Full Transcript
Edward 1941 Houston let's go back it's not too far in back tell me about Houston when you were just a little boy Houston was considerably smaller uh where my mother was born in Houston it uh is now downtown Houston it was Suburban in 1910 uh when I was a kid we'd go to Herman park on the bus and it was an all day outing to go out there or near Rice University uh Houston was a good place to grow up particularly in the 50s uh Prosperity peace Good Times yeah yeah now you were just a baby when World War uh two started did it affect
your family at all do you know um my father sold food to the military bases around Texas and in Louisiana uh had to travel a fair bit around the United States stes buying the food to sell to them uh but otherwise we were fairly stable and because of his Association and needing to to drive to military bases he was able to get new cars periodically which most people couldn't yeah yeah yeah what what exactly was it that your dad did for a living he at that time he was in a Wholesale grocery business okay and uh they were selling to retail grocers in in South
Southeast Texas and of course during during the war they sold to them all over Texas and Louisiana yeah do you know how he got into that business or why not specifically not specifically okay grandparents you remember them at all they were all dead before I was born uh my mother's father started the Jewish Herald in Houston which is now 107 years old and continuing it's third ownership wow and her family was very well established in Houston going back back to 1907 yeah yeah and and what about on your other side what what did your grandparents do uh my father's family were generally in the Shati
business in New York and uh my father came to Texas in 1934 and I never met any of his parents were your grandparents born here or they come from the old country we are long many many generations in the US my father's family started coming in the 1840s from Germany in Eastern Europe and my mother's family started coming in the 1860s and my mother's family my grandfather was born in Mississippi or Louisiana right on the Mississippi border and uh his parents were in Mississippi in the 1860s my mother's grandmother was born in Arkansas in the 1850s did they have any stories that were passed down
about the Civil War that they witnessed no no my grandfather was was orphaned and brought up in the Jewish Home in New Orleans and he died four years before I was born so so you know I probably know more about his background than he did because of geneological research that I've done over the years where did you go to grammar school um initially in Caracus Venezuela for two years now why was that my father again was uh selling food to the oil companies and we were there for two years and then uh came back and went to Elementary School in Houston Junior High School in
Houston High School in Houston yeah yeah College in Austin yeah uh what was the high school you went to okay now your brother older or younger than you four and a half years older okay what did you guys do for fun when you were little what was like a good day for you uh times were so different in the sense that neighborhood schools were prevalent and everybody in the neighborhood went to the same school right and after school you'd go sit around under a tree and contemplate your navels or ride your bikes yeah and it was just a very different time in place as opposed
to you know 15 kids going to 17 schools and not knowing each other so now what was high school life like high school life for me was great uh belir had a fairly High population of Jewish kids by comparison to other high schools in town and active in bbo made a lot of friends some lifelong friends through that and that was very much a a central part of my high school years okay and then where where did you go to college Texas Austin okay and then when you uh uh now is that where you met your wife first week freshman year okay well tell us
about that uh one of my fraternity pledge brothers and I were walking down the drag in Austin and Barbara and a good friend of hers were coming the opposite direction and my pledge brother knew her friend and we were introduced and dated a few times went to the OU weekend uh they did a fair bit first semester didn't dat it all for the next semester or two uh our birthdays are essentially the same she's 12 hours older so dated on our birthday sophomore year and junior year decided to get married and waited a year and a half until we both got out got married so
then where did you guys settle down after you graduated Houston okay what did you get into hostal grocery okay I had worked for a company for three Summers while I was in college and um it was a foregone conclusion that I would go there when I graduated and I did okay but then eventually you changed one of the projects I got into in the hoso grocery business was supplying food uh to Oil Company commissaries US Embassy commissaries around the world and some grocery stores through through some former associations of of the companies in in Cuba and uh did a fair bit of that got real
real interested International had had an opportunity to travel to Europe a few times in my early 20s and uh was hired by proon gamble International Cincinnati and posted to Toronto okay now this was in the 60s 1968 okay how were you perceived overseas as an American it was very turbulent time in this country it was very turbulent time in this country generally particularly in in uh Europe was the only place I had travel in the 60s but lendon Johnson was President he was a Texan there was a Euphoria about Texas uh you know Johnson for better for worse did a pretty good job after after
the Kennedy assassination and he was well regarded overseas and I mean you could hand your passport to an East Garman guard in Berlin oh Texas Johnson and in spite of all the turbulence here it was very interesting over there so did you find it interesting that they would know so much about us that you know they they knew Texas they they knew who our president was uh not really I guess because the United States has been so influential yeah in so much of the world for so long especially we're talking that 15 years after the end of the war yeah yeah now your work with
Proctor and Gamble it's taken you many places where are some of the places you guys lived and settled down uh was was hired by Proctor in cinnati in uh April or May of 68 and they asked me to move to Toronto so we moved from Houston to Toronto in June of 68 and did Basic Marketing training through the PNG system and part of that training is every marketing person at Proctor goes out for his period of sales training and I was sent out to Lethbridge Alberta which is about 130 mies southeast of Calgary and 200 miles Northwest of Great Falls Montana in the middle of
nowhere and worked a Sal section from the Saskatchewan border to the interior of British Columbia wow and from the US border to Lake Louise Alberta what did Barbara think of uh Canada we both love it we have very very good friends there uh after sales training we went back to Toronto for another year and then uh uh in January 69 the US Supreme Court ordered proor gamble to devest himself of the Clorox company and within six months or so I had an invitation to join Clorox and going to San Francisco area would be an interesting experience so we took the opportunity and move to San
Francisco now where were your kids born uh my older son was born in Houston he made the full trip my younger son was born in wellnut Creek California which is outside San Francisco wow wow and uh then uh after I had been in Clorox for about a year less than a year I guess the uh CEO called me in and says you're the the kid with Canadian Proctor experience and we're doing a lot of things in Canada and we need your help in doing it so I was asked to start a Canadian company for Clorox but we were then transferred to Boston to do that
because they had a fledgling subsidiary in Boston and the CEO had a home on net and it allowed him the opportunity to be in Boston on Mondays or Fridays for meetings so we were in Boston for almost two years my job was in in Boston my I'm sorry my office was in Boston my job was in Toronto and Vancouver and my boss was in San Francisco so I was gone from home a lot yeah yeah now why was it the Supreme Court made Proctor and gambo leave Clorox the U uh attitude they were sued by the PX Corporation and the feeling was that with png's
marketing clout and distribution clout that the combination would render PX unable to compete so the final decision was that that was probably true the devest sure happened and within 10 years PX was out of business they had spent all their money on lawyers and not on marketing and that's wow very interesting yeah yeah what brought you back to uh Texas uh we had been in uh back to Toronto where I was running the Clarks company of Canada and uh in 1975 uh Clorox had bought a company in western Canada and they decided they wanted to move the corporate offices to Vancouver and they wanted me
to go for 6 months and train a replacement and I said Gee I'll be glad to move back to the Bay Area and commute for 6 months but we're not moving twice again in the next 6 months we've moved too much and uh came to a party and I had we had made up our minds that we wanted to come back to Texas and through a contact of mine in the San Francisco area was introduced to the senior BP of Mark marting at Fredo and came back to Texas in June April of of 60 of 75 with Fredo L running their potato chip and pretzel
marketing nationally right next to my office at Fredo L was Herman L's office and and Herman lay was the founder of lay potato chip company and out of Nashville which merged with the uh the Fredo company and the early 60s I guess and uh Herman probably never knew who I was but I certainly knew who he was and you'd see each other in the elevator you'd see each other in the hall you'd say hello you'd nod but never a relationship as such yeah now where was uh the offices exchange park okay Mocking Bird and Harry hunt how long did you stay there about a year
and a half and then I had an opportunity to start my own Consulting business with a six-month contract for half my time so uh in July 1st 1976 I started company called the Dallas Marketing Group which is still operating uh I had it for 30 years and sold it to an associate of mine 9 years ago and retired two years ago and he's still doing very well with it happiest time in your life many many hard to isolate one yeah uh been very fortunate that we've had uh strong relationships with our kids I had the opportunity to travel all different corners of the world multiple
times and I just had some some good friends and good times what um what do you feel was your best accomplishment in the business world uh starting and creating a successful business and in a Consulting business generally small firms are just closed and I was able to sell it and continue it yeah now you know it's interesting because when it's successful you go wow that's really neat but what was it like the day you were going to leave a good company I'm sure with good benefits a good salary and start your own what was that like what was some of the fears I guess the
biggest fear is always fear failure right and that's an inevitability right uh as I had said I had been fortunate because uh while I was at fre La I had a call from a recruiter with whom I was not listed that the Jimmy Dean meet company needed marketing help so I'd go talk to them I'm not too proud and I went over to talk to them and the salary that they were talking about with about half of what I was talking about so it's not even a negotiable item at that point right right and uh so went back to my office at Fredo and called
the recruiter and said you know I can do Consulting for what they want to pay for half of my time I have the nucleus for Consulting business they'll get more than half of my time than and 100% of the time the person they're looking for and if I'm successful in helping them build a marketing department you'll get more placements yeah yeah everybody bought into it I left Fredo L and and started my business and had half my time sold for 6 months yeah which gave me a a cushion in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions uh the Vietnam War era President Kennedy
assassination something good the moon landing for the first time in 69 uh tragedy of 9911 was there something on the national scene that just stood out you know exactly where you were when it happened and really had an effect on you it's interesting you should ask because I have a note on my computer there are about five different things that I want to write up and leave for my granddaughter my own personal Recollections of things that will be significant in history and obviously that is uh November 22nd 1963 is just permanently etched that whole weekend uh the explosion of the Challenger the explosion of the
Colombia uh 9911 the 2000 election are all things that are on that list to write up were significant to me you and Barbara have the two sons and one grandchild what advice would you want to leave to the Next Generation our kids are old enough that we quit trying to give them advice a long time ago uh but uh I guess that the the strongest thing many years ago I guess when when my older son was getting ready to go to college Barbara embroided a little thing which she get gave to him and sub was going to her younger son that said this the two
best things you can give to your children are roots and wings yeah yeah unfortunately both of ours live far away yeah yeah but they have wings do you and Barbara have any involvement with the Jewish Community strongly okay tell us about it um Barbara has been involved in well we were married to Temple Emanuel and when we came back to Texas Barbara got involved in the The Sisterhood and was subsequently involved in several other things and on the board in the mid 99s and because of my travel schedule I couldn't be but when I knew I was going to be retiring I did get heavily
involved in Temple and I just rolled off of six years on the execu committee I'm in my eth year on the board uh been very involved in the temple for a long time now and been very rewarding yeah well thanks for doing this today so my pleasure you did a great job so
