G.I. Joe's

20th-century history

G.I. Joe's began in 1952, when Edward Orkney purchased army surplus sleeping bags and then set up a tent in Portland, Oregon, to sell them to the public. Orkney sold out of the sleeping bags and then started selling other army surplus merchandise in a store that then doubled in size by 1956, making it Portland's largest retailer of sporting goods and outdoor gear.

During the 1960s, Orkney transitioned the company away from military surplus and towards an eclectic combination of sporting goods, automotive parts, and hardware; the 1970s saw the company become a chain within the Portland metropolitan area, with its line of merchandise expanding to include housewares, lawn and garden supplies, and apparel. In 1976, Orkney died and his son, David Orkney, took over the business. A distribution center was built in 1979 in Wilsonville, with that facility expanded in 1986. G.I. Joe's opened its eighth store, located in Eugene, Oregon, in 1983. At the time, the company also operated 16 The Jean Machine stores, and the two chains had combined annual revenue of $68 million (~$186 million in 2024) in 1982.

In 1991, the chain expanded to the Seattle market and had increased to 14 stores with revenue of $135 million. The next year David Orkney stepped down as the chief executive officer and longtime-employee Norm Daniels assumed the role. The new Seattle store was about the same size as the Portland area stores, but re-focused on two product lines: automotive parts and sporting goods.

In 1998, the company made plans to go public by issuing an initial public offering (IPO) of stock to the general public. The plan was to use the cash from the sale of shares to fund an expansion program in order to become more of a regional chain. The company even filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in late 1998 for an IPO, but the next year the plan was withdrawn when the expected unit price of the company's shares was not as high as had been hoped for by the company.

By 2000, revenue had increased to $161 million from 17 stores, making G.I. Joe's the 12th largest sporting goods retailer in the United States, and largest in the Pacific Northwest. It was also the 142nd largest retailer overall in the United States by revenue in 2000.

History book

Growing Up With G.I. Joe's was published in November 2015 by Columbia Press. It was written by Janna Orkney, the store founder Ed Orkney's daughter, and tells the story of G.I. Joe's founding and growth.

In addition to the retail stores, G.I. Joe's operated an online subsidiary called Joe's Direct. Joe's Direct was created in late 1998 when Timberline Direct, a catalog and electronic commerce firm based in Hillsboro, Oregon, was acquired by the company for $5.4 million.

The online presence was operated by GSI Commerce, and was sold to Canada-based UFA Co-operative Limited. As of June 2010, UFA uses the domains it acquired to redirect traffic to a website for its U.S. sporting goods business, Wholesale Sports.