How Trek established its first mission statement

By the fall of 1986, Trek was in trouble. Sales were down, morale lower. The company that had once been “the darling of the industry” was now tangled in the problems of growth. The release of the aluminum bike — the 1985 Trek 2000 — had been met with huge demand, but quality was an issue.

For a brief time, nearly half the bikes Trek shipped out were being returned. “All entrepreneurial companies hit the wall,” Dick Burke was once quoted as saying. “It’s just a question of when.” Trek had found its wall.

To make matters worse, as quality slipped, so did the trust from the retailer network that had built the company’s success. Production was slow and inefficient, promises were broken daily, and, for the second year in a row, the numbers were deep in the red.

Dick had just stepped into full control, his first time alone at the helm. Employees wondered quietly how long the company could keep going like this. But Dick didn’t wonder. He did the math and realized Trek needed a change.

But first, he left his office.

For six weeks, he walked the factory floor to understand the system, seeing the business he had founded in a new way. He asked questions. He listened to conversations. And he also, for a time, perhaps out of an obligation to the reality of the circumstance Trek was in, explored the possibility of off-loading the company.

At the same time, he began making changes. Leadership shifted. Management roles were reset. Expectations sharpened.

Then one day, he gathered everyone who remained. There were about a hundred employees left. He brought them into the factory and climbed up onto a stack of pallets so everyone could see and hear him clearly. He told the truth.

“I have three options,” he said. “I can close the company. I can sell the company. Or we can fix it.” Then he paused.