The quote by Edison shown below is something that has driven me for my entire life. In addition, my Dad always drove me to new limits with school work, doing work around the house and more. I still hear him tell me: "There are numerous people more talented than you, but, nobody should ever be able to out work you." I have been reflecting on my early career this week as it is an anniversary of my real exposure to the business world. Life is full of lessons and these are every bit as valuable as they were back then. I hope that you enjoy my story.
Forty years ago this week I began a journey that would impact the rest of my life. I was promoted to manage an office in Greensburg for ITT Financial Services. I hated the drive from Mckees Rocks but looked forward to moving ahead in my career.
Coming out of high school I had been confused about what I wanted to do for a career. Throughout high school I had believed that I wanted to major in PreMed and then move on to Medical School. I decided upon graduation that I could not attend school for that period of time as I really disliked school. My Dad gave me 2 choices, go to college or work at General Motors with him. I picked college as I also didn't see myself in a factory for the rest of my life. College was a waste as Community College of Allegheny County classes offered nothing that I hadn't already learned in high school with many of my high school classes being more advanced. While in college I worked as a manager for Cinemette, managing various theaters in the Pittsburgh area. I really enjoyed the work and had a strong reputation within the company as I began working there as an usher at age 16. The only problem was that the pay was low and the hours long. There were no benefits and wages were too low to live on as an adult on my own.
After 2 years of college, I began in Consumer Finance in 1978 as a "Manager Trainee" for Domestic Finance. That was a glorified title for a bill collector. With record unemployment sweeping Pittsburgh and beginning to show in the rest of the country I was happy to have a job with benefits. I did well in my position and was motivated as other employment options at the time were limited. ITT began to expand in Pittsburgh and nationally so I made the transition there in early 1980 and it proved to be a good move. Not long after being promoted to manager in Greensburg, the office in Forest Hills was struggling. Our Regional Manager, Rich Lutsch (who went on to become a long time mentor for me) was left without many options for that branch as the problems were overwhelming. The office was the worst performing of about 700 offices nationally. I lobbied for the job but Rich was reluctant to throw a rookie into the fire. I don't know if I was persuasive or if there were no other options but Rich transferred me with the stern warning, "If you can't turn this around we will have to close it and there may not be another manager's spot." I was never concerned as I knew that hard work would overcome my lack of experience. Three years later, after returning the office to acceptable levels of performance, I was offered a promotion to regional manager reporting to someone that I didn't care for. Rich had been transferred and it was time for me to do something different with a different group of people.
I requested a transfer to San Antonio to manage a large office there that was not performing. I was able to rapidly turn that office into a profit maker solving many of the problems and awarded a trip to London for my performance there. It was also while in San Antonio that I met and married my first wife. After nearly a year in San Antonio I was asked to go to Corpus Christi to turn around an even larger office. Again, the improvement was rapid and earned me a shot at becoming a regional manager once again, this time in Orange County California, reuniting me to work with my mentor Rich. My efforts in Orange County resulted in recognition for performance in the Top 1% of the company and trips to Germany, Austrailia and Hawaii. In late 1987 I was assigned a new region, South Central Los Angeles. The region was a wreck with 7 offices, no direction, and increasing losses. I quickly decided to close 2 of the worst performing branches,, and relocated 3 of the remaining branches to areas that were safer. After 6 months I was exhausted and not sure how my performance would be evaluated. I was working 60+ hours weekly and the performance didn't match my efforts or my expectations but, I suppose I was too critical of my performance. In April of 1988 I received a promotion to be a Vice President with oversight of 30 branches and nearly 300 people. It was a reward beyond my wildest dreams, as was my entire career at ITT. The experiences there prepared me to be successful for the rest of my life. I learned how to interact with people in order to motivate them to achieve common goals, to plan, organize and anticipate. The experience also gave me the confidence to know that I could out work any problem.
If you are still with me you may be asking, why are you writing this? Well, as I noted above it has been 40 years since this story began but it is not over. The lessons are timeless. If I could do it all over again, I would have gotten my college education first, but other than that, I would not change a thing. The lessons of hard work, sacrifice, perseverance and the character built by overcoming extreme challenges are as applicable today as they were 40 years ago.
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