SAN FRANCISCO (BRAIN) — John Porter, the former owner and president of The Merry Sales Co. died Friday at 94.
John Porter was born in San Francisco in 1927, the only child born to Paul and Rubie Porter. John was seven years old when his father Paul purchased Merry Sales after its owner Edwin Merry was killed in an automobile accident.
During World War II, John worked at Merry Sales after school and on weekends. Later, he often talked about this as a time of great product shortage. However, Merry Sales was fortunate to be a Columbia Bicycle distributor as the Columbia factory was allowed to continue to build a few bicycles during the war while other bicycle factories were forced to convert to manufacturing war materials.
John shared that shipments would arrive by rail car. He would help unload them at a railroad siding and would immediately put the shipping labels on the bikes and load them on trucks to be sent to the dealers. The bikes were never warehoused. In the latter part of the war, John, like his father, joined the Navy.
In 1959 John, after returning from the Navy, graduating from U.C. Berkeley, and spending a few years in an accounting firm as a CPA, reentered his father’s business and eventually became president of the company. John experienced the bike boom of the 1970s and the company flourished.
Among his many duties, John was also a sales rep for the company, his service area being Marin County, California. He became well known in the Marin County bike shop scene where occasionally he would literally “pedal” the company’s products on his bicycle.
This area was an important market for Merry Sales and John was careful to call on these shops personally. He came in contact with industry pioneers Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, Eric, Don and Dave Koski and Tony Tom, just to name a few. As the mountain bike scene grew, Merry Sales played a part in bringing the “Breezer” name back to the cycling industry in 1991.
John eventually retired and his son Jim Porter assumed his role as president in 1994. Jim and his sister Mary are the third generation of Porters to run The Merry Sales Co. John is survived by his wife of 70 years, 5 children, 13 grandchildren and currently 10 great-grandchildren.
