Serial entrepreneur and 2nd Wind founder Dick Enrico dies at 85

Minnesota’s lively native son and favorite TV pitchman Dick Enrico crafted more than 25 retail businesses during his lifetime, selling everything from treadmills and weights to pasta, patio furniture and a bounty of returned online merchandise.

He was best known to many Minnesotans as the founder of 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment and by his trademark slogan: “Why buy new when slightly used will do?”

Richard H. “Dick” Enrico died Dec. 14 of heart failure while in hospice in Brooklyn Park. He was 85.

Born in 1940 and raised in Chisholm, the ever-energetic high schooler used an $18 loan from his mom in 1958 to begin selling aluminum pots and pans to neighbors. He never looked back.

He sold part-time while attending Hibbing Junior College and in a few years was earning $25,000 a year — more than six times his father’s wages working in the nearby taconite mines on the Iron Range.

Enrico soon left Hibbing and headed for Minneapolis, where he hired his younger brother, Roger, and some other college kids to sell more cookware. Sales hit $950,000 by the end of 1962. (Roger Enrico later went onto become the CEO of PepsiCo.)

Meanwhile, Dick just kept at it, creating new ventures and selling, selling, selling.

He didn’t count on competition from local hardware stores, so that venture fizzled, along with many others.

“At one point, he owned almost the whole block” by Nicollet and 18th, said youngest son Rick Enrico. “He loved retail. He was a character. My father loved to create businesses and get it up and running. But he’d get super bored with operating it and be onto something else.”

Enrico often lamented his extremely short attention span and sought counseling. In a prior interview, he confessed to being heartily energized when told he merely suffered from “serial entrepreneurship.”

He learned he could improve his chances of success if he simply hired others to handle the administrative minutiae of business ownership, tasks that quickly bored him. He loved that advice and often shared it with students studying business at the University of St. Thomas.

By 1992, Enrico found his second wind by pinning his fortunes on America’s workout craze. He posted want ads in newspapers and offered to buy the public’s unwanted, dusty exercise equipment.

Ever the marketer, the jovial and uber-tanned Enrico spread word of his new venture by starring in ubiquitous late-night TV commercials. In every version, he belted his cheesy trademark slogan: “Why buy new when slightly used will do?”

Leaning into a bad hair-dye job, bobbleheads and cheeky portraits-on-a-stick, Enrico built a larger-than-life image that translated into sales.

By 1996, 2nd Wind had eight stores grossing nearly $7 million. A decade later, Enrico would have 129 retail stores in more than 13 states.

He sold 2nd Wind in 2015, but he wasn’t about to retire.

Enrico turned his sights onto a new retail venture, opening 2nd Shade Patio Furniture in Minnetonka in 2017 at age 77.

“Patio furniture was a misstep. I have enough humility to admit when I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I underestimated the short seasonality and the competition,” Enrico told the Star Tribune at the time.

“I started 2nd Wind with $15,000, and I spent millions on patio furniture,” he said. “Sometimes it can be a disadvantage to be adequately financed.”

He converted his patio furniture stores into yet another new venture, this time a liquidation chain called Shady Deal Depot that was designed to play off his Italian “Godfather” heritage.

Under this latest business model, Enrico bought clothing, rugs, furniture, cookware, tools, appliances and other merchandise from local suppliers who had purchased returned products or overstock items from Costco, Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, HomeGoods and other retailers.

“Why buy new when gentle returns will do?” became the new slogan at Shady Deal Depot, which also sold some high-end Tommy Bahama and Gloster Furniture brands.

His growth targets dovetailed with America’s booming $600 billion discount, thrift and liquidation industry. Across America, thrifting had become big business.

But less than a year after Shady Deal Depot opened, the pandemic struck, sending American workers, students and shoppers home for the better part of two years.

COVID-19 largely devastated the retail industry and Enrico’s fledgling stores — but never his spirit. Thrilled with the chance to get a hot deal, Enrico raced to buy 1,000 forehead thermometers to resell to the public.

“I still have all of them. He loved a good deal,” said his son Rick, chuckling.

Enrico eventually shut his stores and turned his attention to charities, talking to students in business school and sharing his entrepreneurial story “well into his 80s,” Rick said.

In 2018, he established the Dick Enrico Building in Chisholm to support local United Way programs.

He is survived by four sons, Tony, Steven, Dean and Rick, his sister Sherry Amhaus, five grandchildren and three nephews.

A celebration of life will be held in the spring, with details announced at a later date. In place of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Enrico’s beloved charities: the United Way of Northeastern Minnesota and the American Diabetes Association.