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.

Between 1939 and 1945 you produced weapons and war equipment valued at thirteen billion dollars, 70 per cent of which you shipped to your allies. The same process is going on today in Canada's much larger and growing industry.