John and Susan met at Whittier College in 1969, and were married by the end of their sophomore year. Two years later, with a child on the way, they decided to move to Arizona, with no particular goals in mind. Their friends had become very involved in the tropical fish hobby. “They gave us a 15 gallon aquarium for our little house we rented, and we would visit the local tropical fish stores every week to check out the new fish arrivals.”
“One day several friends were sitting around discussing this hobby we had gotten into and someone mentioned they had just read an article in Time magazine which reported that the tropical fish hobby was the newest billion dollar industry in the country (Per Time magazine, 1972).” “My former roommate and I are from Hawaii, so we thought “We should open a pet store back home”. Several weeks later, John and Susan’s son was born.
The following month John’s parents came to the area for his fathers’ business, and to see their new grandson. Several days later John’s father had a massive stroke. Once John’s parents arrived home they asked John and Susan to move to Hawaii to help John’s father with his business. “He was in the heavy equipment and industrial supplies business, which I had never paid any attention to and had little interest in, but I couldn’t say no.”
“They had recently purchased a home, so we moved in with them until we could find something of our own.” A month later John’s father announced that he was retiring, had sold his business, and suddenly John was out of a job. “What now?” John brought up the idea that his old roommate had about opening a pet store. His father thought that he was crazy.
John and Susan discovered that the home that his parents lived in had a small pond at one time, but it had been filled in with dirt and landscaped over. “My father asked us to dig it out and clean it up to become operable as a pond again, which we thought would be a fun project”.“When the pond was ready to have fish added, we loaded my father into the car and drove to Hawaii’s oldest tropical fish and pet store.” On their drive home, John’s father couldn’t stop talking about how the stores cash register never stopped ringing, and suddenly John and Susan’s pet shop idea had some merit. “Over the next few months we signed a lease for 720 square feet in the Maui Mall. We opened our store in November 1973, with our now one year old son in a backpack.”
Over the course of the next year, with the economy on the ropes their business wasn’t doing very well. Half of their store was devoted to tropical fish, as that’s what they enjoyed and knew most about. “We were being told by our banker that we may have to consider closing our store.” “I could hardly believe my ears—was he nuts?” John’s visit with the banker made him realize that they should take a look at their department totals. That was when their business began to turn around. The customers were buying more dog products than fish products.
After that eye-opening experience, they began focusing on more dog related products, and watched their business grow! John and Susan learned the importance of evolving from a hobbyist to a serious business owner, and to look at their business through the eyes of their customers, and what they needed to do in order to grow.
Thirty six years later the store location has never moved, but their business has grown through multiple expansion projects to 5,300 square feet. The Pet Shop is located on the island of Maui, in the main town of Kahului. When the Pet Shop first opened it was just John and Susan, and Susan’s sister would occasionally help out on weekends or when needed. The Guard’s have 13 employees. Their general manager has been with them for over thirty years, after starting as their first part-time employee. Their department managers have all been with them for over ten years. “We have a great staff, which really knows their stuff. We are very fortunate.”
The Pet Shop originally offered puppies and kittens. Today the store is a full line pet supply store, also offering tropical fish, birds, and small animals. “We consider our store to be a “Supermarket for Maui’s pets”. We focus on product selection and customer service.” John and Susan began researching the various nylon collars and leads over 20 years ago, and decided that they liked the superior construction of Coastal items. They then added the grooming tools and the toy lines. “Today we’re excited that Coastal introduced a very competitive “fur elimination tool”, Shed Magic, blowing the price off of the original brand.”
As John and Susan look back, the question is not what they did prior to working in the pet industry, but what would they be doing today if John’s father had not been in the situation that he was in. John and Susan went from receiving a 15 gallon aquarium from their friends, to owning the “Supermarket for Maui’s Pets. “Susan and I still threaten to get back to school one day, as we now realize we don’t really know everything just yet.”