Fastenal Founder Bob Kierlin Dies at 85

Bob Kierlin, the founder and former longtime CEO of Fastenal, passed away last week at age 85, according to reports.

Kierlin, who started the fastener supplier with four co-founders in his father’s former hardware store in Winona, Minnesota, served as its chairman, president and CEO for decades following its incorporation in 1968. He relinquished his role as president in 2001 and CEO in 2002 — by which point he had been elected to the Minnesota state Senate — but stayed on as a board member until 2014.

An obituary said that Kierlin died after “a brief illness but a full life,” while a report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune highlighted his reputation for philanthropy and frugality; he reportedly had a salary of just $120,000 in the 1990s as the company he started ballooned into what would become a global distribution giant.

“The company was started with his initiative, vision and analysis of a business opportunity largely unmet in the fastener supply and distribution markets, and he identified the store locations the company initially pursued,” Kierlin’s company biography reads. “His entrepreneurialism, market analysis, determination, operating skill and prudence, strategic insights, integrity, and furtherance of a unique corporate culture based upon finding, directing, retaining and motivating employees with opportunities and compensation incentives have been, and continue to be, significant contributing factors to the company's success.”