My First Field Meeting

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Posted on August 7, 2013

I was planning on making a dealer call on Euphoria Chevrolet in Skiatook, OK, to see if the corn really did grow as high as they said it did, when I got the memo!! It was time for the annual Field Meeting of all the Regional Account Managers. This was exciting on several levels:

I was going to be able to see my folks
I was going to be able to see the new 1973 Chevrolet ads
I was going to be able to fly to Detroit First Class! Back then they let us fly First Class if the flight was longer than three hours. KC to Detroit was 2 hours and 45 minutes, but I included the time it took to drive to the airport.
I was going to be able to finally meet all the field guys face to face.
I was going to be able to get out of driving to Skiatook, OK.

We were all being put up at the beautiful Hotel St. Regis, right across from the GM Building. This was New Center swank at it’s poshest. The rooms even had these things called mini-bars. The food was good, and they had a cozy cocktail lounge. The decor was tres French. One of the restaurant’s most delicious entrees was their “Chicken Poulet.” Apparently, the chef didn’t think that the GM clientele would realize that the entree translated to “Chicken Chicken.” But remember, this is the same city that gave us “Pizza Pizza!”

Kindly Roy Webb was in charge of the 4th Floor Conference Room. This was the room where the new ads were presented to clients. Where the media budgets were approved (this year topping an obscene $1.1 million!). The room where changes in management were announced and dignitaries were received. This is where we would have our Field Meeting. In addition to running the 16mm AND 32mm projectors, Roy had recently been trained in the operation of the new-fangled videotape machine. He also served as the concierge for the room. Pop (yes, pop), coffee, and tea were on tables at the back of the room. At each place at our table we found: a sharpened pencil, a pad of paper, a pack of Doublemint gum, a pack of cigarettes, a book of matches, and an ashtray. All neatly arranged. It didn’t get much better than this. Let the games begin.

Before they did, I must inject some retrospective. It is part of the human condition to unconsciously assimilate at least some of your surrounding environment. Americans living in London for a period of time will begin saying “shedule” when the word is “schedule.” A waiting line becomes a queue. Easterners in Texas start wearing cowboy hats In LA, flip-flops and shorts. So it was in Kansas City. In the evening, people would “walk the Plaza,” dressed in fine style. The current style made us all look like characters from “Mary Poppins.” Very chic. Just not in Detroit. The morning of the first day of meetings, I showed up in my Kansas City finest; dark blue crushed velour suit, red and blue tattersall shirt, and a bright red butterfly bow tie. To top of the look, I was wearing my new prescription glasses with the oversized aviator frames and adjust-a-tint lenses. Under the bright glare of the conference room lights, it appeared that I was wearing sunglasses. I walked up behind Dick O’Connor, the Account Director and head of the Chevrolet business at Campbell-Ewald, to say “Hello.” I tapped him on the shoulder, “Hi, Dick.” He turned around. “Hi, Tom,” he began, as his smile dissolved into something resembling the face one makes when seeing a dead body for the first time. “Quite a get-up you’re wearing today.” Uh oh!! It wasn’t more than a year or two later that I was walking down a corridor in the GM Building with a friend who worked for GM. He was wearing a blue blazer, white shirt, red tie, and gray slacks. He was stopped by the Chevy National Sales Manager. “Son, you’re out of uniform,” he barked. “At GM we wear either a navy blue suit, a gray suit, or a brown suit.” Uh oh!!!

By the end of our first day, we had been duly proselytized to the true faith of the 1973 products and ads. We knew things the dealers and Chevy Field Staff wouldn’t know for weeks. Knowledge was power! And, love was in the air. Rather, LUV was in the air. The small Toyota and Datsun 1/2 ton pickups were eating up the youth market. In an effort to grab some of these sales, Chevy and Ford resorted to a tried and true automotive marketing trick: If you can’t beat them, sell their products with your logo on them until you can design and build your own. Ford began importing trucks from Mazda and selling them as Ford Couriers. Chevy turned to Isuzu and imported a truck Chevy called the LUV…for Light Utility Vehicle. Red-blooded Amerkins who wouldn’t be caught dead in an import, happily bought up Couriers and Luvs. There were other guests at the St. Regis that evening in addition to the “account men” of the Campbell-Ewald Field force. Isuzu Motor Ltd.had sent a group of executives from Japan to Detroit to finalize the LUV Truck program. Many of them were staying on my floor.

After we’d finished dinner, and drained the cocktail lounge, I went up to my room to go to bed. I watched the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and soon fell asleep. I thought I was having a dream where a woman was screaming, maybe being attacked. I wasn’t dreaming. A woman was screaming…and a second one was moaning loudly. They were in the room next to me. I could hear male voices. They were laughing. The screaming woman was now moaning loudly, the moaning woman was now laughing. I had to call the police! Suddenly, the active crime scene moved into the hallway, right next to my door. I could her the women running down the hall. Then I heard the men run after them. Were they going to finish them off? Then I heard the women run by my door again. Again, the men followed after. Now they were all…laughing? Making sure that all the lights in my room were turned off, I carefully peered through the peephole in my door. The mystery was solved. The Isuzu executives, now clad only in their tighty-whities, were chasing two “sidewalk hostesses” who had been apparently hired for an evening of “pillowing” and general tomfoolery. Having finished ACT I in the room, they were now playing what seemed to be “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Matsumoto right over.” I guess they were just trying to help with the balance of trade problem. I banged on my door and went back to bed.

Next: Hills That Is. Swimmin’ Pools. Movie Stars

“Sir, Chevrolet Will Pay For All The Damage.”

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Posted on August 4, 2013

A hot, summer sun rose over southwest Kansas that August morning. The ghosts of Helen Crump, Dorothy Gale, Alf Landon, Carrie Nation, Wyatt Earp, and Dwight Eisenhower faded with the dew on the sunflower petals into the ashes of the dawn. I was visiting the Wichita Zone for their annual Salesperson’s Sales Jamboree Awards. Dealers who won sales contests were sent, with their wives, to Athens, or Paris, or Tahiti. Salesmen in the state of Kansas and northern Oklahoma were sent to Wichita for a day of beer-soaked fun, followed by an awards dinner. Sales Jamboree Awards Headquarters was an interesting place called The Diamond Inn, located near the Wichita Airport. Wichita, Kansas…home of Pizza Hut and Cessna. I’ve tried both. Until that time, I preferred Little Caesar’s. Mainly because I grew up near the original Little Caesar’s Pizza Treat in neighboring Garden City, MI. This preference lasted until I had my first Ray’s Famous in NYC.

Sixty salesmen (quelle surprise, no women) gathered for the kickoff breakfast. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, grits, and steak. They also served an endless supply of bloody marys, scewdrivers, and mimosas. Since “real men don’t drink mimosas,” I had them all to myself. The serving of liquor at the breakfast served several purposes:

It provided a festive kickoff for the days promised fun-filled activities
It provided a running head start for those who were going to drink themselves blind that day
It provided a palliative for a large percentage who would have exhibited D.T.’s if they didn’t have their morning “medicine”

After the breakfast, we split into two groups. Golfers were transported to Endless Plains Country Club. The course was proud of the fact that there were no trees on the course. There weren’t any bushes either. The sand traps were thinly disguised dry washes left over from when the Chisholm Trail ran across the course. If your ball landed next to a cattle skull, you were allowed a free drop. The second group was taken to the Jayhawk Bowl-O-Rama. Chevrolet had bought the place out for the day, and had an open tab at the bar. Nothing gets one ready for six hours of bowling like a Jack and Coke. The outside temperature was now approaching that of the surface of Mercury. As much as I would have liked to tempt fate by driving golf balls across 7200 yards of dried earth, I opted for the air-conditioned sedentary prospects of the bowling alley.

Detroit used to have a great television program called “Bowling for Dollars.” I could have filmed the pilot for a new show, “Bowling for Electrolytes.” If one begins drinking at 8:00 AM, and has ingested at least twelve drinks by noon, the day can only go downhill. At least the golfers can sweat it off, I thought. I was wrong. The golf event had turned into a death march. Each tee box had a full bar, adding to the dehydration that was running rampant through the golfers. By 1:00, the bowlers had given up any sense of decorum. Bowlers on several lanes had turned the day into a shot put event, with 16 pound balls dropping like nightmarish hailstones. Not just on the alley, but at the front desk, the cocktail lounge, the ladies room, and the day care center next door. Others, in a prescient nod to planking, were trying to fire the salesmen who had passed out down the alley toward the pins. Others lined the balls up at the foul line, and then pushed them down the lane with their noses.

We still had a BBQ dinner and awards ceremony to get through. Once the salesmen decided to start playing dodgeball with bowling balls, I excused myself, saying that I had to go “check on dinner.” I took a cab back to the hotel. The area around the pool had been magically transformed into a Hawaiian paradise. In the middle of the pool there was a styrofoam island, complete with miniature palm trees, bird of paradise plants, and little thatched huts. I met up with Charlie Lopez, the Assistant Zone Manager, and the man in charge of the evening’s Bacchanalia. So far, everything was in order. The chef had been roasting a side of beef over a large charcoal fire. Unfortunately, nobody noticed that the chef had passed out from too many vodka and Dr. Peppers, and the fire had gone out. In a room just off of the pool area, the zone had set up a GM Mini-Theatre. The Mini- Theatre was a valiant attempt to bring A-V technology into GM dealerships. The dealer had to buy the device which sat atop a kiosk. Each GM division produced Super 8 film cartridges that fit into the theatre, projecting product information onto a small screen at the top of the kiosk. The thought was that people, who didn’t want to talk to a salesman, could go over to the kiosk and slap in a video from a library of cartridges. GM dealers resisted the concept because they didn’t want their salesmen sending people away to watch a grainy Super 8mm film. The Wichita Zone set one up, complete with a full library of cartridges, hoping that the dealers would be driven into a sales frenzy and demand that the dealership sign up for the program. Someone made LOTS of money off of this.

The buses returned from the golf course and bowling alley, vomiting their contents into the hotel lobby. Most of the salesmen made straight to the four open bars around the pool. Realizing that the BBQ wasn’t ready, the command decision was made to let everyone keep drinking. The presence of an operational Mini-Theatre just off the pool area was announced. Charlie and I were slicing huge slabs of raw beef off of the spit, and laying it directly on the grill to cook it. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw 90% of the salesmen trying to jam into the Mini-Theatre room. Who knew that a video about the Cosworth engine could be so appealing? I went over to get “retail input,” as this would be good filler for my weekly report back to Detroit. As I stood on my toes to see the Chevy film, I was surprised to see that the film in the cartridge now playing was a morality play about a poor pizza delivery man who, when he arrives at his destination, discovers that the two scantily-clad women at the address don’t have any money to pay for the pizza. A barter discussion ensues, where the women discover a method of paying for the pizza without having to use money. The delivery man agrees, and the film proceeds to show the entrepreneurial system in action. I was proud to be an American! GM technology at work.

The food was finally ready. The salesmen were pushed to their seats with cattle prods and tasers. After dinner, the awards were presented. Those who couldn’t walk up to the stage sent a surrogate. It was now time for the evening’s entertainment. I’m sure, at the time, having hula dancers close the day’s frivolity seemed like a good idea…in a normal world. Two things shattered this notion:

The hula dancers would be performing in front of 80, sunburned, porn-churned, really drunk car salesmen
The Wichita Zone had decided to hire Mrs. LuAnne Torgelson’s Hawaiian Princesses as the talent

The recorded music started. The primal drum beats beat against dulled skulls. Mrs. Torgelson’s troupe, made up entirely of already terrified pre-pubescent young girls shimmied their way onto the stage. Dressed in grass skirts and coconut shells, they unwittingly threw gasoline onto the pent-up firestorm. Immediately, the puerile jokes about “Hey, how ’bout a lei?” started. Chairs and tables were overturned as the mob approached the stage. The first dance number had finished. Mrs. Torgelson had jumped in front of the dance troupe. Many of the girls were running toward the back of the stage, and out into the night. The music for the second number started. The drunken mob surged. Just then, a Deus ex Machina appeared. Charlie Lopez entered the stage wearing boxer shorts, a grass skirt, and a smile. He turned to Mrs. Torgelson and told her to grab the girls and “Run for your lives.” The mob didn’t notice their departure, their eyes were all riveted on a Chevrolet executive shimmying around the stage. Charlie gave it his all. When the bread rolls started pelting him, he threw them back. Other Chevrolet zone staff started pelting the salesmen. I must admit, it was quite satisfying nailing Earl Bob Haney, from Witless Chevrolet in Dodge City, right between the eyes with a stale bread roll.

The next morning, on my way to check out, I had to pass the pool area. The clean-up after Woodstock probably took less time. The large styrofoam island was nowhere to be seen. There were, however, plenty of shoes, shirts, bowling balls, and boxer shorts. When I got to the lobby, I saw Charlie Lopez. “Charlie, you saved those girls last night.” He smiled and said, “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.” Just then, a VERY irate hotel manager came out from his office. “Mr. Lopez,” he croaked, “we’ve found the island. The maids were cleaning room 227 when they found it. They also found two naked men sleeping on top of it. Apparently, they both had ‘their way’ with it several times last night. You’re going to have to pay for this!” Charlie let out a large sigh. “Sir, Chevrolet will pay for all the damage.” As we walked to the parking lot, Charlie turned to me and said, “Well, Tom. That was a pretty successful sales event.”

Welcome to the trenches!

Next; My First Field Meeting

“What Are The Odds?”

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Posted on July 30, 2013

The next three weeks passed by very quickly. I moved into Campbell-Ewald’s Kansas City office. It wasn’t so much an office as it was a cubby hole. It was in the basement of the Mid-Continent Bank Building on Main St. and 49th. The office had a small waiting room, and a door that led to my office. Being in a basement, there were no windows. But I was pretty sure we’d be able to withstand any nuclear attack. After ten days of room service, we moved into an apartment on Wornall and 104th. The Missouri state line was about a quarter-mile away, and our balcony looked out into Kansas and the Milgram’s Supermarket where they sold Coors…at that time something that was unavailable to Michiganders. I had a nice little side business going sending Coors to Michigan in exchange for Strohs, which was unavailable in Missouri. My wife found a job at a newly opened dinner theater called Tiffany’s Attic. It was almost directly across the street from my office. We would ride to work together every day. Very newlyweddy.

I found Kansas City enchanting. The only city with more fountains was Rome. The Country Club Plaza was modeled after Seville, Spain. My office was adjacent to it. The people were very friendly. In addition to Kansas City, I called on St. Louis, Des Moines, Omaha, Wichita, and Denver. I was awash in Midwesterness.

I inherited another Chevy Impala from the previous Regional Account Executive. At least I didn’t have to park this one in a building erected in 1927. On my very first day in the office, I met Marsha, my secretary. As I was unpacking my briefcase, she came into my office, sat down, and gave me “the speech.” “I’ve been here for 12 years,” she began, “and in that time I’ve seen seven of you guys come and go. I’m the only constant in this office and the Chevrolet people know that. I know where all the bodies are buried, who the good guys and bad guys are, and what you need to do to get transferred out of here in two years. I have my own systems and way of doing things. They ain’t broke, so you don’t need to fix them. I’m here to make you a star, so don’t do anything without letting me know first. In fact, some of your predecessors rarely came into the office. I’ve already enrolled you in the Kansas City Ad Club, and the Kansas City Ad Wheels. The Ad Wheels, by the way, are having their Spring Meeting on the 14th. You need to RSVP to this number. It’s going to be a great way to meet the other “car guys” in town.” With that she got up, and returned to her desk.

“Ummmm, OK,” I thought. “This is going to be interesting.” I called the number on the slip of paper Marsha had given me. “Tom Dickey here,” said the voice answering the phone. It turned out that Tom was the local BBDO rep handling Dodge. He told me about the Ad Wheels, and that it was a group of field guys who represented the national car companies in Kansas City. Ford, Dodge, VW, Toyota, Chrysler, Lincoln-Mercury, Pontiac, and now, Chevy would be represented. The meeting was to begin at 11:00 AM, followed by lunch. “Oh, and remember to bring your bathing suit,” he added. ?????? Tom explained that his office had a swimming pool and that the meetings were held around the pool while sipping Jack Daniels and smoking cigars. The meeting was scheduled for the 14th, which was the next day. Sign me up!

On the morning of the 14th, my wife had to be at an early meeting and rode to work with a co-worker. I would take her home that evening. Shortly after I got to the office, Marsha walked in wearing a sundress and carrying a large beach tote over her shoulder. My Spidey sense began to tingle. “Uhhh, Marsha, what’s up?” “Didn’t Tom Dickey tell you?” she asked. “All of the secretaries are invited too!” Oh well, this was my chance to make some valuable industry contacts. The BBDO Kansas City office wasn’t an office. It was a two bedroom apartment in a swanky area near downtown KC. Tom greeted us and took us to the pool where a sumptuous spread was laid out. There was a bartender behind a bar. Cigars were being passed out. Jack Daniels was flowing like the Missouri River during a thunderstorm. The sun was blazing. The water refreshing. The afternoon passing. The afternoon passing?!?!?!? I found my watch. It was 4:45. I had 30 minutes to dry off, dress, and get to my office in rush hour traffic. I gave Marsha cab fare…very classy. I called my wife to tell her I might be a “tad” late picking her up. “Where are you?” she asked. Like a cornered rat I blurted out, “In my office.” “Prove it,” she said. Uh-oh. “Just a plain old office,” I replied. I sped back, stopping at my office to see why she was dubious as to my location. There on the floor of the office was a card she had passed through the mail slot. “Happy One Month Anniversary!” Oh no, tomorrow was May 15th, our one month wedding anniversary. I raced to pick her up across the street, joking that I had seen the card when I got back from lunch. I suggested that we go to dinner and a movie the next day to celebrate.

On the evening of the 15th we debated: dinner/movie; movie/dinner. We chose dinner/movie. Bad choice. As we stood facing each other in line for the movie, my blood ran cold as I recognized the voice of the lady in front of us. It was Tom Dickey’s secretary!! Maybe if I didn’t move, or say anything, she wouldn’t notice the quivering hulk standing behind her. “Hey you! Tom, it’s me, Tammie Sue, Tom Dickey’s secretary from the pool party yesterday. Wow! How many cannonballs did you do into the pool. Are you hung over? Hey it was great seeing Marsha there with you. Oh, is this your wife? Hey there, your husband’s quite the party guy. Sorry he was late picking you up. Hey! The line’s moving. See you all later.” I slowly turned to my wife. The blank stare I got was terrifying. “Move, she said, “the line’s moving.”

The movie was that light-hearted family laugh fest, Deliverance. Appropriate. We sat in stony silence for the first half hour of the movie. Then, she began to laugh. Taking her cue, so did I. She then turned in her seat and punched me in the right shoulder with all her might. “You big dummy. What, there are maybe 300,000 people in Kansas City? You know maybe twenty of them? And you run into one of them in line at the movie? What are the odds? I hope you learned something.” “I did,” I said as we began our make-up smooching. No matter where I go, I’d better behave myself because I was bound to run into someone I knew.

Next: Are We Going To Crash?

”I’m Going To Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come…”

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Posted on July 30, 2013

Kansas City? All I knew about Kansas City was that it was the gateway to the Great Plains. I expected my drive westward on I-70 would carry me through barren plains, when suddenly, off in the distance, I would be able to see the rising skyline of a cowtown. I was very wrong.

On Thursday, April 13, 1972, my boss came back to me with a “deal.” I didn’t have to be in Kansas City on Monday, April 17. I could arrive in the morning on Tuesday April 18, as the important meeting wasn’t until 2:00 PM. This still wasn’t going to fly. As I was not going to be in the office on the next day, Friday, things needed to be wrapped up quickly. My boss asked for two more hours. Around 3:00 PM, he came back into my office with a big smile. “Tom, I think we may have a deal.” The “normal” relocation allowance permitted a spouse to travel to the new location and stay for two nights and three days to look for permanent housing. The agency was going to let my bride travel with me to Kansas City on Monday, April 17. Additionally, they were going to put us both up at the Plaza Inn (a very nice hotel) for ten days as compensation for the lost honeymoon. They never asked, and I didn’t tell, but my original honeymoon was going to be a road trip to Charlevoix and Petoskey. I got great rates on the rooms as both cities are still snowbound in April. They were also going to throw in a salary bump to $14,700! What a deal! I called my bride-to-be. Her only problem with it was leaving Michigan. I told her not to worry. Kansas City was only a four-hour drive from Muskegon. Any of you who know anything about geography will know that I was lying. I needed to close the deal. She said yes. I said yes. I spent the rest of my day cleaning out my desk. A friend drove me home (an apartment I had leased in Rochester) so I could leave the USS Enterprise in its docking bay. The next five days were going to be interesting.

On Friday morning I drove up to Lansing to see my parents. There was a letter waiting for me from the Selective Service! Viet Nam was still a hanging sword of Damocles for me. With trembling hands I opened the letter. It was a ‘Notice of Reclassification.’ For the last three years I had a 1-Y deferment, due to the knee I had blown out and had repaired. Was my time up? I read on… I was being reclassified to 4-F, “Physically Unfit for Duty.” I found out that this was a “wedding present” from the clerk at my local draft board. It’s a great story that I’ll save for another blog. My parents and I drove up to Muskegon that afternoon. The rehearsal dinner was that evening. The next morning dawned cold, but clear. I had asked two old seminary friends who had made it through to become priests to officiate. About an hour before the service one of my friends showed up. He handed me a telegram. The second friend had decided to leave the priesthood and wouldn’t be there. Oh well, one was better than none. It was about an hour before the ceremony that it occurred to me that I hadn’t memorized my part of the vows my fiancée and I had written. I had been too busy calling on Chevrolet dealers in Buffalo. No problem, I would wing it.

That proved to be a terrible plan. During the ceremony, I froze. This was different than presenting to car dealers. I immediately fell into every clichéd wedding vow I could remember. I even threw in some lines from the Pledge of Allegiance, and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” for good measure. Not my finest hour, but we got through it. The reception went down in the annals of Cavanagh lore as a “bar setter.” Sunday morning, we awoke and made our way to my bride’s parents’ house to open wedding gifts. We were going to leave them all there and have them shipped to Kansas City once we found a place. Monday morning we drove to Rochester to meet the movers. We never were able to spend a night in the Rochester apartment. After staying at a hotel near the airport, we left for Kansas City. I, with an eye toward the future. My wife, with the heavy thought, “Good Lord, what have I gotten myself into?”

The flight to Kansas City was uneventful except for the tremendous thunderstorm we spent an hour flying in on approach to the Kansas City airport. We were tossed around like ping-pong balls in a Bingo drum. The old Kansas City airport used to be downtown, nestled between a crook in the Missouri River and the downtown skyscrapers. The terrible thunderstorm and buffeting notwithstanding, it’s a little disconcerting to be on final approach to a runway and look out the window to see skyscrapers on both sides of you that are taller than your current altitude. I waved at the office workers watching the terrible storm. They waved back. Another fun thing about landing at the old airport was the fact that you would start descending over the Missouri River. As the plane went lower and lower, the river got bigger and bigger. One would think that we were only inches from ditching. Then, at the last possible second, the runway would appear under the wing. Air travel as a Six Flags thrill ride!

We finally landed. My wife informed me that she had gotten air sick and now had a migraine. The old airport didn’t have jet ways that extended from the terminal. They would roll ramps up to the plane, and you had to walk down to the ground. We did, and were met in the pouring rain by my boss and two local Chevy heavy-breathers. “Welcome to Kansas City!”, they said. My wife got sick on the tarmac.

Let the games begin.

Next: What Are The Odds?

“….Ummmmmm. Do You Mind If I Get Married First?”

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Posted on July 29, 2013

Now that I was one of Campbell-Ewald’s “Young Account Men,” things began to move swiftly. My fiancée and I set April 15, 1972 as our wedding date. I figured that if I got married on Income Tax Day, I’d never forget my wedding anniversary. Now that I was able to remove my training program beanie, I was able to “mainstream.” I was being invited to important meetings, I was meeting clients, I was going to these wonderful things called media parties, and I was walking with the swagger of someone who thought he was set for life. One of my responsibilities as the Assistant to the Director of Field Operations was to help determine the economic course of Chevrolet’s future. Each Campbell-Ewald field office had to submit a weekly report as to how things were going in their particular region; sales trends, competitive media buys, dealer comments, newspaper stories. They were submitted to me each Monday. My job was to “edit out” anything that might reflect badly on the client’s success as these reports were then sent on to Chevrolet. The New York Times wrote a nice story on the Datsun B-210? Can’t have that. The aluminum block engines in the Vega were blowing up all over California because they couldn’t handle the stricter pollution controls required out there? OK, nobody needs to hear bad news like that. The “Drive A Winner Derby” promotion in the Midwest Region was a flop? Nope, nope, nope. Definitely can’t have that! Every day the field guys would call in to schmooze, anxious to find out what was going on in the Mother Ship. We were a “Band of Brothers.”

After about six weeks of putting my imprimatur on weekly reports, I was called into the office of the Regional Account Executive for the North Central Region. Because the Chevy regional office for North Central was in Detroit, the Campbell-Ewald rep, Jim Muir, was stationed in Detroit. In fact, his office was right next to mine. Jim had been a great tutor on the ins and outs of the job. Jim asked me to sit down as he closed the door. “Tom, I’m going retail.” This was not the same as “going ballistic” or “going commando.” This meant that he was going to go to work for a dealership. It happened a lot to the field guys. He continued, “I start in two weeks with Buff Whelan Chevrolet in Sterling Heights, and I’m recommending to management here that you take my place.” I was shocked! I was finally going to be a Field Guy! But….I really wasn’t going to be my own boss as I was still in the GM Building, I was going to be calling on exotic locations like Flint, Cleveland, and Buffalo, and it was snowing outside. Wait, wait! I was to inherit Jim’s Chevy Impala company car. I had arrived!!! I was now getting free cars.

I was now Regional Account Executive/North Central. I had a friend drive me in to work that day. I would be driving home in my free car. The 1972 Impala was parked with the rest of the agency free cars in the parking garage of the Fisher Building. The Fisher Building, designed by the same fellow who did the GM Bldg, went up in 1927. It featured an 11 story garage. My spot was on 11. Cars keys in hand, I arrived at my free car. It was beautiful, with a hood large enough for Tom Turner to land one of his Tomcat fighters without a tail hook. I placed myself into the captain’s chair and gave the order to the Impala’s engine room to “Engage.” We slowly left the docking bay and approached the first down ramp. This is when two startling realities enveloped me: this garage was built in 1927, my “USS Enterprise Impala” in 1972; and, it was Winter and the car had studded snow tires on it. The garage floor was concrete with that waxy coating that prevents oil stains. My 4200 lb aircraft carrier was on ice skates!! Also, my Impala had almost 2 feet more wheelbase than a 1927 Chevy, I was about to find out just what that meant as I came to the first down ramp. My effort at a hard right left me wedged in the ramp. I put the car in reverse to try again. The whir of the metal spikes that prohibited the rubber tire tread from touching the ground was deafening. I put the car into “Park” while I tried to turn the wheel harder to the left, hoping to free myself. My terror was tempered by a loud honk. Cars were beginning to stack up behind me! I put the car in “Drive” and touched the gas, all the while struggling with the steering wheel. I began to slide down the ramp…sideways. At least I was facing the right direction when I got to the 10th floor. And now, on the next attempt I knew to start with a wider arc. I nailed it! I was pointing straight down toward the 9th floor. I tapped the gas, smug in my knowledge that I had shown those idiots backed up behind me that I wasn’t some rookie to free cars. I suddenly realized that I was sliding again, and gaining speed. I hit the brakes. No luck. Twelve feet from the bottom of the ramp was a wall. This wall was the outside wall to the garage. There was a window in it. I was rocketing toward it. Suddenly, I could see Mom and Dad, and old Muzza, my dog. There were Lynn and Chris from 5th grade. I was going home!!! I could see the headline in that evening’s Detroit News: “Ad Guy on Chevy Hurtles To Death Out Of Fisher Building.” It took me about three hours to get my free car out of the Fisher Garage.

On Wednesday, April 12, 1972, I was called to the Field Director’s office. Gene Owens had left the agency to make some big bucks with a promotions company. My new boss was Bob Milford, who had moved over from the Truck Account. “Tom,” he began, “We have some great news. You’re being promoted to the Midwest Region in Kansas City” Hmmm, I thought, was there a hierarchy to the regions? I was ecstatic. I had never been to Kansas City and I heard that they had some great BBQ. “I accept!” I shouted. “That’s great,” Bob said. “Here’s the deal. Ron Bleckmann (the current occupant of the seat) has just informed us that he’s leaving to join J. Walter Thompson on the Ford Account in Kansas City. We had to terminate him immediately.” NOTE: this is pretty much standard in the ad biz. If you go to another car account, they don’t want the client knowing they kept someone around. “So,” Bob continued, ” Ron is gone as of today. There’s an important Midwest Regional meeting out there on Tuesday, so we’ll need you in Kansas City on Monday to get ready for it.” There was one problem. “Bob,” I said, “….Ummmmm. Do you mind if I get married first? Remember those vacation papers you signed letting me go on vacation from 4/14 to 4/24? I’m getting married in Muskegon in three days, then we’re going on our honeymoon.” Bob’s wide-eyed stare told me that he’d forgotten. “Tom, we really need you there.” “Bob, I’m a dead man if I take off the morning following the wedding.” “Tom, let me talk to some people and see if we can’t reach a compromise.” I wasn’t going to call my bride-to-be and worry her…yet. Let’s see what they come up with.

Next: “I’m Going To Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come…”

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