New CEO plans expansion for Relax the Back chain.

Dairl Johnson can thank his aching back for helping him to land the top spot at one of the country's fastest-growing franchisers.

Johnson injured his back in the 1960s while serving as an F-4 Phantom pilot in the Navy. During a training exercise simulating an aircraft carrier landing gone awry. Johnson wrenched his neck and back, herniating two disks. Two decades later, he was still suffering pain from the injury, leading him in 1991 to the door of a Relax the Back outlet in Texas.

Johnson spent about $5,000 at the back-supply store on a recliner chair, portable lumbar supports and other devices to ease his discomfort, and within several months was living without pain for the first time since the accident, he said.

What Johnson subsequently learned, he said, was that his pain had less to do with his Navy injury than with his bad posture, poorly designed furniture he used and other fixable factors.

"There definitely is something evangelical about this," Johnson said. When you know what it's like to live with pain, encouraging others to not only buy equipment but to open franchises comes naturally, he said.

Johnson, who was a senior manager at International Business Machines Corp. at the time of his first visit to a back-supply store in 1991, went on to buy his own Relax the Back franchise, opening a store in Santa Monica in 1993, and three more in Torrance, Pasadena and Beverly Hills in subsequent years.

His four outlets eventually outsold all others in the chain, averaging about $1 million in annual sales apiece, compared to the chain average of about $500,000.

Last fall, the owner of parent company Relax the Back Corp. sought Johnson out when she decided to sell the business.

Johnson raised the $6 million asking price from two Northern California investment firms, and since assuming the title of president and CEO in September, has moved the corporate headquarters from Austin, Tex. to El Segundo.

With Johnson's four stores in Southern California, plus the chain's main distribution center located in Carson, "it made sense for us to come here," Johnson said.

Since taking the helm, Johnson has outlined an ambitious expansion plan for the chain. It calls for a new store every week between now and the end of the century, That translates to nearly 200 additional stores.

The company also expects to have an initial public stock offering in 1999.

Such ambition is not without dangers. according to Edward Kushell, president of the Franchise Consulting Group in Century City. Kushell said it's uncommon for a franchisee to buy the parent company. Traditionally, franchisees - who pay royalties and fees to use a franchiser's business format - expand by opening new stores.

"Franchisees have tried to buy companies before, and the score card is very much against it being successful," Kushell said.

The skills needed to run a handful of retail outlets are completely different than those required to operate a parent company, he said. "I'm not saying he can't do it; it's not brain surgery. But he's got to show great respect for what he doesn't know," Kushell said.

Johnson is undaunted. "At IBM I had operations worldwide, so in fact, as this company gets larger and more diverse, that gets more into where my skill sets lie," he said.

Relax the Back, which currently employs 30 people at its headquarters, is poised to take advantage of the aging baby boom generation, he said, offering $1,000-plus recliner chairs, electric massagers, pillows, footrests, luggage, braces and brooms. Revenue figures already bear that out, Johnson said, with per-store sales growing about 30 percent a year and companywide sales doubling each year since 1994, due to the company's steadily increasing number of stores.

The company had revenues of $30 million in 1996.

"Frequently, people come in for an ergonomic pillow and leave with a new bed and office furniture," Johnson said. "There's plenty of room here for us to grow."