I am glad to find and share the rare stories of people that were lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right resources, and the good idea on how to make it all become a money maker... like Kern Schumacher in 1956, Oakland, Ca

Kern Schumacher was a young nineteen-year-old man who happened upon a great business opportunity in Oakland, California, in 1956. 

The lower deck of the Oakland Bay Bridge was to be torn apart, and thousands of railroad ties were left with nowhere to go. 

Kern being the young entrepreneur he was, sought out Bay-area salvage expert Alfred Boyd, and the two jumped at the opportunity and bought every last railroad tie. Kern didn’t know it then, but he had just become co-owner of the country's largest supplier of used railroad ties.

What started as the A&K Tie Company was buying used railroad ties and selling them mainly for landscaping purposes. 

The headquarters of A&K then moved to Utah in 1963, containing less than ten employees. The headquarters of A&K at the time was an old railroad roundhouse for the naval base. There were tracks on both sides of the building with only two offices and one reception area. 

Quickly A&Ks sales began to double every year, and the building was getting crowded with new employees to help supplement the growth. A&K started growing across the nation with a new centrally located yard in Kansas City, Kansas, and an Eastern regional office in Pittsburg, PA. An international office was opened in Houston, TX, and a Southern regional office was created in New Orleans, LA.

 Sales between 1970 & 1980 grew to over 30 million 

https://akrailroad.com/history/