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Hobby Lobby President Steve Green, center, speaks with attendees at a private event in Fresno Monday night ahead of his keynote address at the Fresno-Clovis Prayer Breakfast Tuesday morning. Photo by Gabriel Dillard<\/p>\n
When Hobby Lobby decided to open its first store in California, the Green family didn\u2019t head for Los Angeles or San Francisco. They chose Visalia.<\/p>\n
For a family-owned company deeply rooted in Oklahoma City\u2019s conservative business culture, California had a reputation for being among the most challenging states for business, with a cultural and political landscape different from the company\u2019s heartland roots. Hobby Lobby President Steve Green\u2019s attorney wasn\u2019t enthusiastic about the idea. Neither was his mother, Barbara Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia was off limits,\u201d Green joked to an audience in Fresno Monday night. \u201cWe weren\u2019t ready to go into a foreign country.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they finally made the leap in January 2011, the Visalia store made an impression, setting a company record for first-store sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia has been exceptional to us,\u201d Green said. \u201cThe Valley is a good territory for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three more California locations followed that same fall. Today, Hobby Lobby operates 69 stores in California, the most recent opening just last Friday in Montebello, east of Los Angeles, in a former Big Lots location.<\/p>\n
Green was speaking at a private event in Fresno Monday night ahead of his keynote address at the annual Fresno-Clovis Prayer Breakfast Tuesday morning, where he expanded on themes of faith, family and the unlikely journey of a business that started with a $600 loan in a garage making miniature picture frames.<\/p>\n
Green was candid about moments that tested the company\u2019s survival \u2014 economic downturns, COVID-19 and a landmark Supreme Court battle.<\/p>\n
The legal fight centered on the company\u2019s religious objections to a federal requirement that employers provide health insurance coverage for morning-after pills and IUDs \u2014 products the Green family considers a form of abortion. The battle ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 for Hobby Lobby\u2019s in 2014. It was, Green acknowledged, a fight the family never wanted. Facing $1.5 million in daily fines for noncompliance, the legal battle, he said, \u201cled us to sue the government that we love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through it all, Green said the company\u2019s guiding principle \u2014 set by his father, Hobby Lobby founder David Green \u2014 has remained constant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are only stewards of what God has entrusted to us,\u201d he said. \u201cLive with an open hand with your business.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 2,650 people gathered at Tuesday\u2019s prayer breakfast at the Fresno Convention Center, beginning at 7 a.m.<\/p>\n
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