Old Business Cards! 

Hi, everyone:  

As I reviewed my July post, I realize I left out one specific piece of information which might be of value.  My nickname, throughout high school and again at Princeton, was "Duke."  Everyone thought it was for the Duke of Earl, but it far preceded that.   As a twelve year old in 1951, my view of the ideal baseball player was Edwin "Duke" Snider, the Hall of Fame center fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The neighborhood kids started calling me "Duke" and it stuck with me for the rest of my developing years.  

Since I was an early rock 'n roller, it was an appropriate nickname.  And when Gene Chandler made "Duke of Earl," it was stuck for good.  Willy Nelson and the Dukes were just following that pattern, I guess.

So, that, in a circuitous way, takes us to business cards.  I have always saved them.  I probably have fifteen or twenty different ones of my own, both personal and from all the businesses I owned and worked in, and was particularly supported when I attended General Georges Doriot's Manufacturing Class at Harvard.  Dr. Doriot said to keep your contacts in an organized way.  That made a lot of sense, and I followed his sage advice.

So this week, I went back and picked through my oldest business cards.  Even if you have thousands, there is a story to each one.

As you might expect, many of the ones from my teenage years are car related and music related.   Later they are business related, first IBM and computers in the early 1960's, then surfing, then furniture and design, then back to computers and Internet memes.  Now they have e-mail addresses as well as phone numbers.  I will start with a couple of examples and then pick up the post later with some of the even earlier ones.

See below two of the most interesting ones (at least to me).

Who is this gentleman, and why did the card matter?

In my memory, this is the first true calling card I had ever seen.  Mr. Raynor lives, or lived in Shushan, NY, and came over to visit the H. T. Cushman plant I was running in Bennington, VT in 1967.  I have done some research, and I believe he is still alive. He would be 84 or so now.

Some of my Princeton and Harvard classmates had calling cards, but they always had some type of contact information on them; either a dorm room or a phone number.  Even my Newport, RI friends had more detail than is on the card above.   On the other hand, this was really "old school."  "I'm here. This is who I am."  Congratulations, Mr.  Raynor.  I went on, and copied you.

Now, this guy below you probably know.  But when we talked at some length, and he gave me his card, "Who'd have thunk it?"

At the time (1996 or '97, I believe), Mr. Cook was a talented and aggressive mid/upper level executive for Intelligent Electronics, a computer company support group of which my company, Computer Power Supply, was an active and engaged member.  Mr. Cook was supportive and encouraging of our product, HOPE Software, and made some valuable introductions for us.

Of course, Mr. Cook is now Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer, the most valuable company in the world.  

Hope you enjoyed this brief introduction.  More to come later.

Stay safe!

Will Somers