Leonard Samuel Shoen (February 29, 1916 – October 4, 1999) was an American entrepreneur who founded the U-Haul truck and trailer organization in Ridgefield, Washington. After growing up in the farm belt during the Great Depression, he envisioned the market for rental vehicles for families who wished to avoid the expense of professional transfer and storage companies and move around the country.
Early life
Shoen (pronounced "shown") was born on February 29, 1916, in McGrath, Minnesota, to Sophie (née Appert) and Samuel J. Shoen. His father moved the family to Oregon in 1923 to farm in the Willamette Valley near Shedd.
Shoen worked his way through Oregon State University by running a chain of beauty parlors and barber shops in Corvallis and nearby Albany, and later at Camp Adair north of Corvallis and at the Hanford Reservation in Washington. Sam earned a B.Sc. in General Science (a pre-med degree) from OSC in 1943, and entered the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland. Shoen was suspended from medical school during his fourth year after he "called out present during a roll-call for an absent classmate", and never returned.
Shoen served in the U.S. Navy as a Hospital Apprentice First Class in Bayview, Idaho, and Seattle, and was given a medical discharge in 1945 for rheumatic fever. After starting the U-Haul Company, Shoen earned an LL.B. at the Northwestern College of Law, later known as the Lewis & Clark Law School, in Portland in 1955.
Founder of U-Haul
Shoen began his career as a barber while attending Oregon State University in the years leading up to World War II.