Autobiography - Rust-Oleum the Early Years

I met my boss Bill Mintz at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in Hackensack New Jersey.  He was a good boss. A few years later Priscilla and I saw Tiny Tim perform at that very same HoJo.  We went up to Tony’s room after the show to meet him.  He was heavily medicated.

Bill Mintz was in charge of the Rust-Oleum retail business sold through distributors to hardware stores, paint stores and lumber yards.  My job was to ride with the distributor sales people to help them sell Rust-Oleum to their clients.  These sales people were just like the sales people that worked for Mobil Oil.  They hated ride along factory reps because they had to line up real sales calls.  Most of my ride alongs were cancelled.  I had one customer in Brooklyn that wanted to work with me.  Steve Lusthaus from Eastern Paint Industries on Flatbush Ave.  We called on every type of customer in NYC and Brooklyn.  We sold to meat packing plants, high rise buildings and the Hostess bread factory.  We also targeted sanitariums.  If we saw a smoke stack we stopped and made a sales call. Steve was smart.  I was a free salesman that helped grow his paint business.  My other job was to take inventory at the distributor warehouses and write orders.  It was very satisfying to get truck load orders.  

I had a second boss, Tom Delany.  Tom was the manager in charge of the Rust-Oleum industrial business.  We sold heavy duty coatings through industrial distributors.  The products were sold for maintenance.  My job was to ride along with the sales people and help them sell Rust-Oleum.  You know how that goes.  In addition Tom, had the idea to get our products written into engineering specifications for new construction projects.  We targeted water and waste water facilities and water storage tanks.  That was the fun part of the business to see a new water storage tank painted with Rust-Oleum.  Tom had written a pamphlet on time management.  He gave me a copy.  Two weeks later he asked me if I had read his pamphlet.  I told him I didn’t have time.  Tom was an avid snow skier so all winter we would plan work dates to end early so we could be on the ski slopes by 3 pm.  Work, work, work.  

Priscilla and I wanted to buy a house.  We moved out of our condo and into her great aunt Gerry’s house in Ramsey, New Jersey.  Gerry’s sister Buddy had just passed away.  We saw this as an opportunity to save money for a down payment on a house.  It was not a good fit.  Gerry charged us 2/3 of the expenses because we we were two people living in her house.  She kept the temperature at 80°f all winter.  We were motivated to move out.  We found a three bedroom ranch house we could afford at 990 Crystal Lake Terrace, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.  The house was being sold in divorce settlement.  Our offer of $44,000 was accepted.  On our house inspection prior to the closing we saw that the basement leaked and ruined the floor tiles.  It was the result of the rain gutters draining straight down against the foundation.  We negotiated a $4,000 reduction.  We paid $39,000 for our first house.  We spent $20 on gutter pipes to draw the water away from the foundation. Two years later we sold that house for $79,000.   

During my co-op with Rust-Oleum I was fortunate to meet another RO salesman in Massachusetts Kyle Ahrberg.  Priscilla and I became close friends with Kyle and his wife Judy.  They invited us to stay overnight at their condo in Acton. Kyle’s father Ray Ahrberg was the executive Vice President of Rust-Oleum.  We were having breakfast in Kyle’s kitchen on Saturday morning.  I remember Kyle was cooking fried eggs.  If he broke the yoke he threw it away and started over.  That might have been part of his Scientology training.  While we were eating perfect fried eggs at breakfast there was a news flash on TV.  A fire had broken out at a major paint factory in Chicago.  We watched and saw the smoke pouring out from behind the Rust-Oleum paint factory in Evanston, Illinois.  What!  There goes my future career.  Kyle called his father.  Ray told him the fire was in the salvage yard and the factory was fine.  It is nice to be connected.

Rust-Oleum was owned by the Fergusson family.  Sea captain Fergusson started the company in 1921 in New Orleans.  The Captain was a night watchman on a fleet of mothballed ships from WWI.   He had remembered that when he was a working on fishing boats the metal tables and knives that were used to process the fish did not rust.  Every other part of the ship rusted.  He deduced that somehow fish oil could stop rust.  He developed a few basic paint formulas and fired up the stove on one of the ships.  The challenge with making paint from fish oil was it smelled like fish and did not dry.  He tried and tried to resolve those issues.  Eventually he developed a red primer that did not attract cats, smell like fish, dried and stopped rust.  He named it 769 damp proof red primer.  People ask if this was his first product why did he not call it number one.  He looked in his lab book and saw that the formula that worked was his 769th attempt.  

I met the son of the founder of Rust-Oleum Don Fergusson Sr at a sales meeting in Boston.  He was not feeling well and was late getting to the meeting.  He was a real gentleman and very kind.  His brother Bob had died of a heart attack a few years earlier. A few years later Don also died of a heart attack.  Don’s son Don Jr, the third generation, eventually became president.  The third generation eventually sold the company to RPM.  

Rust-Oleum had a very generous educational support program.  They paid 100% for all graduate school expenses including books no matter what grades were received.  Eventually they changed the program to only pay for classes that the student received a grade of C or better.  

Because several of my undergraduate grades were sub-par as I previously revealed, I decided to take all those classes over again. There was a county college two blocks from our condo in New Jersey.  Priscilla and I took the classes together.  We took accounting, finance and business law.  Of course we received A as our grade.  

When I applied to Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack, New Jersey they accepted my community college courses as well as my Northeastern University courses.  They deferred 50% of my classes.  I could earn my masters in business administrations degree in three years going to school at night. One of the many advantages of being a salesman is I would stay home on days I had classes and did all my homework.  RO was paying for my education and paying me to stay home and study.   I attended every class and earned high grades in all my courses.  As I mentioned I had determined that knowledge is good.  Two and half years later my efforts to get a masters degree did not go unnoticed at RO.  I was invited to move to the RO corporate head quarters in Chicago.  Since I had not completed my masters I found out I could take classes at DePaul University in Chicago and still graduate from Fairleigh Dickinson.

One of my favorite memories of grad school was working on a team project with two students from Thailand.  One spoke English and the other, Charoon Youngprapacorn, did not.  We had six people on the team.  The four of us carried the other two.  Charoon’s family owned a crocodile farm in Bangkok, Thailand.  Fifteen years later I took my family on a business trip to Bangkok.  I asked my distributor Dyno Industries to contact Charoon.  He invited us to have a personal tour of his families crocodile farm.  It is good to know people all over the world.  

I have been fortunate to have had many good connections at RO.  Buddy LeFavbre the salesman that hired me was transferred to the corporate headquarters as the Vice President of consumer marketing.  Kyle Ahrberg moved back to Chicago to work for Don Perrin in the industrial group.  After a few months Kyle quit RO and went to work in Chicago commercial real estate where he made his fortune.  Don Perrin came to New Jersey for a trade show.  I was responsible for picking him up at the air port and taking care of him for three days.  On the way back to airport he asked me to consider moving to Chicago and working for him in the industrial business.  Kyle had warned me not to accept a job offer from him.  I politely declined saying I was so close to graduating from grad school I wanted to finish.  Two weeks later Buddy LeFabvre asked me to come Chicago and work for him in the retail (spray paint) business.  I accepted.  It was a little embarrassing since I had turned Don Perrin down two weeks earlier.  

We sold our house in New Jersey and headed to Chicago.  On a previous trip to Chicago I went for a motorcycle ride with Kyle.  He had a Honda 750 cc.  We rode around the lake shore on Sheridan Road. We rode through Lake Forest and looked at several mansions.  When we got to Lake Bluff we rode to the lake and to the gazebo.  He predicted that when Priscilla and I move to Chicago we will live in Lake Bluff.  Two years later we bought a house at 510 Green Bay Road, Lake Bluff for $88,000. It was another house involved in a divorce settlement.  It was a trilevel and the only house in Lake Bluff we could afford.  The Vice President of sales Bob Zobel and Buddy LeFabvre both lived in Lake Forest and told me to buy a house in Lake Forest or Lake Bluff.  That way we would be close together and I would have the sun at my back during my commute.  The new Rust-Oleum headquarters had just opened in Vernon Hills which was due west from Lake Bluff.  Morning commutes had the sun behind me from the east and the ride home the the sun will be setting in the west as I drive east. 

Bob Zobel was an avid golfer.  Every Rust-Oleum sales meeting was held at one of the top golf courses in the US.  He wanted me to become a golfer and on the first day I was in the office he told me to get in my car and follow him to the Onwentsia Golf Club in Lake Forest. This was a very exclusive golf club.  He introduced me to the golf pro and told him to set me up with a set of golf clubs.  They had several sets of used clubs.  One set was the right size for me.  Bob took me over to a look at some putters.  One had a very odd shape?  It was about 3 feet long.  The pro said I should lick it for good luck.  I refused and they laughed.  That putter shaft was made from a bull’s penis.  I took golf lessons and joined the RO golf league.  I played every week. My favorite part of the game was the 19th hole.  Drinking beer at the end.  I was never a good golfer. My favorite joke was my goal was to score under 120.  Then I’d say on the front nine.  There was no place bystanders could safely stand.  I could shank a ball 180° behind me.  

Bob Zobel and his seven regional managers were legends in their own minds.  Even though the Fergusson family owned the company the sales managers ran it.  They came in direct conflict with the owners on several occasions.  My first job was working for Buddy LeFebvre as the assistant consumer products marketing manager.  Rust-Oleum had focused on industrial maintenance coatings for 50 years.  Then they figured out how to put paint in an aerosol can for home owner use.  This was the future and I was in right place at the right time.  I worked for Buddy for three months.  My crowning achievement was to add a new color to the aerosol line - Wimbledon White.  We were also working on a water based coating that could be used on metal called Rust-O-Crylic.  

As you may remember I had turned down an opportunity to work for Don Perrin in the industrial business. Three months later Bob Zobel walked into my cubicle and and told me that Monday morning I would be reporting to Don Perrin.  He said no one else would work for him so he chose me because I had experience in the industrial business. 

Well Priscilla and I had just moved to Lake Bluff and a bought house.  I could quit or see if I could work it to my advantage.  I reported for work with Don Perrin.  He was a big teddy bear from the Quad Cities.  We hit it off and I was given two jobs.  My first job was developing marketing materials such as catalogs, flyers and new industrial products.  My other job was to manage the customer service department.  The customer service department took orders from distributors and handled customer complaints.  One of the interesting aspects of my job was the fiancé of the company owner worked for me.  Cathy Bailey was engaged to marry Don Fergusson jr.  Don met Cathy at college at William and Mary.  Don’s girlfriend at the time was graduating so she asked Cathy to keep an eye on her boyfriend.  Well keep an eye she did. It was an interesting time managing the owners fiancé when one of previous customers from the Bronx made her cry.  

Within two years I was promoted to Don Perrin’s job.  He accused me of stabbing him in the back.  I was just doing my job as best as I could.  Also my friend Kyle Ahrberg’s dad Ray the executive Vice President was a fan of mine.  Ray was planning to retire in a few years so he only had a short time to help me.  Priscilla and I were invited on several occasions to spend time at Ray and Norma’s summer home in Bailey’s Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin.  

The next drama was a show down between the Zobel clan and the Fergusson family.  I had a decision to make.  Which side of the river was I going to pitch my tent.  Bob Zobel and the regional managers had given me my start. However the Fergusson’s were the owners.  I chose to pitch tent with the Fergusson’s.  Good decision.  Bob Zobel and the seven headed snake (regional managers) were terminated with extreme prejudice.  That left a huge void and I became a regional manager over night and was the national sales manager within three months.