Shortly after 1940, he hired his first additional salesman, Leon Hearn, a 1909 graduate of VMI who had just retired from the army after 30 years of service After World War II, the business continued to grow and by 1976 annual sales had grown to $800,000. Jim decided to retire in 1976 and turned the company over t his son, Jim Reed II, who had graduated from VMI in 1960 and served eight year in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam, where he had been wounde Since 1968, the younger Reed had worked in his father's store. In 1976, Reed's occupied the first floor of a three-story building in the hea of downtown Lexington. Reed's used the second floor of the building as t store's office and as a warehouse. The third floor, with an outside entrance a elevator access, was rented to the law firm of Bundy, Hawk, and Harrington 1981, Jim decided to expand the retail floor space by refurbishing the seco floor as a retail shop and using the third floor as a warehouse and office. The floor was then also modernized and the store had a very contemporary look an $880,00 long-term mortgage debt.