A 17-year-old swept floors and stocked shelves at a 200-store auto parts chain in Wagoner, Oklahoma. Twenty-eight years later he became its CEO.
Brad started at O'Reilly in July 1996. He worked every job in that one store before he turned 20: counterperson, night manager, assistant store manager. The front counter still had 16 feet of paper catalog racks on it.
Then the part that actually shaped him. At 23, running a store, he got passed over for district manager. His own read on it years later: he'd spent two years worried about his own promotion instead of getting his people promoted. He says that miss taught him more than any win did.
So he kept climbing. District manager. Region manager. Divisional VP. Up through store operations to COO, then co-president, then the fourth CEO in the company's 67-year history in 2024.
Here is the math on what he walked into versus what he runs now. In 1996 the chain had under 200 stores. Today: 6,300+ locations, 93,000 employees, 31 distribution centers. The stock has returned more than 4,000% in the past 20 years alone.
Now the line most people scroll past. O'Reilly built him on purpose. All 650 of its district managers came up from running a store. All 75 region managers too. Both prior CEOs were promoted from inside. The whole company runs on a system that takes teenagers stocking shelves and turns the best of them into operators who never had to learn the business from a slide deck.
The 17-year-old at that counter already knew where every part was. Three decades later, that's still the only qualification O'Reilly really trusts.
Fiscal.ai (@fiscal_ai)
This is the CEO of O'Reilly Automotive.
17-years old: Parts Specialist
45-years old: CEO
What a career.
$ORLY
— https://nitter.net/fiscal_ai/status/2070930184661062084#m