The History of Grizzly - Video

[Mark Hecker]

For those of you that wondered how it all began and how Grizzly grew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBQk1WmXpm4

That was a great story, Shiraz. I live near your Bellingham warehouse and over the last several years have put together a nice shop of almost exclusively Grizzly tools. Love to deal with Jim and Smitty who have been always helpful and make me always feel welcome. Always recommend your tools to my friends who are just getting into woodworking. Always enjoy watching their expressions when we enter the warehouse to do some "looking around." I even wear my Grizzly.com sweatshirt and hat when I'm out and about(what % do you pay your marketing team?).
Congratulations for what you have accomplished and continued success.

Mark Hecker

[Shiraz Balolia]

That was a great story, Shiraz. I live near your Bellingham warehouse and over the last several years have put together a nice shop of almost exclusively Grizzly tools. Love to deal with Jim and Smitty who have been always helpful and make me always feel welcome. Always recommend your tools to my friends who are just getting into woodworking. Always enjoy watching their expressions when we enter the warehouse to do some "looking around." I even wear my Grizzly.com sweatshirt and hat when I'm out and about(what % do you pay your marketing team?).
Congratulations for what you have accomplished and continued success.

Mark Hecker

Thank you everyone for your business and the great comments.

Mark - thank you for your loyalty - Smitty has been with me for around 35 years - he was working the old "Ice Box" showroom dressed like an Eskimo . You should ask him about the good old days. Jim has also been with us for over 25 years. We have some very good people working for us.

The video has become very popular with over 25K views in just over a week - very happy with its reception.

[Frederick Skelly]

The video has become very popular with over 25K views in just over a week - very happy with its reception.

No surprise there Shiraz. As someone said earlier - your success is proof that "the American Dream" is still possible. I posit that that's why your video is so popular.

[Full disclosure: I dont own any Grizzly equipment. I just respect and admire hard working people.]

Fred

[Paul Haus]

I've been buying from Grizzly probably 30+ years. Bought my first house back in the mid 70's and found Grizzly when I wanted to do some remodeling a few years later. I had a Craftsman shaper at the time, but finding cutters (particularly carbide) locally was like trying to find hens teeth, same thing with metal lathe tooling. Most places checked other than Sears (which were only steel cutters) only wanted to deal volume, not wanting to deal with the onsie twosies a home owner wanted. I'd seen the Grizzly ads in the back of magazines and tried them. I now have well over 100-150+ shaper and router cutters along with multiple Grizzly and Shop Fox machines and I think I got good value for my $$. I've done that remodeling plus furniture restoration and repair and Grizzly machines and tooling has played a part in both endeavors. Now that I'm retiring, I expect to make more furniture and Grizzly will be part of these projects too.

[Chuck Saunders]

Wonderful video Shiraz. Very informative and interesting. What impressed me most was that you told the story of how the company started and grew to it's present state and refrained from turning it into a "in your face commercial". I wish other companies could learn this technique. You told a great story.
Thank you
Chuck

[Frank Necaise]

Shiraz thanks for sharing and making Grizzly such a great provider of equipment for people just like yourself and me looking for affordable quality tools that enable them to make incredible things.

Thanks,
Frank

[Bill Dufour]

Seems like Grizzly started about the same time as Post Tool in Oakland California. post tools expanded into multiple stores but not mail order. They also sold more high name brand stuff as well as the Taiwan stuff. Not sure why they folded about 15 years ago. I believe the founder retired and it was sold to another tool company for a few years before it folded.
I have to say I hope Shiraz has made plans to keep it going after he retires.
It was sad to see Bill Harrah's world class car collection sold piecemeal because his heirs did not care. Harrah had more then enough money to give several tens of millions to keep the collection going. I understand Jay Leno has made arrangements to keep his car collection going after he passes.
Bil lD.

[Kevin Beitz]

I have lots of Grizzly equipment. Both metal working and woodworking....
I was also an employee of Grizzly in the Pa. store. Boy do I miss it.
Sure was sad to see it close down. I live around lots of Amish. You
here them talking all the time about how much they miss the Muncy
store. We are all wishing you would come back... Very good tools for
the price. If I was younger I would open a Grizzly tool repair center.
I love working on all the Grizzly machines.