Don Hasson guides family business through multiple expansions

Built in 1906, the seven-story brick building was vast and filled with all sorts of interesting things.

“It was like walking back in time,” Hasson said. “It had five great big freight elevators with those wooden doors that hurl you up and down. It had an old round chute that carried boxes from the top floor down to the basement.”

It had wall shelves that had to be reached by 20-foot ladders that moved on a track attached at the ceiling. When the building was closed in 1980 so the company could move to a new facility, workers found parts for horse-drawn wagons, plow repair parts and other archaic inventory that had been tucked away and forgotten.

“When I was a kid, I loved to go over there and hang out and play and ride the elevator,” Hasson said.

His grandfather C.S. Hasson was one of the founders of the company, and Don Hasson’s father, Jim Hasson, was its president at the time.

“After my dad got tired of me getting in everybody’s way, he decided the best thing for me was to put bicycles together,” Don Hasson said.

 “After my dad got tired of me getting in everybody’s way, he decided the best thing for me was to put bicycles together,” Don Hasson said.

That was OK. Building bikes was fun, Hasson said. Now age 62, Hasson is president of the company and has spent most of his life building it into an operation with a combined 700,000 square feet of warehouse space in two states, customers in 17 states and a sales staff of 85.

And the fun now comes from each chance to add to this hardware empire, Hasson said. He keeps a list of 12 companies House-Hasson has either bought outright or acquired the business and sales staff from after they closed. The chance to land a major account or to pick up the pieces when a competitor comes apart and use them to build your business is exciting, Hasson said.

“Every couple of years we get bored just doing the same thing, so we go try to stir up something new and different,” he said.

Hasson focused on building a sales territory in northern Georgia, but when Sam House retired in 1926, Hasson came back to Knoxville to become president. Hasson served until his son J.W. “Jack” Hasson took over as president in 1950. By 1954, House-Hasson Hardware had 35 salespeople and operated in seven states.

Jack Hasson’s brother James K. “Jim” Hasson became company president in 1970. That year, the company made the first of many acquisitions that would propel its growth.

But not all was unbridled expansion. The world wars and the Great Depression presented challenges, and House-Hasson also found itself facing competition from mail order and catalog companies, foreshadowing the competition it would start to face in the 1980s from the growth of “big box” stores like The Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Plan your route to avoid dangerous and stressful intersections. For example, navigating the intersection of 16th Street, U Street, and New Hampshire Avenue NW on foot during rush hour is likely to turn a nice walk into a terrifying near-miss. Turning-arrow patterns and drivers’ behavior have effectively negated pedestrian right-of-way on the south side of that intersection.

I’ve found that the standard advice to make eye contact with drivers (for example when they are turning through a crosswalk) often backfires. When drivers see me watching them, they sometimes take this as license to inch into the crosswalk directly toward me in an attempt to time their crossing with mine, passing only a foot or two behind me.

A modified version of the eye contact strategy seems to produce better results: After seeing that a driver has noticed me, I keep my head facing forward and watch the car from my peripheral vision. I know that the driver has seen me, but he or she might not be sure if I see him or her. This often seems to bring out drivers’ better nature, and they leave me plenty of space to cross to avoid startling me.

Wahl stresses the practical advice that makes urban travel not only survivable but also a good experience. This advice acknowledges realities of urban life without being timid about travel. More people should adopt the attitude, as well as the advice.

Stressful intersections tend to have common characteristics. Traffic can come at you from several directions, traffic volume may be heavy, the walk sign may be short, or you may have to cross multiple lanes with no traffic signal at all.

Drivers analyze their commuting routes. They learn where they might face a difficult left turn or an intersection where they have a stop sign, but the cross traffic is heavy and free-flowing. They figure out ways to avoid the difficult maneuvers.

A walking commuter should be making the same calculations, to limit stress and improve personal safety. The shortest route between two points isn’t necessarily the best.

I particularly admire Wahl for thinking through the “eye contact” strategy. While safety experts urge both drivers and pedestrians to make eye contact, many people who walk in congested areas challenge me when I repeat that advice.

They make solid arguments, based on experience. They often note that a driver who appears to be looking at them may actually be staring into windshield glare that obscures the walker’s location. Others know that drivers are often looking solely for other drivers, and may stare right through a pedestrian. Or if making a left turn, their entire focus may be directed at oncoming traffic and not at the crosswalk they are about to turn into.