Local hardware franchise debuts new name and logo as it celebrates 45 years in business

A rendering of new signage for 18 Chattanooga and Knoxville stores operated by Harrison-based Elder's Hardware.

Ace Hardware of Chattanooga's management team, from left, includes vice president and controller Grif Glenn, director of merchandise Michael Bratcher, director of human resources Eugenia Clarkson, president and CEO Tom Glenn, director of store operations Steve Kelly, director of marketing John Rutter and operations manager Dewey Esquinance.

Elder Glenn

Tom Glenn is president of Ace Hardware of Chattanooga and CEO of Elder's Hardware.

Tom Glenn lounged on a gray sofa in his father's now-unoccupied office, and there were a few trinkets on the table before him: nothing more than made-by-the-thousands promotional merchandise, if you didn't know better.

But this small collection of things -- a mug and pocket notebook among them -- represent the biggest thing to happen at Glenn's company in a long time. Maybe ever.

This is the rebrand that he and other company officials have been looking forward to.

It's not the well-recognized red Ace Hardware logo you're used to seeing. It's something more past-like, a clean blue logo with a hand-scrawled name across the front: "Elder's."

It looks personal, has a feeling of overalls and curvy flatbed trucks about it. It's an actual hand-written name.

It's the new look of Elder's Hardware.

The Ace name isn't going anywhere, Tom Glenn urges.

"We're an Ace family," he said.

Ace Hardware is a co-op, where its owners and members own the company and its buying power. The Glenns like that. And they love Ace Hardware.

"Years ago, I thought it was the wrong thing to do to put a name in front of Ace Hardware," Tom said.

But he believes the company needs to help customers identify Elder's Ace Hardware stores as locally-owned and independent.

And company leaders want to distinguish their brand from other Ace stores, because Ace stores often vary in their inventory and offerings, based on ownership. Promotions and coupons also apply differently, or not at all, depending on ownership.

Glenn is excited but cautious about the changes. He tells guests in his office several times to please keep this under wraps, as he and other company leaders have done for months.

Folks on the ground at the Glenn family's 18 Ace Hardware stores know a change is coming, but they don't know how it's going to look.

That's part of the fun, said Tom.

He smiles talking about the rebranding. He's enjoyed making it a sort of game for employees.

It's a good time for the company.

"We're not treading water around here," he said, in direct response to questions about how the big boys like Lowe's and Home Depot affect his business.

The company handed out record bonuses a few weeks ago to employees, to reward and appreciate their work, which Tom said makes this company successful.

He sounds like his late father right there.

The story Tom tells is that Elder, who passed in April, wasn't wild about the idea of his name being on the new logo, or on the front of the company's stores.

But in his waning days, Elder Glenn finally gave the company the OK to proceed with rebranding the company "Elder's Hardware."

He knew his life was coming to a close, Tom said. And so Elder Glenn asked his son for something: that he would make sure people knew that Elder Glenn didn't think he deserved to have his name on anything, that Elder Glenn thought the success of his company belonged to the employees and managers.

The family loved their patriarch, their founder and father, Elder.

He was of the tougher, smarter, harder generation who built the country in the booming post-World War II economy. They wanted to honor his legacy.

When Elder Glenn passed, it was a news event.

He was the one who took all the risks in starting this company, says Tom, and he was the one who took a leap of faith back in 1969 when he branched out and co-founded his first Ace Hardware. And had a tough row to hoe at first.

The story is that Elder, after the first year of the Highway 58 store's opening, lost $5,000. And he didn't look forward to a lifetime of losing money. But he pressed on.

Now his touch -- and name -- are all over the company he's left behind.

His three children (Tom Glenn, president and CEO; Grif Glenn, vice president and controller; and Jan Billingsley) own an overwhelming -- "99.9 percent," said Tom -- majority of the company's shares.

The few shares they don't own were sales made by Elder Glenn to faithful and tenured managers over the years.

Elder and Tom Glenn have sat on the Ace Hardware board of directors. Top Ace Hardware corporate brass signed off on the company breaking normal policy by using the "Elder's" signature on its storefronts instead of the approved corporate font.

"When I first saw it, I liked it," said John Venhuizen, president and CEO of Ace Hardware.

He's an admirer of Elder Glenn, Tom Glenn, the whole family in fact, and what they've done under and for Ace Hardware.

And he's a personal friend.

Venhuizen dropped everything when Tom asked if he could spend a few moments talking about Elder and what he accomplished with Ace Hardware.

"It's the American dream, isn't it?" Venhuizen responded, of Elder's rise from part-owner of one country store to being the name behind one of the fastest-growing Ace franchises company-wide.

Venhuizen himself signed off on the "Elder's" storefront signage.

While use of the signature technically bends the rules, "it was the exact spirit of what we love at Ace," said Venhuizen: local membership in a globally-trusted brand.

He said the new Elder's Hardware branding strategy and the placing of Elder Glenn front-and-center is appropriate.

"They represent us well," he said.

The new signs and logos will start popping up at Elder's Hardware stores this week.

Tom said outside the upcoming anniversary, there's no profound reason behind the timing. It was just good.

"It's been a banner year for us," he said. "Why not?"

Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com.