rassuli 4:12

Oh , that's great . So they were constructive about your parents . They were constructive about your path . Not my parents wouldn't , would not have been . You know , I'm just I'm asking this from a personal place . My parents were pretty adamant about me going to college , so it's great to hear your parents seem like they were supportive or a little bit more constructive about what path you could take .

Brad Beckham 4:32

It may have been because I was terrible at school . They knew I had to go get a job and make a living .

Behzad Rassuli 4:36

But no , they were extremely supportive for sure , how old were you when you first walked into an O'Reilly and asked for a job ?

Brad Beckham 4:44

I was 17 . So I was getting ready to graduate high school , didn't know what I was going to do . I actually had a friend that worked for O'Reilly and you know , I just filled out an application and I think it was probably my last month or two of graduating high school that I just started basically begging them for a job , and it took a while and honestly , I think it was probably a favor . I don't know if it was anything very impressive about me , as much as it was . My dad had this friend that was a really good customer of O'Reilly and so I had a pretty good word put in for me and I think if it wasn't for that , they probably wouldn't have gave me a shot . Do they even allow 17-year-olds to work ? Yeah , yeah , they could . Obviously , I was hired and we still . A lot of times we'll watch somebody until they're 18 or 21 , depending on what they're doing , maybe driving a delivery truck or something like that but they just hired me to literally sweep floors and put up stock . I mean , that's all I did .

Brad Beckham 5:44

What year was this 1996 .

Behzad Rassuli 5:48

Uh , so 96 , you , uh , you started at O'Reilly . You're 17 years old . Um , fast forward to today , 2024, . You're CEO of O'Reilly . Uh , it's an unbelievable trajectory . Um , uh , how do you , you know ? How do you think about that journey ?

Brad Beckham 6:09

how do you ? You know , how do you think about that journey ? Well , just one of appreciation . You know I don't know any , or you know I don't know many , if any . You know fortune 250 companies that you know . Irresponsible kid like me from a small town in Oklahoma could not go to college and have the opportunity to do what I've done . I mean , you know , I challenged somebody to show me another company in the US . That is like that , you know , and so I'm extremely humbled , extremely thankful for the O'Reilly family , for the O'Reilly culture . You know a lot of companies talk about culture , but it's something that is pretty hard to understand , I think , if you haven't really been inside our company , how strong our promote from within culture really is .

Behzad Rassuli 6:51

You mentioned that O'Reilly is a Fortune 250 company .

Brad Beckham 6:56

Something in that range .

Behzad Rassuli 6:57

The 17-year-old kid in 1996 walking in being the CEO of a Fortune let's call it Fortune 250 , 500 . It's not that important , but how often do you think of the enormity of that role or the responsibility that that 17-year-old kid now has being one of ? Even if we call it the Fortune 1000 , you have 1,000 peers , maybe 500 peers . This industry alone has close to 5 million employees . The US economy , I don't know , our labor force is like 170 million people . There are 500 people with your level of responsibilities . How often do you wake up and think about that ?

Brad Beckham 7:41

Yeah , well , I try not to think about it that way . It can be pretty heavy if you think about it from that aspect . But no , I mean , obviously it's nothing to take for granted . You know , I'm new to this role , though I've had a lot of bigger jobs with O'Reilly leading up to this .

Brad Beckham 7:57

You know , I was sitting on a plane Bezod probably four or five years ago is when I was still EVP of store operations and sales and I sat down next to a lady and I'll get back to your question here . She , uh , she saw my O'Reilly shirt and she said hey , what do you ? I know who O'Reilly is . What do you do for O'Reilly ? And I said , well , I'm , I'm , I , I oversee our stores , you know . And she said , uh , okay . She said , like a store , a district , you know , how many stores do you see ? And I said , well , we have . You know , at the time I think we had maybe 5,500 or something like that . And I told her we had 5,500 stores . She goes my gosh , how do you run 5,500 stores ? And I said I don't . I said I have five direct reports . You know , I have basically three senior vice presidents East , central and West that oversee the field operations and I have two VPs in the office that oversee store operations , support and professional support .

Journey From Store to CEO

Brad Beckham 8:54

Thinking about it as 5,500 stores , 6,200 stores I probably wouldn't sleep a wink . You know , I try to think about it from the aspect of . It's never been about one person at O'Reilly . It's never been about one leader . It's always been about the team . It's always been about surrounding ourselves with people that are extremely passionate about not just the business but our people and our customers , and so I've always been so fortunate just to look at it from the aspect of , all I can really do is be the best leader I can possibly be for my direct reports and ensure that they do the same for theirs and on down the ranks . And that's really the path that the O'Reilly family and guys like Greg Hensley and Ted Wise and the former leaders of our company that I grew up under . That's how they've always ran the business .

Behzad Rassuli 9:40

Yeah , and I would have suspected that . I mean , sometimes I get to , you know , I watch the business shows , CNBC and whatnot , and you see the big company CEOs and you just sometimes you think about what they're responsible for and so I just I wanted to ask that question in that context . But that's how I think about the your . Your framing of it is about how I would , I would assume it goes is about how I would assume it goes . The kid that grew up in Muskogee and started at O'Reilly did you play sports ?

Brad Beckham 10:14

Yeah , I did . I played about every sport as a kid . I played baseball , played soccer and was never a football player and I was a good athlete . I wasn't like that great athlete . I didn't have that next level killer instinct . You know , to play like high school sports Ended up getting into more individual things . Like I raced motocross for a little while . That was something my father and I did together and I got into dirt track racing when I was in high school , so kind of went on a little bit different path .

Behzad Rassuli 10:43

When you started doing things like that , you said you didn't have the killer instinct in , maybe like football or soccer . But did you find a different kind of competitiveness in the individual ?

Brad Beckham 10:53

sports .

Behzad Rassuli 10:53

I did , yeah , yeah absolutely , and I ask this because I want to ask about your progression through O'Reilly , o'reilly . But I'm trying to think about the ingredients of the person that go from you know , sweeping the floors to CEO , and I'm just assuming there has to be some kind of competitiveness , or is that ringing true ?

Brad Beckham 11:17

Yeah , for sure , you know . I , you know , just thinking about what you just asked , and I honestly hadn't thought about it probably till a year or two ago . But I remembered that I had a high school teacher . Somehow , by mistake , I got put into a leadership class is like an elective class in high school and and I was a pretty shy kid A lot of people now would probably be surprised by that , but pretty shy kid , pretty quiet and I got put in the leadership class and and I just didn't like it , you know it , just I didn't have friends in there , I didn't love the teacher and I remember I had forgotten about this , quite honestly , not until not too long ago , but I remember that teacher , I just wasn't engaged and I remember her telling me and I think she may have told my mom that I'll never lead anything in in this world at the time .

Brad Beckham 12:05

And I think , you know , even though I hadn't thought about that in a while , I think I say this kind of jokingly and kind of not . But things like that , I don't know if that's totally healthy , but I think things like that , you know , drive us harder than what we realize sometimes .

Behzad Rassuli 12:21

I think I totally agree with you . It's hard to pick when that gets activated , though , right . So you said you haven't even thought about that . So it wasn't clearly a conscious driving force . It may have been a subconscious driving force at the time , did you think ?

Brad Beckham 12:38

you know they're probably right and I don't want to lead anything , and you know like , you know , I don't know , I don't know that it really , you know , resonated that way back at the time and to kind of build on what you asked me , you know I didn't have a lot of . You know , when I was putting up freight and stocking shelves I just truly felt fortunate to have a job and I went to work for a group of people in that first store I started in . It was actually Wagner , oklahoma , just outside Muskogee . Very small farm , rural town , pretty small store . It was an independent jobber that O'Reilly had purchased many years ago before I started , and I always tell people that at that time I ended up meeting Charlie O'Reilly , probably six months after I first started . But I didn't know Charlie O'Reilly at that time . I didn't know the O'Reilly family . I didn't know Ted Wise . I didn't know Greg Hensley , I didn't know a guy named Jeff Shaw at the time that was our regional manager . But I stayed with O'Reilly because of that store team , like it wasn't the name on the building . But I stayed with O'Reilly because of that store team , like it wasn't the name on the building .

Brad Beckham 13:46

I went to work for a group of people as a 17-year-old kid that cared about me and so the drive for me early on . It just shows you how impressionable and how leadership is latched onto by followers , that I just wanted to do a great job with the job I had and then , when I had the opportunity to become a part specialist , I just want to be the best part specialist I could be , cause I didn't want to let that store team down . I mean , there was one of the things that I latched onto early on when I first started in that store is I just I probably couldn't have articulated at the time , but it was a winning team , like it was a fun environment . It was uh , upbeat , but it was um , it was very evident to me that they were very serious about what they did and and uh , that was taking care of customers better than anybody else in town .

Behzad Rassuli 14:36

Okay , you , you seem to be uh , reflective on you know then and now and some of the lessons maybe you learned then and you're trying to frame them now . Do you remember why school didn't fit ? But suddenly , in this store environment you know working with parts or being a part specialist or working with this team and interfacing with customers why did that click for you ?

Brad Beckham 15:02

Yeah , I think I don't know that I've ever thought about it exactly that way , bayside , but I think school . I think I don't know that I've ever thought about it exactly that way , but I think school , I just I don't think I ever made a great connection with any of my teachers , you know , and that was probably as much my fault as it was anybody else's , but I just , I think in that environment there was something about the parts business . Yeah , I mean it was . I mean it may sound cheesy , but I , I , I love the smell of the store , like I don't know what it was , it was like you know , there was like hydraulic hoses being made , there was , um customers being taken care of .

Brad Beckham 15:34

You know , back back then you know there was probably 16 foot of paper catalogs on the front counter . You know I don't go way back , but it we , we had a computer system , but it was more for point of sale and it was a pretty basic electronic catalog . And uh , you know , back then the there there was some old school parts guys that were in that store . They still smoked in the store and it was , you know , they're drinking coffee , but there was just something about it that was infectious

Customer Focus and Career Growth

Brad Beckham 16:00

.

Brad Beckham 16:00

You know , when I , when I check in freight in freight , you know there was no electronic checking in a freight . I had these manual pink sheets that came from the warehouse and I would check the freight in . But I was just curious , um , something about it . Just it kind of gives me goosebumps still today . It just fired me up . You know , I'd look in every box and because I I figured out pretty quick , like I said earlier , I didn't really know as much as I thought I did about cars . You know , I thought I did , but I'm like my gosh , I don't know what this is , I don't know what that is , and so I'd open up every box before I'd put the freight up to see exactly what was in that box . I just loved it , that's incredible .

Behzad Rassuli 16:34

That level of curiosity is just amazing to me . That's not a trained skill , that's just inherent . You just get curious about what's going on . I think that's right . Uh , but I the nostalgia of the smell . I , I , my dad , worked at a furniture business when I was growing up and I used to spend a lot of days there . Uh , you know , on the weekends he was working and there was sawdust everywhere . And to this day I walk into a home Depot and just that initial hit of the lumber smell , just you know I .

Behzad Rassuli 17:04

I could spend all day in there , absolutely . Um . So when you're working with that , that winning team at that store , uh , did they ? Uh did you ask for more responsibility or they give you more responsibility ? No , you know .

Brad Beckham 17:18

I I probably didn't know even how to do that it was more , um , it was more , I think , probably . Well , let me , let me think about this . So , um , when I was still 17 , I just checked in for eight put up stock . Uh , I drove a delivery truck when they needed to me too , once I turned 18 . And then , um , it was a very small store . I think there was only like eight of us total .

Brad Beckham 17:39

It was a pretty small rural store and , um , you know , it was just one of those stores that everybody at some point needed to pitch in . And so it's just like it probably always happens . You know , hey , brad , get up here and help us get out of a jam on the counter . You know we got customers and so you just slowly kind of gravitate to work in the parts counter and , and , uh , the the first time I remember , um , the first time I remember somebody kind of having a career talk with me would have just been something as simple as our district manager at the time , a guy that really hired me he just retired a few years ago solid parts guy . I learned a ton from him .

Brad Beckham 18:19

But I remember he was in our store one day and I didn't even know they were maybe even thinking about me as doing more . But him and the manager just set me down and it was probably for a total of five minutes and it was just hey , brad , we want to challenge you and make sure that you're keeping up with training . How you liking your job ? Um , are you working on your stuff to become a night manager ? Because back then a night manager was kind of the kind of the first key carrier of the store , so to speak , kind of the first opportunity into management , into leadership , and so I wouldn't even have thought about that . But you know , obviously that was pretty motivating within itself .

Behzad Rassuli 18:54

And so you went to a night manager and then , maybe you can just walk me through what some of those steps were .

Brad Beckham 19:00

Yeah Well , I got opportunities for sure before I was ready . You in Oklahoma again at the time we only had a couple hundred stores Became an assistant manager of a store there for a period of time and then really fast forward basically a year and a half . The O'Reilly family had decided , you know , we went public three years before that , in 1993 . And the company had decided that the next market I wouldn't have known this but looking back this is what was happening the company had decided that our next expansion market beyond basically the four state area we were in at the time , which would have been Missouri , kansas , arkansas and Oklahoma . You know , we were just kind of that regional player at the time , even though we'd gone public and the company knew that they wanted to go to Texas . Oklahoma was very good for the company . You look , south Texas is a lot of cars , a lot of population , and so we were going to go to Texas , either greenfield expansion or through acquisition .

Brad Beckham 20:03

And you may have heard of a company called Hilo Auto Supply that we acquired there in 1998 . And Hilo was a public company themselves but they had kind of been running the ground . They were being ran by some guys in New York that really didn't understand the business and they were trying to get short-term returns and they had done a couple of the worst things you can do in a business , and in the parts business they had pulled inventory out of the stores and pulled the help out of the stores , and so we I think it was us and actually discount auto parts that advance ended up acquiring out of Florida . We were both bidding on that business and we were fortunate enough to purchase high low . Long story short , I had the opportunity to move down to Texas right as we acquired high-low auto supply , and so that was my first opportunity to run my own store . And like 98 , 1998 , there's two years into your role yeah , two , two years into working for the company two years into working in the company .

Behzad Rassuli 20:59

uh , somewhere up until now you were been , uh , you've been asked to be a night manager Night manager , assistant manager , assistant manager .

Brad Beckham 21:05

And then I was an assistant manager about the time that we bought Hilo .

Behzad Rassuli 21:09

So they asked you to move . I put my hand up .

Brad Beckham 21:12

Oh okay , it's one of those things that I wasn't near ready to run my own store . I was 19 years old . In Oklahoma , we had a lot of tenure , a lot of great leaders . I wasn't going to run a store in Oklahoma . We had a lot of tenure , you know , a lot of great leaders . I wasn't going to run a store in Oklahoma in 1998 .

Brad Beckham 21:27

I wasn't ready . There was people in front of me in line , but I was a young , single kid and I was mobile . And , to your question earlier , I had parents that encouraged me to get out of there . You know , go see the world .

Behzad Rassuli 21:46

Go , do what you want to do . You know , do whatever the company asks you to do . And so I put my hand up and they took me up on it . That's great . So then you , okay , the theme is building here in my head . But so you put your hand up and you went . But , uh , this was not a winning team store . Uh , you , you said that you know that the high low business , uh , had had kind of been mismanaged a little bit . So was it a little bit harder than you expected ?

Brad Beckham 22:04

Actually , I probably didn't tell that exactly right . So my first store I ran in Texas was not it was part of our new division , but it was actually a new store , so it wasn't a former high-low store . I ended up running a couple of former high-low locations but I actually ran a greenfield store that we had acquired a property before we bought high we were going there either way , got it , so I had the opportunity to open my own new store .

Behzad Rassuli 22:27

So then when you did manage a few of the Hilo stores , how did that go ?

Brad Beckham 22:34

Well , it was kind of a broke culture . You know , hilo had a lot of great people first and foremost . You know they had some good real estate , they had distribution down in Houston and they had a lot of good people . They just had bad management . They didn't really have a great culture within the company . And so one of the things that we immediately needed to instill in the team at Hilo the now combined company because we doubled the size of the company we had 200 stores , hilo had 200 stores . So because we doubled the size of the company , you know we had 200 stores , Hylo had 200 stores . So it was a big deal for the company .

Behzad Rassuli 23:09

It's almost a merger ?

Brad Beckham 23:10

Absolutely , absolutely it was , but really the thing that needed to be fixed was just total focus on the customer . You know , one of the things I was told when I first started in Wagner Oklahoma was hey , brad , there's not . A store manager told me this Brad , there's not a lot of ways you can lose your job around here . Meaning we'll be patient with you . You know , you're a 17 year old kid , you don't know a lot . We'll be patient with you , but one way to lose your job is saying no to a customer , and that I think , when you asked me earlier about what was infectious about when I started , like that just showed me that they cared deeply about the customer . Not a lot of ways you can lose your job , but don't let us catch you saying no to a customer .

Brad Beckham 23:50

And so that that that , that that parlayed into what you asked me just now , that that high load didn't have that sense of urgency . You know about truly taking care of customers , never saying no , going the extra mile , doing other things that a competitor isn't willing to do .

Behzad Rassuli 24:09

I can see how somebody challenging you like that and you made such a good point earlier that between the school and the winning team at the store that it's the connection with the people and somebody looking you in the eye and saying you're safe in terms of not losing your job unless you do this one thing and that one thing saying yes to customers , not saying no , sounds like it would activate your competitive side to . I will always say yes and I'll find a way to get to yes with all the customers , but yeah .

Brad Beckham 24:32

I think that's exactly right . But it also sent the message to me too , that they were going to be patient with me . So not only did they instill confidence in me , they also set the expectation and set the bar .

Behzad Rassuli 24:42

How was uh ? You moved a lot in your career , right , and so there were a number of these uh opportunities to to raise your hand , but it also it was also the choice always came with moving . That's right . That's right , it did .

Brad Beckham 24:56

Yeah , it did , you know . And there again I you know whether I was uh , smart or stupid for moving around a lot . You know , my thing was is I was , was still single , hadn't met my wife yet , really could do whatever the company needed me to do . And again I had parents and people that encouraged me and I just said yes to everything . If they needed me to go run a different store , I'd do it . You know , if they wanted me to go run a district which was kind of the next rung up in store operations , running eight or ten stores , I wanted that opportunity , but a lot of that . Again , I was still so young that there was other people that were way more ready than me , but they had families and they were settled and so my opportunities came with the mobility .

Behzad Rassuli 25:44

Yeah , Well , you said you don't know if it was smart or stupid . I can confirm to you that it was smart , so we can settle that , but I don't know that everyone would say yes to all of those opportunities .

Brad Beckham 25:57

No , there's a lot of people that didn't .

Behzad Rassuli 25:59

Even the people who have families and settled that makes sense but even the kind of mobile , young , single person . Every time one has to move , it's like this AB choice where I just built a home here . I just built a . You know this is , I'm trying to plant roots here . So I either know I'm going to stay home or , yes , I'm going to just uproot and move . Did you forecast that moving up in the company or constantly growing your career would necessitate you raising your hand and moving ?

Brad Beckham 26:31

so you didn't establish roots or yeah , I don't know that I gave it , you know , quite that much thought . I just always have the attitude that I do whatever the company needed me to do . And , um , and to your point , there there was a lot of people that didn't . I mean not not just cause they were settled or whatever , but you know , um , and I think we all still see a lot of people that are waiting for the perfect circumstances . You know they well , I'm only going to do that if they give me a raise , or I'm only going to relocate if I get the job I want , or I'm only going to relocate if I get a big salary increase . And a lot of people passed up on opportunities because of those things that I just I didn't ever care . I mean , several of my moves were lateral , it wasn't even a promotion , it was just hey , you know , we want you to make this move and open another district .

Behzad Rassuli 27:21

That's amazing , so maybe if I could put that in a different context , it sounds like you weren't thinking about the career progress or the financial progress . You were thinking about taking on a challenge for yourself .

Brad Beckham 27:34

I think that's right . Yeah and uh , and in all honesty I just uh . I already had such a loyalty to the company because they had put so much faith in me that I just hate to say it this way , but I just wanted to . I don't hate to , I just mean I just wanted to please the company like I wanted to do what they asked me to do . I mean , I they , I bled green from from the , from the get-go . Yeah , I just wanted to help the company grow I get that .

Behzad Rassuli 28:00

That makes sense , okay so

Lessons of Young Leadership

Behzad Rassuli 28:02

. But the reality is you're raising your hand , you're saying , yes , the teams you're around are supportive , but you're young , still , through all of this and some of the stores or the regions or the districts that you're starting to take over or manage , you can't be the oldest person amongst the leadership there . That's right . The youngest in a lot of cases the youngest , and so how did that dynamic work out for you ? How did you kind of process that ?

Brad Beckham 28:32

Yeah , no , it's a great question and for sure I didn't have it all figured out and made a lot of mistakes along the way . You know one thing that really always stuck with me , you know , when I became , when I went from being a store manager to being a district manager , I relocated again down to southeast Texas and was overseeing basically 10 stores , and got him Ted Wise . That was a 45 year O'Reilly team member and leader . He grew up like I did , you know , but a couple of generations before me , and not generations , but a couple of generations before me , um , and not generations , but a couple of decades . But I , I , uh , I learned so much from Ted . He was always kind of my boss's boss as I got into , as I got into leadership , but he , he went from being a delivery driver , grew up , growing up with the O'Reilly family , helping build the business , all the way to being our co president . And , uh , when I became a district manager , he , he called me and , uh , I'd already got the job . And , uh , he knew I'd got the job , and and and at the time I think we had 50 , 50 districts . So we were , you know , five , six hundred stores . Now , you know , now we have over 650 districts . You know 6200 stores .

Brad Beckham 29:46

But he called me on the phone and he just said hey , brad , I want to talk to you for a minute . You know this is a big responsibility you're taking down in southeast Texas . And he kind of made some small talk and congratulated me . But he said something to me that I'll never forget . He said Brad , I want to make sure that you understand that you're very young and these teams of people that you're taking responsibility of they need your leadership and a lot of them are older than you and I want to make sure you understand that you have responsibility of not just their jobs but their careers , their families , their health insurance , their benefits , their retirement . And , brad , I want to tell you something is me and Jeff Shaw which was Jeff , was kind of our division vice president at the time ended up being our co-president as well . Both Jeff and Ted were extremely instrumental in my career Tough bosses , but they were a big part of why I'm where I'm at today .

Brad Beckham 30:53

But he basically said you know , jeff and I can do your status change , meaning we've in the system , we've made you district manager from being a store manager . We've changed your title in the system , he said but I want to make sure one thing is perfectly clear we don't promote you . And he kind of went silent on the phone and I'm like what's he talking about ? Did I already lose this job ? What's going on ?

Brad Beckham 31:17

And he said he said , brad , the people that you just took responsibility of , the lives , the careers , all the things I said earlier they're the ones that either promote you or not . He said you know , leadership isn't about an org chart or what's on your business card . If you get in there and you work hard and you lead by example and you build their trust , over time they're going to decide . You know what ? This is our new leader , even though this guy's a lot younger than us . He has our new leader . Even though this guy's a lot younger than us . He has our best interest in mind , he has the company's best interest in mind and we'll follow this guy wherever he wants to take us .

Brad Beckham 31:55

And that always stuck with me that our bosses don't promote us , our people do . And that doesn't mean that we can't have a high expectation for performance of our teams , but what it means is that when we can build that trust and have that loyalty and that just communication and respect , then you can hold the bar pretty high for your team . But there's no magic pill I don't think for me to overcome being young and having older people work for me . But I think , just you know , my boss is keeping me humble , keeping me focused on making sure I was gaining respect and credit , the credibility of the team around me and that , and that I was working for them as much or more as they were working for me .

Behzad Rassuli 32:41

That's incredible . That's an incredibly powerful framing of the responsibility you're going to take on . How'd you react to that ?

Brad Beckham 32:50

Well , you know , I think it's kind of set me back , you know , but , um , but honestly , I at the same time when I thought about it , it's , it's really the example that the O'Reilly family always set for us . Anyway , you know it's , it's really . You know how our company was founded , you know they , you know even today I mean the O'Reilly family , greg Hensley , ted Wise there's just never really been egos in our company . I mean , things can always creep in . You know , all our egos can get the best of us from time to time , but it's always been such a servant leadership mentality at O'Reilly and so it did set me back and it was one of those lessons that I'll never forget . Anytime I take a new responsibility , I always try to think that I haven't made it just because I've got a new title , that my credibility and respect starts back at zero , and I've got to gain the team's respect and credibility in this new role , and that's going to take time .

Behzad Rassuli 33:46

So to date . You have a supportive team , you've got management that trusts you but instills responsibility in you , and you raise your hand . Do you remember when it all failed , when you just let everyone you feel like you let everyone down on a lot of those metrics ?

Brad Beckham 34:10

Yeah , sure , you know I I think I've had , you know , way more failures than that . I've had successes . And in 28 years I actually have to probably go back because we skipped over one thing that I think about when you ask that question . One thing that I think about when you ask that question there was a time , even though I had the opportunities to become a store manager and a district manager really fast , there was still even a time yet when I was a store manager , that there was a job that I thought I should have got that I didn't get . And there was a guy that hadn't been with the company as long as I had which kind of sounds crazy because it was still so early , but we were expanding like crazy , and so there was a time that I thought I should have got a job that I didn't get .

Behzad Rassuli 34:52

But you had just done that to hundreds of people being young and coming in and taking the sponsor .

Brad Beckham 34:57

No , I know , exactly , exactly , yeah , but that's there again , against what I said earlier , the ego creeps in , you know , you get that taste of success . It's , it's , we're all wired that way . We get a job , we want the next job , you know , and , uh , or a lot of people are and , um , but there was , there was more than once that , um , I didn't get a job that I maybe thought I should have got . And there was a time when we were rolling out a new district that I was running the store and um , and there was a guy that I that got a job that I thought I should have gotten , and I made the mistake of asking the guys that I worked for back then . I made the mistake of asking him if I missed an interview . I was kind of , you know , being a smart young kid , and I asked if I if there was an interview process that I missed and and I had a very tough boss at the time that told me Brad , um , at O'Reilly , and I had a very tough boss at the time that told me , brad , at O'Reilly , we don't interview for the job , you interview for the job every day and you're failing , and so that kind of set me back too , and what he , what he meant by that was he ended up having a little bit more of a career talk with me . But we didn't . You know , at O'Reilly it's never been who talks the best at an interview or panel interviews or things like that . It's with this promote from within culture . We promote proven performers and people that are amazing at the job they already have and people that focus on the job they already have .

Brad Beckham 36:18

And it wasn't that I was doing a bad job at the time , but I was already starting to focus on being a district manager . But I was already starting to focus on being a district manager and my bosses were starting to see that it was probably getting in the way a little bit of me being the very best store manager I could have possibly been . And one of the things they pointed out that I'd lost sight of is at O'Reilly , especially in Texas , when we were growing so fast . In that time they were needing me to put out people to run other stores . They were needing me to be the O'Reilly Farm System to take night managers and promote them to assistants and assistants to go run their own stores .

Brad Beckham 36:55

And I'd gotten a little bit selfish with my people . I had a good team and I didn't want to put people out . So I didn't realize I was doing it , but I was kind of holding people back . I was comfortable having my good assistant manager . I didn't want him to go down the street and run a store and I it wasn't that I was doing it totally on purpose , but I had just gotten comfortable and they use that as a coaching moment that you're not ready for the next level . Because what do you ? What do you think a district manager is ? A district manager it's a people job , it's . It's you got to put people out to to run stores . If you can't put people out for us as a store manager , why would we make you a DM ? And so you know , I think it's .

Leadership Lessons and Self-Development

Brad Beckham 37:30

It may sound like a , you know , pretty simple story , but things like that that happened to me early on , you know , humbled me up and got me to realize that things aren't always going to happen on my timeline .

Behzad Rassuli 37:40

Yeah , I got uncomfortable for you when you told me that story . Yeah , that's right .

Brad Beckham 37:45

That's right .

Behzad Rassuli 37:46

I love direct feedback because it really does just jostle you . You know there's no sugarcoating it , there's no like . Oh , brad , you know you're doing great , but it's not your time yet ?

Brad Beckham 37:56

Yeah , that's never been an issue at O'Reilly . I've had some pretty tough bosses All right ?

Behzad Rassuli 38:05

Do you remember after that to adjust , did you get any training on the way , anything that you besides O'Reilly store training or the next level district manager training , any training that you pursued on your own or that the company said you should take ?

Brad Beckham 38:24

No , not back in those roles Again . I don't know if that's right or wrong . You know , we we try to keep things pretty simple . It's always about continuing to learn about our industry , stay sharp on the parts business . It was all real world , hands-on hard leadership lessons leading people , growing people , coaching , mentoring , training , no matter how much you lead , being a good follower , still doing what the company needs you to do . But you know , back then I can't say it wasn't . You know , read this book or go to this class or anything like that . I mean , I was always open to learning , but it was all just hands-on school of hard knocks , learning from a bunch of great leaders that were running the company .

Behzad Rassuli 39:05

And it sounds like that culture , though , ensured that , in every step and every state you moved into , that kind of leader was always there .

Brad Beckham 39:13

Well , yes and no . What I mean by that is I've had some amazing bosses , had some amazing mentors and I'm thankful for what I'm getting ready to say , bayzad but I've actually had some bad bosses too , and not the best leaders at times , and some people that aren't with the company any longer , but I'm actually very thankful for that , and what I mean by that is a lot of times , you know , these days , I get asked hey , brad , you know a lot of the younger generation , hey , brad , you must have had all these great mentors along the way to get where you've , you know , been able to go , you know sweeping floors , to be in the CEO , and ? And the answer is , yes , I've had a lot of great mentors , but but I've had , I've had bad bosses too , and I think that's you know . I think sometimes and I don't want to just cast this on a younger generation , but I get asked a lot again , you know , hey , brad , can so-and-so be my mentor ? Or you know , you must've had a lot of great mentors , but I , none of us , are ever going to have the perfect circumstances where we always have a perfect boss .

Brad Beckham 40:17

I just don't think that's realistic . We have to have the perspective that there's going to be times that we struggle with who we answer to or who we report into , and I've always tried to have the perspective that I'm going to learn from them too . You know maybe what not to do . You know , but I had some bosses that weren't I didn't always feel like they were the best leaders , but if I would have sat back and uh and I'm not saying that I was perfect at this but if I would have sat back and said , well , I'm just going to kind of sit back and do my thing until I have the perfect mentor or the perfect boss , I wouldn't be sitting here today . You know , I can control zero of what my boss does or my peers or whoever , but I can control 100 percent of Brad Beckham every day , and so I think a lot almost . We've got to be able to control our own destiny and not let other people set us back , because that can happen pretty easy .

Behzad Rassuli 41:16

For what it's worth . I don't think that was a generational comment . I think that's advice you probably could have given yourself from now to then Absolutely .

Amber Andracsek 41:23

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Overcoming Bad Bosses and Company Acquisitions

Behzad Rassuli 42:00

Do you remember when you had a bad boss or just not the best manager ? How did you navigate that ? Did you not listen to them ? Did you just kind of do it your own way , or did you report to somebody that this person's not great ? What , like ? What are the dynamics of , uh , graduating past a bad boss ?

Brad Beckham 42:21

Well , I , I know I didn't handle it right . It sounds like I've got it all figured out now because it's in the it's hindsight . You know , um , at the time I didn't always handle it the best . But I think , um and when I say I had bad bosses , o'reilly's never had just terrible people in place , it's just there could have been people that were going through personal situations , um , you know , just in a in a job a little bit over their head , or folks that came from an acquisition , that were still learning how we do things . So it wasn't like they were just terrible people , but they may have been struggling in some way themselves .

Brad Beckham 42:52

And again , I just think , you know , looking back , and again I didn't always do it right , but I think having the perspective of just you know get given other people grace .

Brad Beckham 43:01

You know , when I was focused on what they were doing for me or not doing for me , it's easy to kind of have the wrong attitude , and I did that at times . But probably when I felt like I handled it better or when I see people handle it better is when folks are as focused on being a good follower as they are a leader . You know , a lot of times we're so focused on being great leaders , but we got to get be good followers too . You know , no matter if we have a perfect boss or not , their job is always harder than we think it is . We never know what's going on in other people's lives this applies to bosses , peers , our teams , whatever we work in a people business and we just never know what other people are going through . And so we have to give people grace and we have to be willing to do whatever they need us to do , no matter if we feel like we're in the perfect circumstances or not .

Behzad Rassuli 43:50

Okay , so we're going to get back on the timeline here . So you're growing , the company's growing . At some point O'Reilly acquires CSK . That's a billion-dollar acquisition . Yep . Really puts O'Reilly on the map , becomes a top three retailer in the automotive parts business . Can you talk me through that time ?

Brad Beckham 44:10

Yeah , yeah , well , just to build up to it , what I was doing personally was I had moved out of Texas , I'd moved to Kentucky to open up the Lexington and Louisville Kentucky markets for O'Reilly , kind of as a district manager , and then it wasn't too long after that that I was asked to move to Atlanta Georgia manager . And then it wasn't too long after that that I was asked to move to Atlanta Georgia and I moved to Atlanta Georgia . That that was our just and I'll get to get to CSK , kind of in that 0405 timeline you know we had integrated CSK or , excuse me that we had integrated Hilo . We had acquired Mid-state automotive distributors which is an alliance member based out of nashville , tennessee . That was actually greg johnson . Um , you know my oh , that's right . You know my predecessor , um , greg johnson , his uh , that's that's , that was his company , his , him and his father . Uh , curtis johnson got him bill cherry , a lot of long-term industry guys and we had acquired mid-state and then we had spent kind of oh one , oh two , oh three backfilling kentucky , tennessee , mississippi , alabama , and we were kind of headed to the east coast before , before csk . You know , uh , we like the east coast .

Brad Beckham 45:20

You know interstate systems , you know populations , vehicle populations , and so the company had asked me to relocate to Atlanta , georgia , just again as a district manager , just relocate . It was going to be a tough market home of GPC , home of Napa , amazing competitor , autozone , advance on every corner , strong WDs in that market , and the company had asked me to move there to start opening our first stores . And so I had moved to Atlanta , which today is kind of a second home to me because , fast forward , that's where I ended up meeting my wife and starting a family , but it was where I was the longest . I was there about 10 years before I relocated back to Springfield . But you know , my job at the time was really to open the , the east coast , and so I I was a district manager , regional manager , and then again , right place at the right time being , in atlanta . We had we had decided to open our next distribution center there in atlanta and uh , so it was explosive growth , kind of in that alabama , georgia , getting into the carolinas , getting into florida . So I had had the opportunity to take a couple steps of advancement and I was basically a division vice president in 2008 .

Brad Beckham 46:33

And that's when the company acquired CSK and obviously that was , you know , at the time the largest , you know , merger acquisition in the aftermarket and big , big step for us . But it was a perfect fit for O'Reilly because we , if you matched up our footprint , basically from the center part of the company going east , center part of the country going east , and you looked at CSK's footprint on the west coast , it was a , it was the geographies were a perfect match there . There was very little overlap . They had some distribution , a lot of great real estate on the West Coast , a lot of good people . But very similar to Hilo is they had some folks running their company that weren't parts people . You know , they were a little bit , you know just a little bit , not a little bit . They were a lot removed from what was going on out on the streets in the real world and they had just kind of lost their way . And so we had the opportunity to acquire that company and I think at the time we had 1,600 stores roughly and they had 1,300 . So again , we almost doubled the size of our company .

Brad Beckham 47:45

But back to your question , my job on the East Coast . I remember a funny thing . I remember asking Ted and Jeff at the time hey , what do you need from me ? I'm out here in Atlanta overseeing our Eastern expansion and we just bought all these stores on the West Coast . What do you need from me ? They said absolutely nothing on a csk front .

Brad Beckham 48:10

And what they meant by that was they said , look , brad , you know , we got the old part of the company , we have the eastern expansion and we have just stuck our neck out acquiring csk .

Brad Beckham 48:21

Um , we are going to have a lot going on out there and what they meant by you don't need to focus on that was if you don't run the wheels off the East Coast , if you and the team on the East Coast because we were still full blown expansion mode in the East Coast , I mean , we were still very immature and we still have a lot of opportunity on the East Coast today . But their point was don't take your eye off the East Coast . You know we're going to have to deploy a lot of resources to the West Coast , but we need you to run the wheels off everything East Coast . You know we got to make sure our culture is instilled in all those markets . We're taking care of customers , we're building great teams , developing talent , developing people for district manager , regional manager , division vice president roles , and so obviously it was an amazing time for the company with a lot of hard work , but my job was actually to focus on the East coast and make sure we didn't take our eye off the ball .

Behzad Rassuli 49:12

Was that a knock for you , or is that kind of a competitive or like an enthusiasm ?

Brad Beckham 49:15

No , no , no , no , it wasn't a knock at all . Um , it was it actually . You know , just instilled in me how much ownership I had to take that this is a lot of risk for the company . The way you're going to help ensure that we overcome this is run the wheels off comparable store sales driving top line and driving profitability on the east coast . So , no , it wasn't a knock for me a bit at what point ?

Behzad Rassuli 49:40

so at that moment it feels like the leadership of o'reilly looks you and says we entrust you with a huge portion of the business , right ? Um , at what point did it click for you that maybe you could be CEO of this business ?

Brad Beckham 49:57

Yeah , I don't , I don't know , um , you know , if it clicked , you know , back then , I think , um , you know , maybe the first time that um , like Hensley and Ted Wise , guys like that really had that type career talk with me was probably in the 2012 range . They were getting ready to ask me to relocate to Springfield . But , make no mistake about it , there was no guarantees , of course . Think about it . There was no guarantees , you know , it was like it really . All it was back then was was basically , you know , hey , the O'Reilly family is , you know , really slowed down . Step back to the board .

Brad Beckham 50:35

You know , ted and Greg and Jeff Shaw and the leadership of the company . They just had a lot of foresight that we're going to turn around and we're going to be 10 , 15 years down the road and we've got to have the next generation of leadership prepared to perpetuate the O'Reilly culture and continue this success . And so it wasn't just me . You know , there there was several , you know , up and coming leaders that were within the organization still are today that they were just making sure that we understood how serious this was . It wasn't , it wasn't about you can have this role or you can have that role . It was no guarantees , but we hope you realize where we're headed over the next 10 , 20 years and we're going to do this promote from within , and we need all you men and women that are still pretty young in the business to understand that you are the next generation of leadership for the company , and I was just fortunate enough to be one

Promoting From Within and Family Culture

Brad Beckham 51:30

of those .

Behzad Rassuli 51:30

Was it ever a risk for you to say uh , to move to Springfield , or just to say yes to more leadership positions ? I mean , you had 20 years in the same company . At some point you're saying you know , if I don't , there might be a cap on me progressing here . Did you ever think of leaving ? Did you ever think of doing anything else ?

Brad Beckham 51:47

No , no , I never did . I never did I uh , no , it never , never felt like , uh , a cap . Um , no , honestly , I mean there , there again , you know me not going to college and and , uh , starting the way I did with the company . I mean not to say , there wasn't times I took my job for granted , because we're all human , but I had a , I've always had a lot of loyalty , like I , honestly , I mean it's . I've always felt like it's the American dream , you know , and that's not just because I'm the CEO Now . I felt that way , I felt like I'd hit the lottery when I became a district manager , you know , regional manager , division vice president , overseeing all the store operations and sales for O'Reilly . So I've always been , I've always felt like the company's , you know , given me way more opportunities than I've ever deserved , and so I just never felt that way .

Behzad Rassuli 52:40

What was the conversation like when you did find out you were going to be ? You were in the running for CEO . I mean , was it one of those sit down conversations where we can click your , we can click the name ? In the HR system but uh , let me make sure you understand the responsibility .

Brad Beckham 52:54

Yeah , no , it was probably .

Brad Beckham 52:55

It was a little bit different conversation you know , but , but it was uh , but it was similar in in a lot of ways . But you know , honestly , and and a lot of people would think that I probably have a target on my back for saying this this way , bayside but I mean , obviously I was excited to think about having the opportunity to be our CEO , but I was OK if it wasn't . I mean , I've always wanted to do what the company needed me to do . If that would have been continued as a , as a co-president , as a COO , I've always tried to be pretty self-aware and if I wasn't the guy to be the CEO , I would have fully supported that . The only reason I've ever wanted to take additional responsibility is because I want to do what the company needs me to do .

Brad Beckham 53:43

And so , yeah , there was a lot of serious conversations but , um , it wasn't , it wasn't something that I was just stuck on that one title as much as just . I've always been willing to do whatever the company needed me to do and it's always been less about my boss or the board or whatever . Um , I , I worry less about those things is , um , I wanted to take this opportunity because , um , I know I'll kill myself to to support and , um , do everything I can possibly do for our 90,000 team members . That's what matters to me .

Behzad Rassuli 54:18

I want to ask this question sensitively , but , um , I think you always have a target on your back . I mean , the reality is , you've described a family business that has seemed to kind of wrap their arms around their team members and their business and really foster a successful environment and ensure that everyone's supported and that's supported and and that , uh , the business grows and the results , um , uh , you know , speak for themselves . But now you're a fortune two 50 company and , uh , you are not just an auto parts business , you are a retailer and you're a huge part of the U S economy . Right , you're a huge contributor , a force , a labor force , an economic force . To compete at that level , does the promote from within culture have its limits ? You know , I mean the conversation that was had with you about , hey , we need to look for the next generation of leadership . As you sit today at the top of a you know this three country , full niche national footprint to really compete at the retail level , at the fortune two 50 level . Does the promote from within culture have a limit ?

Brad Beckham 55:41

Yeah , Well , I don't think it does . You know , in my lifetime something would have to materially change for us to ever get away from promote from within , and especially when you talk about the field organization . So I'll kind of break that up because I kind of know what you're asking there . Our field organization . I would never let us get away from Promote From Within . You know we have over 650 district managers .

Brad Beckham 56:12

Not one of those district managers Bayside came from outside O'Reilly . Every one of them ran a successful O'Reilly store . We have over 75 regional managers that oversee 8 to 10 district managers and , uh , you know 80 to a hundred stores . Not one of those men and women didn't run a successful O'Reilly store , successful O'Reilly district . Um , we have 14 division vice presidents . We have three senior vice excuse me Now we have four senior vice presidents of store operations and sales in the U S .

Brad Beckham 56:46

All of those folks came from in the US . All of those folks came from our store ranks . There's not one exception and I think that's special and I would have a hard time ever thinking that for O'Reilly it would be healthy for us to not have people that are parts , people that have been on the counter . They know what it's like to truly take care of customers the way that we take care of customers . They understand the DIY business , they understand the professional business , the DIFM side , and they understand our promote from within our culture . Something unforeseen would have to happen for me and for O'Reilly to ever step away from that from a field perspective .

Brad Beckham 57:26

Now , that doesn't mean that we don't strategically have to place people in the company that can help us in specialized areas . You know , not too long ago well , it's been 2018 now my counterpart you know I get a lot of credit for my new role here this year but you know my partner in crime , brent Kirby that's our company president . You know , brent came from the Lowe's company and Brent , when we hired Brent , we needed somebody to come in that understood Omnichannel and understood digital and understood some supply chain things that we hadn't been exposed to at O'Reilly . We brought Brent in as our senior vice president of Omnichannel .

Brad Beckham 58:09

We brought Brennan as our senior vice president of Omnichannel and , uh , he , he actually was um a 32 to 32 year Lowe's veteran and he grew up at Lowe's , like I grew up at O'Reilly , but he , uh , he was in field operations for a long time , but they had brought him in the office and he had learned um Omnichannel , he had learned digital , he had ended up being their chief supply chain officer , and so there's times that you know , promote from within can work against you in certain cases , where you just don't know what you don't know , and so you know , brent was one of those guys , even though he was a 32 year Lowe's veteran .

Brad Beckham 58:41

He had the O'Reilly culture . He just wasn't working for us yet , and so we were fortunate enough to find Brent to come in to help us with some areas that we didn't have expertise . You know , same thing , we have a new CIO in our company and you know we have a guy that's came in that we're really excited about to take us to the next level from a tech standpoint . And it's not that we don't promote from within in the corporate office , because we do . But there's times that there's exceptions to that when there's somebody that has our culture , that is not working for us yet and they have that worldly experience in a certain , in a certain specialty area . You know we have to salt that in at the same time .

Behzad Rassuli 59:18

Yeah , that's . That's really well put . Uh , and I totally understand that , while we have the sensitive question door open , um , the business you've described to date is a family business . You mentioned meeting Charlie O'Reilly . You know there's David O'Reilly , there are a number of O'Reill family is not really going to be a part of the O'Reilly business . Do you ever think of that ? Do you ever think about how you maintain that family culture without the actual family ?

Brad Beckham 1:00:03

Yeah , that's a great question . Well , first off , they're more involved than what a lot of people may think . You're right in the fact that day in , day out operations not so much , but David and Larry are still on our board . David is our executive vice chairman and we still see Charlie a lot . We still see really all of them from time to time . So they still stay very involved in

Legacy and Leadership Succession

Brad Beckham 1:00:31

our business .

Brad Beckham 1:00:31

Yeah , and that said , you know , one thing that I don't think is understood sometimes about O'Reilly is , you know , even though it was , you know , strong family roots , you know , started in 1957 , you know , grew just there in Springfield 50s , 60s , 70s , understands is that in my opinion and they wouldn't say this because they're , they're so humble , but I believe when they had that pivotal moment in 1993 , when , when the O'Reilly family decided to take our company public , a lot of people don't realize , I don't think that Charlie , larry , rosalie and David , they actually to some extent discouraged their kids from actually coming in the business . I didn't know that , yeah , and it wasn't like they couldn't work in the business , but they did work in the business for some period of time . But the way I understand it , by folks that knew the situation pretty well . It was kind of like hey , if you work in the business , we're going to be about as twice as hard on you as we are anybody else because of your last name . So if you want to go to school and go , do your own thing , don't feel like you have to work in the auto parts business . And to me that was extremely , extremely smart , because what we've done even though , yes , there's going to be less people with the O'Reilly name in our business but if you think about it , in some cases and we've watched family businesses that in our I mean some of our toughest competitors , you know WDs , independents , two-step type competitors that have the majority of the DIFM share in the US . They're family businesses and they're tough as boot leather , I mean they're . They're tough competitors , um , but we've also seen some family businesses .

Brad Beckham 1:02:21

I think you'll know what I mean that they're handed to the second , third , fourth generation and at some point you have a generation of family and leadership that doesn't have the sweat equity built into what they did . It can become just , you know , just inherited , and it can be taken for granted . And so I believe , again , the O'Reilly family doesn't they're so humble , but I believe they had a better vision than just handing it off to a third and fourth generation . They discouraged their kids . Go do what you want to do and we're going to get . We're going to . We're what you want to do and we're going to get we're going to .

Brad Beckham 1:02:57

We're going to take this company public and we're going to give non-family members opportunities that we've had as a family , and so I believe that it's it was actually a more strategic decision to be less of a family company but keep all the family values , the culture and the promote from within for people like me and so many of us that grew up in the company that don't have college degrees that we can go on and be the next generation of the company . So I actually think that was potentially smarter than ended up with a fourth and fifth generation that may take the business for granted at some point . I believe that's what their vision was .

Behzad Rassuli 1:03:34

That's such a fascinating answer because in a way , you you made two distinctions . You made a distinction between family and family that there's . It actually never , from 1933 , wasn't a family company , but it , this , this , 57 , 57, .

Brad Beckham 1:03:53

I'm sorry .

Behzad Rassuli 1:03:53

This , this family business that feels like a family business from the outside , as a retailer , as a gigantic retailer , has kind of always been this family . We are family like the , the , the O'Reilly culture .

Brad Beckham 1:04:18

It's a tight knit culture and it's something that's hard to understand . It's not just a buzzword , it's a . We have a loyalty built in our company because there's so many people like me that that grew up in this company gave us opportunities we never would have had , and so there's just a loyalty in a family environment , with or without the O'Reilly name .

Evolution of Retail Competitiveness

Behzad Rassuli 1:04:39

And that was the source of the question . I think , when you just observed this business from the outside , relative to other retailers or even some of your peers , it does seem more family oriented and I , from the outside , would have associated because of the involvement of the actual family , but it sounds like it's more just embedded culture that's been there for .

Brad Beckham 1:04:58

That's right , but make no mistake about it , they're the ones that paved the way . Perfect , it's really both .

Behzad Rassuli 1:05:03

And then , as you think about your CEO role now , do you think of yourself as the business has been successful ? You're running a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders . You're running a , you know , a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders uh , some other kind of slogan . But , um , do you think of yourself as a steward of that success or do you feel like you have to ? Is it your responsibility to accelerate the lead to , to accelerate the , the , the growth of that business ?

Brad Beckham 1:05:31

Yeah , that's that's a great question . Um , maybe , maybe a little bit of both . Yeah , that's a great question , maybe a little bit of both . I think you know when you say well-oiled machine , which means a lot to us , we obviously are very proud of what we've been able to do . But I think the thing and I'll get back to your question is we've always had this underdog mentality . If you heard us talk internally you'd think we have a lot of problems . What I mean by that is we're our own worst critic , like we've never looked at ourselves as a well old machine . I mean , again , we're proud of what we built , but part of our , a big part of our success , has always been the fact in my mind that we kind of like when people talk about us just and it may be less today than it was kind of mid-career for me , but for a long time it was just well , that's the hillbillies from the Ozarks and you know kind of that family-ran business and we always kind of like that . Because you know we like having that underdog mentality . You know we like to scrap and just be thought of as an underdog . You know we've never let the ego or the big company stuff creep in , never taken our competitors for granted , tremendous respect for our competitors , so that that's first and foremost .

Brad Beckham 1:06:40

But back to your question . You know that's one I've gotten a little bit more this year is hey , how do you see , because of all the you know decades of the company being ran really well , you know how do you feel about taking this . You know business , after you know you're , you're the fourth CEO of the company . You know how do you feel about taking this . You know business , after you know you're , you're the fourth CEO of the company . You know you're following David O'Reilly , greg Hensley and Greg Johnson , which are really icons of our industry and guys that we all have a tremendous amount of respect for . You know I get put on the spot . Hey , brad , is there a you know a lot of change going to happen ? What do you see ? The ? You know O'Reilly can do better and different .

Brad Beckham 1:07:23

And try to remind everybody that , to your point , at O'Reilly , there's no , there's no revolution needed , but we need to evolve and and I say that not in knocking anything that anybody did previous to me , but the O'Reilly family , our board you know Greg Hensley , david , greg Johnson and , more importantly than all those folks , our 90,000 team members did not give me this opportunity to sit . Still , we've got to get better . We've got to continue to be our own worst critic . We've got plenty of areas we can get better . We've got to change with the times . We've got to adapt to changing circumstances , different competitors , and so , yeah , there's a lot to steward to your original question . But , um , you know , we we've always tried to set the scoreboard back to zero every single year and not think about being in the lead or whatever the case may be . We want to keep that underdog mentality and we've got plenty of opportunities to get better I resonate with .

Behzad Rassuli 1:08:16

Resonate with being your own worst critic . I mean , I can't remember the last time I gave myself a compliment . So you mentioned being kind of a young CEO and you need to continue to evolve the business and you have a lot of responsibility to do that . There have also been looking at the competitive landscape . Now there have also been CEO changes at the other three major retailers in the industry . Can you just speak to that a little bit ? What are your thoughts on that and maybe why or what the objective is for the next 10 years for the industry ?

Brad Beckham 1:08:51

Yeah , well , I think some of that's just timing . I think it was just circumstance that we were all kind of at the point of a regime change . You know , I don't think there's any more to it than that . You know we , like I said earlier , we have a tremendous amount of respect for every one of our competitors . I mean , you know you think about AutoZone . They're a tremendous retailer . They're getting better on the professional side . They've been well-ran .

Brad Beckham 1:09:19

I don't know Phil very well but I hear amazing things about him . I think he grew up very similar to what I did at O'Reilly at AutoZone . I hear amazing things about his leadership abilities , even though there's changing companies like that . Shane coming into Advance heard amazing things about him . They got a lot of opportunity to get better , and so you know we don't take anybody like that for granted either . And then you know GPC has been a tough competitor of ours forever and you know similar backgrounds coming from the wholesale business , like we did . And you know hear great things about Will too . So you know , I think it's interesting . You know that we all had a leadership change about the same time , but we have to assume those guys are going to continue to get better and better .

Behzad Rassuli 1:10:12

So kind of a related question , looking at the new CEO landscape and looking at the next maybe 10 , 15 years here . Using the hardware industry as an analogy , there are two major retailers in hardware . There are , I think , two major buying groups . I'm not sure , maybe there are more , but two that I know True Value and Ace . In our industry there are four retailers . Uh , there's , um , you know , kind of the , the merging of the buying groups in a way through the apsg , um organization . Uh , how do you think of the , the future of this industry from , from the competitive landscape ? Does it ? Does it continue to look like the auto parts industry , that , that that you grew up in ? Uh , and that uh , that is today or is it ? Do we look something more like the hardware industry or or another analogy that I'm maybe not thinking of ?

Brad Beckham 1:11:03

Yeah , I don't know that's . That's interesting . Um , you know , I I think , uh , the way I always think about it is is , you know , get back to your question a little bit less about who the players are .

Evolution of Retail Competition

Brad Beckham 1:11:15

But I think the the exciting thing is for us is , I think my entire career there's been 30 something thousand part stores in the us . You know that's not including some of the international opportunities we have . But you know , the the amount of part stores in the us is has really never materially changed . It's it's incrementally gotten bigger , but the amount of outlets has kind of stayed the same . The ownership has always changed . You know there's always been consolidation . I think there will continue to be consolidation .

Brad Beckham 1:11:45

I think it's a little bit hard to say , you know , is there a day , sooner than later , that there's just two retailers or something like that ? We've got such strong competitors ? I don't want to assume that . I mean it's a little bit hard to predict what will happen exactly , but I do think that , whether you're talking about us Big Four or you're talking about some of the other toughest competitors in the US you know the WD guys which are extremely tough , like we talked about earlier I think what is going to continue is , I think the strong are going to get stronger and if somebody doesn't have their act together , you know the weak are going to go away . I think it's going to be , you know , a battle of attrition and I think it's going to continue to get more competitive , but in a way that holds us all accountable to taking care of our customers , and that's what matters .

Behzad Rassuli 1:12:35

When I look you up or see pictures of you , you're always in a store . Are you still the parts guy that likes to get behind the counter ?

Brad Beckham 1:12:45

Well , I do . I'm pretty rusty these days . Our folks in the stores make fun of me how slow I am on the computer , but hopefully I can still hold my own . I don't normally let anybody , if I'm doing a picture or something , take . Take a picture anywhere besides our stores , cause that's that's where our customers are . You know , we don't have a , I don't have a cash register in the corporate office , and uh , so we try to get out there as much as we can . It's all I know . It's where my comfort zone is . And uh , you know , there's a saying within our company that closer you get to the customer , the closer you get to the answers . And uh , brent Kirby says that a lot , and uh , we say that a lot at O'Reilly , and so we all spend a lot of time out in the stores , cause that's , uh , that's where the rubber meets the road .

Behzad Rassuli 1:13:29

Is that a stated policy ? I know that Home Depot just was in the news because they stated some policy that their executive team has to be in the stores , you know , eight hours . Eight hours a quarter , yeah , is that a standing policy at all ?

Brad Beckham 1:13:43

We have a real solid store visitation program , but we try to make it less about a headline or less about a policy and more about . You know , if we , if we don't have leaders that want to be out in the store spending time , we got another problem . I mean our senior leadership team , our executive team . We hold each other accountable to making sure we're out there . Very often we all want to be out there , so it's probably less about a program and more about it's just what we do .

Behzad Rassuli 1:14:12

For the record , I spoke to some of your team members before we spoke and they didn't complain about you being rusty behind the behind the computer . But they did say it's hard to do a photo shoot with you near a store because you always run in and try to help a customer .

Brad Beckham 1:14:25

Yeah well , it's just instinct , it's just instinct .

Behzad Rassuli 1:14:29

What else would people say about working with you ?

Brad Beckham 1:14:32

while we're on the subject , while we're on the subject , yeah Well , I think you know , probably , depending on when you asked them , you know , if you would have asked , you know , 10 , 15 , 20 years ago , you know , I was probably a little bit more impatient . You know brimstone and fire . You know , when you grow up in store operations , you're just what we call building it and shipping it . You're always in mode of growing people , competing out , hustling the competition and and , uh , I think you know , hopefully you know just that I'm a good representation of our culture hard work , enthusiasm , win-win attitude , respect . Um , you know , I try to try to be a good , a better listener than I am a talker .

Brad Beckham 1:15:14

You know , whether it be in meetings or just one-on-one type meetings , um , I've always tried to do the best I can to understand what people are going through in their personal lives because , again , we we work in a people business we're all messy in our personal lives to some degree and it's important in our business , I think , to really understand what everybody's going through in their personal lives and and , uh , pull , pull the layers back and really understand what everybody's going through in their personal lives . And and , uh , pull , pull the layers back and really understand what everybody's why is you know whether it be their family ? Um , what motivates them ? What drives them ? So I've always tried to build relationships with people . Um , sure , not perfect . Uh , you know a lot , of , a lot of . If you talk to some of the guys that have worked with me for decades , it's probably a little bit more of a love-hate , but just try to truly get to know our people and understand what they have going on , because if it wasn't for our leaders and our team members , we wouldn't have a company .

Behzad Rassuli 1:16:05

Sticking on the personal side . It's got to be a stressful job . How do you wind down and what are your life priorities ?

Brad Beckham 1:16:12

broadly . Yeah well , I appreciate you asking that my priorities are my faith in God , then my family and then O'Reilly , and in that order . And so you know , and when things are in that order , I take care of O'Reilly pretty well , I think , meaning that you know , I wouldn't have the platform I have if it wasn't for , if it wasn't for my faith , and I wouldn't be where I'm at without my amazing bride , megan that , that I'm married to and we have five kids . And so between between you know , being active at church and five kids and my wife and my career at O'Reilly , I don't have a lot of time for a bunch of a bunch of hobbies . But I enjoy fishing . You know , live in the Ozarks , so we have Table Rock Lake and a lot of great places , the bass fish , and me and my wife enjoy traveling . Kids enjoy traveling and they're into sports and things like that . So , you know , unwind them with my family .

Behzad Rassuli 1:17:12

There's nothing better than that if I went to a O'Reilly near your house , would I find little kids wearing ? You know , youth size o'reilly shirts . Behind the counter , getting used to the smell of parts in the store .

Brad Beckham 1:17:24

Yeah , not quite yet . I'll let them come to that if they wish , but no pressure okay , all right .

Behzad Rassuli 1:17:30

Um , uh , I just on a wild hair . I had a the idea of challenging you to game a pool oh , yeah , yeah and putting some money on it .

Brad Beckham 1:17:41

Okay yeah , we can . We can do that you wouldn't be .

Behzad Rassuli 1:17:44

You wouldn't be any good at pool , would you no , uh ? Yeah , no there was a rumor that maybe , if the parts thing didn't work out for you , you'd be a professional pool player .

Brad Beckham 1:17:52

Well , I don't know if I would have been that good . But yeah , I kind of grew up somebody . T tipped you off you would take my money .

Behzad Rassuli 1:17:57

Is the point right ? I don't know .

Brad Beckham 1:17:59

I don't know , I'm pretty rusty on that too . I grew up in this pool hall . You know , when I grew up there was pool halls weren't even always somewhere people drank . There was , you know , places with nice pool tables and guys in there playing , old men in there smoking cigars , playing , playing gin and gambling at pool and stuff . And I grew up , I kind of grew up in that environment and uh so learned how to play at a pretty young age and still enjoy it sometimes , but don't have a lot of time , brad , I want to ask this is kind of my final question Um , you mentioned , uh , ted Wise and how he said something to you in your career .

Behzad Rassuli 1:18:36

He gave you some career advice during a promotion and it stuck with you , never left you and probably influenced who you are today . Everyone has those kinds of mentors in their life and , just thinking of you specifically , you have that impression on people today and you have throughout your career . Uh , you've said things and you've led by example , or you've done things that that people will never forget . Uh , if I talk to somebody in 20 years from now , uh , and I bring up Brad Beckham , what do you want the one thing that they associate you with to be ? What do you want the lesson that you left them with to be , or the impression that you left on them ?

Brad Beckham 1:19:21

Wow , that's tough . Um , I have to think about that . I think the biggest thing would just be that , um that I didn't leave anything on the table or leave anything on the field , meaning meaning , um , life flies by . You know , um , 28 years here's flown by um . You know , it's easy to take things for granted , it's easy to get caught up in the day to day , but um , I , I , I would want uh everybody to remember my work ethic , um my commitment to uh the team , my commitment to promote from within . Um , I would want people to say team , my commitment to promote from within . I would want people to say that I was a small part of giving them opportunities that people gave me , that I made sure we kept the O'Reilly culture intact , and I would want everybody to know that O'Reilly had its best decade yet over the next couple . I love that .

Behzad Rassuli 1:20:22

And with that , Brad , thank you so much for sitting down with me . This was such a great conversation .

Brad Beckham 1:20:27

It's great to get to know you . Yeah , absolutely .

Behzad Rassuli 1:20:29

And I really appreciate you being open for your candor during this conversation .

Brad Beckham 1:20:33

I think that everyone will appreciate it .

Behzad Rassuli 1:20:34

No , my pleasure , buddy . All right , take care , thank you . Okay , thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care On Air . Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so they never miss an episode , and don't forget to leave us a rating and a review that helps others discover our show . Auto Care On Air is a production of the Auto Care Association , dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you . To learn more about the association and its initiatives , visit autocareorg .