I really didn’t want to start all the way back but, it’s important to give you some background to eliminate any excuses one may have for either not moving forward or not achieving. I was an only child living with a possessive single mother (a great lady by the way). I was her life and no one was good enough for her son, so needless to say I did not have many friends other than some cousins. I spent eight years in a parochial school and learned to both respect and understand the philosophy of the nuns as well as developed a strong desire to become a Priest. That desire diminished as time went on and I had several meetings with some New York Bishops and found that I had some different opinions than the Church and at that time, and during the 40’s & 50’s there was no differing with the opinions of the Church. Still to make my entire family happy in September of 1954 I enrolled at Power Memorial Academy high school in Manhattan and my world began to form. One bus and two subways every day, the walk from the subway everyday (looking over my back at Central Park) became an everlasting memory. I only made that trip till June of 1955, I will tell you, and my short time a Power was an experience (great) that will live with me forever.
You have to understand that the 50’s were a different time; we did not have the communications of today, which enabled me not to tell my mother I was not going back to school until the spring of next year. I will say that I did have the knowledge to understand that I did need an education and I was going to have to find it somewhere. Until this time I always had the drive to go out and do something to earn money, it made no difference to me if I shined shoes, picked flowers from the bushes hanging in my yard from the neighbor’s tree and selling them on the street corner or reading poetry or doing sketches in Washington Square in New York for tips. I always wanted to make it happen. One of my teachers in Power really had a major impact on my life when he had me read “A Message to Garcia” an inspirational essay written by Elbert Hubbard, and which I keep a copy even today. This essay laid out what I felt was important to set as a standard for what I was looking to achieve in life. At this stage of my life I had been dealt almost every negative card that someone looking for excuses could ask for, however I was not looking for excuses, I was looking for answers and a direction. I wanted to be like Rowan (the main person in the Message).
My career began with me walking in to a hobby shop on Jamaica Ave. in Queens Village, NY, fifteen years old and searching for information. Conversation started, curiosity developed and I started hanging around the store with the owner and it wasn’t long before he offered me a job. I could not have planned a learning experience better than this. What happened was I was meeting with hobbyist, individuals from all walks of life that loved to share the knowledge and the experience they received by participating in their passion whether it be model airplanes, model trains, painting, ceramics even kites. Working in a hobby shop was like being a bartender; individuals would come in for hours at a time and talk and talk.
I worked long hours, never knowing how much money Mort (the owner) was going to give me, it really made no difference, because I was learning and I was receiving some money from the shoe shine routes I set up. I was reading everything I could find and asking every question I could, before long everyone was coming to me for answers and the owner Mort was getting married and asked me to watch the store while he went on his honeymoon, I jumped at the opportunity, again no idea if I would even get paid, like Rowan, I did not ask, I just grabbed the opportunity. When he returned, the store was rearrange and our sales were up, I was proud and he was pleased and I did get paid although not much I was rewarded and I did learn more. As time moved on my knowledge of the hobby business grew, I started to meet salespeople from wholesalers in the industry and they started talking about my accomplishments in the industry as word traveled I stared to receive phone calls from other stores and here is where I started to realize that one of my main weaknesses is, I lack the amount of self-confidence that I should have, even today.
In June of 1956 I was asked to meet with the owner of a Hobby shop in East Meadow, NY, I heard of this store and had no idea as to why he would want to meet with this sixteen year old high school dropout. Well it seemed my reputation in the business and the marketing knowledge and technical knowledge that I was taking for granted, others weren’t, and I was offered a real job at $50.00 a week. Of course I was told I would probably be working seven days a week since the front half of this hobby shop was an ice cream parlor to be able to open on Sundays, made no difference to me I was being presented with another opportunity and another learning experience, I accepted.
The time period was really the beginning of the discount store era, Korvette’s and Modell’s was hurting all the small merchants and we were located across the street from a Modell’s, tough sledding could be ahead if we accepted what was happening and did not react. I did not want to accept what was happening and I proposed to my boss the wildest alternative I could have thrown out and not to my surprise he said I was a crazy teenager with no real knowledge of the retail industry that’s why I worked for him! However, two days later he came in and call me in his office and said “Maybe you do have an idea!”, my idea sell everything at full list, no discounts other than special sales, increase inventory and offer more service. It was my young opinion that hobbyist wanted the items they wanted when they wanted them, not tomorrow and by increasing inventory and by developing a reorder system and by staying on top of everything we could develop a reputation of “The place to go” and by guaranteeing everything sold by us we could separate ourselves from others. We actually would give a discount if we did not have the item and had to order it, we believed we should have everything related to our customer’s needs. Well, it worked at the end of the first full year our sales increased by over 30% and our profits were through the roof. I was rewarded and my pay went to $76.00 per week, more important I was learning more and more.
In 1958, I finally convinced my boss to eliminate the soda fountain, the ice cream and the newspapers, of course he said now what do we do with the space. Our hobby section occupied two floors; first floor, model airplanes, R/C and U-Control as well as crafts and the lower level was all model trains. We had space left on the first floor. I said how about records, he said you’re crazy but, in 1959 we gave it a shot. In the fifties it was 45RPM and LP’s, rock and roll was in the early stages but there was enough “old” rock and roll to market, we went on the radio with oldies, again it worked. To make it easier for newsletters and record list we purchased a printing press (an Addressograph 1250) and here I go again I learn yet another couple of trades, records and printing all in one motion.
Little did I know this part of the venture would really change my life forever
I worked long hours, never knowing how much money Mort (the owner) was going to give me, it really made no difference, because I was learning and I was receiving some money from the shoe shine routes I set up. I was reading everything I could find and asking every question I could, before long everyone was coming to me for answers and the owner Mort was getting married and asked me to watch the store while he went on his honeymoon, I jumped at the opportunity, again no idea if I would even get paid, like Rowan, I did not ask, I just grabbed the opportunity. When he returned, the store was rearrange and our sales were up, I was proud and he was pleased and I did get paid although not much I was rewarded and I did learn more. As time moved on my knowledge of the hobby business grew, I started to meet salespeople from wholesalers in the industry and they started talking about my accomplishments in the industry as word traveled I stared to receive phone calls from other stores and here is where I started to realize that one of my main weaknesses is, I lack the amount of self-confidence that I should have, even today.
In June of 1956 I was asked to meet with the owner of a Hobby shop in East Meadow, NY, I heard of this store and had no idea as to why he would want to meet with this sixteen year old high school dropout. Well it seemed my reputation in the business and the marketing knowledge and technical knowledge that I was taking for granted, others weren’t, and I was offered a real job at $50.00 a week. Of course I was told I would probably be working seven days a week since the front half of this hobby shop was an ice cream parlor to be able to open on Sundays, made no difference to me I was being presented with another opportunity and another learning experience, I accepted.
The time period was really the beginning of the discount store era, Korvette’s and Modell’s was hurting all the small merchants and we were located across the street from a Modell’s, tough sledding could be ahead if we accepted what was happening and did not react. I did not want to accept what was happening and I proposed to my boss the wildest alternative I could have thrown out and not to my surprise he said I was a crazy teenager with no real knowledge of the retail industry that’s why I worked for him! However, two days later he came in and call me in his office and said “Maybe you do have an idea!”, my idea sell everything at full list, no discounts other than special sales, increase inventory and offer more service. It was my young opinion that hobbyist wanted the items they wanted when they wanted them, not tomorrow and by increasing inventory and by developing a reorder system and by staying on top of everything we could develop a reputation of “The place to go” and by guaranteeing everything sold by us we could separate ourselves from others. We actually would give a discount if we did not have the item and had to order it, we believed we should have everything related to our customer’s needs. Well, it worked at the end of the first full year our sales increased by over 30% and our profits were through the roof. I was rewarded and my pay went to $76.00 per week, more important I was learning more and more.
In 1958, I finally convinced my boss to eliminate the soda fountain, the ice cream and the newspapers, of course he said now what do we do with the space. Our hobby section occupied two floors; first floor, model airplanes, R/C and U-Control as well as crafts and the lower level was all model trains. We had space left on the first floor. I said how about records, he said you’re crazy but, in 1959 we gave it a shot. In the fifties it was 45RPM and LP’s, rock and roll was in the early stages but there was enough “old” rock and roll to market, we went on the radio with oldies, again it worked. To make it easier for newsletters and record list we purchased a printing press (an Addressograph 1250) and here I go again I learn yet another couple of trades, records and printing all in one motion.
Little did I know this part of the venture would really change my life forever
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