Grayson Enterprises Ltd.

Page 1 First NA Seria! Rights

1,500 + words

JAMES GILBERT

THE PLEASURES AND PROFITS IN THE PEN BUSINESS

Written by June Grayson

Photographed#by!Mary#Gi!bert

At the age of 44, James Gi!bert jumped the corporate fast track and !aid the fami!y fortune on the !ine to buy his own manufacturing company.

"I have never had so much fun in my whole !ife," says Gi!bert, ten months after buying the Waterbury Scro!! Pen Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

"The highs are higher and the !ows are lower but there is no other fee!ing !ike it in the who!e wor!d - to know that you can rea!!y make a go of it out from under that corporate umbre!|a."

Gi!bert had more than twenty good years under the corporate umbre!!a. After graduating with a business degree from the University of Mary!and, he tried the insurance business but did not 1ike it.

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Fortunate!y, Kraft Foods recruited him as a sa!esman. He started at the bottom, calling on grocery stores, checking the shelves, and writing up the cheese orders.

Kraft knew a winner when they saw one. In six months they transferred him to the institutiona! sales force and in another eight months appointed him regiona! supervisor of institutiona! sa!es.

Next Internationa! P!aytex, anxious to get their products into the retai! distribution chain and !ooking for someone with a grocery store background, recruited him for sa!es. He rose quick!y through the ranks: sa!es, admini#trative assistant, district sa!es manager, merchandizing manager, West Coast regiona! sales manager, Canadian sales manager, and finally back to the United States as a vice-president and the number one sa!es man at Playtex.

"During the next five years with Playtex some neat . thin#s happened," Gilbert says. "We took a twenty million dollar sidelin

business and turned it into a one hundred million dollar business, # mostly just as a function of expanding distribution. We took the

Jhirmack hair product line out of the beauty salons and put it into retail stores all over America. Having Victoria Principal as a Jhirmack spokesperson certain!y he!ped. We were fortunate to sign her as a re!ative1y unknown actress. So Jhirmack's fortunes grew in proportion to the popu!arity of DALLAS, the te!evision series in which she starred."

Mergers and buyouts changed the nature of P!aytex. "I wanted to own my own business because I thought I had some good

ideas that wou!d be easier to put into practice on my own than through a big corporation. I had been !ooking for a !ong time for a smal! consumer package goods company but cou!d find none I could afford. Then the fates smiled on me when this company became avai!ab!e," Gi!bert says.

Waterbury Scro!! Pen Company, started in the 1940s, original!y manufactured machine parts for other pen companies. Eventual!y it developed into a company that made pens on its own. Its business was bui!t on the basis of supp!ying the universa! pen needs of big companies such as AT&T. It also deve!oped other retail pens sold through stationery stores.

A mechanica! engineer bought the company in the ear!y 1970s and successfu!!y automated the machinery and manufacturing processes to the point where it was efficient enough to compete with bigger pen com##nies. The new owner a!so deve!oped a new part of the business ca11ed CHART PENS, disposab!e pen tips used with scientific recording devices. This part of the business became so successfu! that he wanted to se!! off the part that produced the hand he!d pens.

It was that part of the business that Gi!bert was ab!e to buy in October, 1986.

"I formed a company to buy these assets - the trademark, the name, the machinery, the customer !ists, and the emp!oyees (if you can say that you can 'buy' emp!oyees)," explains Gilbert. I used the money from my profit-sharing p!ans. Through a series of negotiations we arrived at a mutua!!y agreeable price. I gave

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the previous owner 50 percent of the purchase price and signed a promissory note to pay him the other 50 percent over a period of years."

"The part of the company I bought never did over one million in sales a year. We were e!ated to exceed that figure only ten months into our first year with two months !eft to go. My personal goal is to exceed five mi!!ion in sa!es within three years," Gi!bert says. "That wi!! depend on the success of a variety of new products we hope to introduce."

"We do business with virtua!!y a!l of the Fortune 500 companies and our biggest customer is still AT&T. We have not made any major changes in the company and our p!ans are to maintain our business with our o!d customers. At the same time we hope to go forward into a number of different areas."

"In fact, we have more promotiona! ideas than we have time to imp!ement. We wi!! prioritize them on the basis of which seem most feasib!e and wi!! provide the biggest return."

"We are testing some new concepts in retail markets now. One is ca!Ied CUSTOM PRINT. Most imprinted pens are so#d by mai! order. We want to put a system in retai! markets to make it easier for the customer to see and order what he needs. We a!so may offer imprinted pens as promotiona! items packaged in a "cookie" jar. These are on!y two of the three dozen ideas we have in our project file."

In rea!ity, Gi!bert has two companies: the Hartman

. group, the manufacturing arm of the company with 20-25 employees,

and the sa1es company ca!!ed Waterbury Marketing, Inc., w!th five

peop!e. He' !eases the bui!ding in which they operate. "If this

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company achieves the potential of which I think it is capab!e, we may have our own corporate headquarters someday. I wou!d

even not ru!e out a pub|ic stock offering, a!though it is #- still too soon to say," Gilbert says.

"This change has been thrilling for our who!e fami!y," continues Gilbert. "When you work for a big company, your chi!dren on!y see you when you come home to relax. Now we are al! involved in seeking the success of our new business. My wife has been very supportive and comes in whenever needed to he!p out. My daughter is in college and my son in high school so they work here durin9 vacations. They see me now at my best and at my worst. And I think that is hea#thy for all of us."

"My advice to young peop!e starting out in corporate !ife today is to take every job they offer you, particularly in different areas, because it is a!! part of your education,

and wi!! he!p prepare you for opportunities !ater on," says #.Gi!bert. "Corporate life is a good background for anything."

Gilbert thinks it is important to identify your strengths and weaknesses. "My biggest asset is my abi!ity to

manage my business through other peop|e. I think I am good at

delegating responsibi1ity and assisting my employees to accomp!ish goa!s and experience satisfaction."

"If I have any weakness it is that I want to do too much too soon. You must !earn to pace yourself to the peop!e and machines around you."

Bridgeport is one of the !argest cities in Connect|cut. It had its #ifficu!t years but is now on its way back. "We have no p!ans to move our business. A !ot of exciting things are

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happening here and we are going to be a part of a great community," says Gi!bert. He likes to work with young peop!e and wants to become invo!ved with community service projects, such as the United Way, with which he worked in the past. He !ikes to play tennis and go!f when he has time.

"I !ike to start things and make them grow," Gi!bert . says. "I wou!d not be happy just sitting back and watching.

However, I can't imagine that that wi!! ever happen. There is always a better way to do something. And there are a !ot of people in this world who are# receptive to good products."

When you have your own business you experience every emotion. "Wonder, fear, panic, depression, stimu!ation, exhi!aration - you name it," Gi!bert says. "I have more prob!ems than I have ever had and I am busier than I ever was. lt's a WOnderful life."

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