George Zimmer

We opened the first Men's Wearhouse in Houston in August 1973, then a store a year for 10 years in Texas. In the early 1980s I opened a store in the San Francisco Bay Area. Within the year, the Texas economy was in total disarray. We were facing Chapter 11, and if not for the California store, we might not have survived.

I never considered the clothing business in college. But my father was a manufacturer of men's wear in the Northeast and wanted to investigate manufacturing in Asia. In 1972 he sent me to Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong for four months. I'm convinced it was his way of getting me into business, rather than letting me be a hippie.

We rent one in three tuxedos in the U.S. and Canada, and if we make a mistake, our employees will deliver to the customer's home, office, or wedding. We get a couple hundred letters a week praising the service in our stores.

If you've done a bit of journalism, everyone assumes you must be moving into PR. We're absolutely not becoming a PR agency and we're not turning into Brunswick. We will remain SRU, but we will be owned by the Brunswick Group. It's quite different.

Long-term unemployment is particularly costly to those directly affected, of course. But in addition, because of its negative effects on workers' skills and attachment to the labor force, long-term unemployment may ultimately reduce the productive capacity of our economy.