Bob Kierlin’s frugality was legendary — he bought suits secondhand, never drove a fancy car, and even built his own basement wine cabinet one weekend, though he could have certainly afforded to have it build for him.
Kierlin never forgot his roots or his community, even after he expanded a supply store into a Fortune 500 company in Winona.
He donated to many Winona-area causes over the years, from supplying classrooms to creating the Minnesota Marine Art Museum and an upcoming performance center. At the same time, Kierlin famously skimped on his own pay and found as many ways as possible to stretch a dollar while he was CEO of Fastenal, the global industrial supplier he started with four friends in 1967.
“We’ve never really cared how everybody else does things or tried to follow them,” Kierlin told the Wall Street Journal in 1997. “We’ve found that hard work and good thinking have led to the best possible results.”
Kierlin died this week at 85, according to community leaders.
“Bob really had his hand in quite a few different things in our community,” said Winona Mayor Scott Sherman.
Born in 1939, Kierlin grew up in Winona and graduated from Cotter High School. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota.
He had an idea early on to sell fasteners as cheaply as possible by cutting out middlemen, but couldn’t secure investors to support his idea. He banded together with Steve Slaggie, Jack Remick, Van McConnon and later Mike Gostomski to form Fastenal out of his father’s former hardware store.