Richard H. Vance started Vance's in 1938 as a general store. He passed his love of hunting and shooting on to his son Richard M. Vance. Together they changed their grocery store that was selling firearms, archery, and police equipment as a sideline business to a full-time Sporting Goods store in January of 1978.

Rich's wife Lana and sons Todd and Doug have worked in the family business for many years and have played a major role in the steady growth. Todd runs our retail operations and Doug spearheads our Law Enforcement Division. In 2002 Vance's merged their business with Buckeye Outdoors, located just minutes away from Buckeye Lake.

In fall of 2014, Vance's decided to expand the Vance Outdoors name, and open a 3rd retail location in Obetz, Ohio. The brand new Obetz store is 56,000 Sq. Ft., and is equipped with a State-of-the-Art 24 Lane Shooting Range & Training Center.

We are proud that we have evolved into six large and very successful operations: Vance Outdoors Columbus, Vance's Law Enforcement, Vance Outdoors Hebron, Vance Outdoors Obetz, Vance Outdoors Lebanon and Vance Outdoors Marine. Our six DBA divisions are part of Vance Outdoors Inc., our new Ohio incorporated company name.

Richard H. Vance loved his customers and loved to converse with them. He taught his family that our customers were our real Bosses. We were schooled in the many ways to make and keep our customers happy. Our mission has always been and will always be to make sure that our customers have a great shopping experience at Vance's.

We are fortunate to have a wonderful group of longtime employees. Some of them have been with Vance's for more than 30 years. Our entire staff would like to thank all of our many customers in Columbus and around Ohio for shopping at Vance's and making this our 83rd year at the same location.