May 19, 2011
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My Last LILAGCS was March 28th
I was about to tell you about my job at the LeFebure Corporation when our internet connection was interrupted off and on for over a month for one reason or another.
For me I am able to remember so much of the past (in detail) but at times I find it hard to remember the short term stuff. To quote my 5 year locker high school locker buddy,Kelley….. I sometimes can’t even remember what I had for breakfast!
Well I will attempt to go into the past, some 35 years ago, and tell you a little about my job a the LeFebure Corporation.
I read that I left off my Blog writing at the point where I had worked for FELCO (Farmer’s Elevator Company) for almost 8 years’ I could see that I was about as far up the corporate ladder as I could go at that point in time.
I opened my thoughts to finding another job in the field of advertising. It was during a visit to my first wife’s parents that I ran across an ad in the Cedar Rapids Gazette for an “advertising coordinator” which happened to be my title at Felco.
After finding the advertisement in the Cedar Rapids Sunday paper I sat down and drafted my resume. I sent my resume to the personnel directors office as instructed in the job ad.
In less than a week I was sitting at my desk at Felco when the phone rang and the man on the other end ask if I was able to talk. There was no one around me at the time so I said yes. He introduced himself as the personnel manager of the LeFebure Corporation in Cedar Rapids. He ask me if I would be able to come to Cedar Rapids for an interview. I told him yes and we set up an interview for the next week.
At that time, we had moved from our house in Fort Dodge to a small acreage north of Fort Dodge. I went to the interview and I felt very positive when it was finished.
In less than two weeks I received a call from the personnel manager inviting me to come work in the advertising department and be the Advertising manager for the LeFebure Corporation. The man that interviewed me was Warren S (I will call him) He was very proper and spoke with an Eastern accent even though he was from Chicago, he said.
It wasn’t too long after I started working at LeFebure that I came to the realization that the job was way bigger than I was lead to believe. I was responsible for the development of the national print media advertising with all the national Banking trade magazines and the total production of those ads. I was to work with a large advertising agency CMF and Z to accomplish this.
In addition I was responsible for the development of a 40 by 60 foot banking equipment display and scheduling of all the national and state Banking Trade Shows , I was responsible for guiding the construction of the company’s display that would be taken and set up at each trade show in the major cities of the United States. I would work with a display company in Chicago to accomplish this task.
This meant many trips to Chicago and working with the representatives of the Osgood Display Company to develop the company’s Trade show display of the major banking and security systems. The display itself had to be transported in 2 large semi-trailer trucks. It was my job to coordinate this shipment to the location og the Banking Shows.
In addition to these responsibilities I was also in charge with the companies printing supply department that stored and shipped the hundreds of pieces of Banking equipment and Security systems sales literature. This department also maintained the total mailing lists of all the companies, personnel and salesmen related to the company. At that time it was all done with the addressograph machines. These all had to be kept up-to-date and maintained. There were 4 employees that working in the supply department that I supervised. I also was responsible for the company News Letter Publication that was published monthly. I had an editor that was responsible for the production of the News Letter and never on time for work she was a real pain. It was usually an 8 to 14 page tabloid publication with many photographs of new facilities and renovations.
I was also in charge of the Company Photographer and his functions. I had a production artist that produced the camera-ready art that was used in the printing production of all the sales literature stored in the supply department.
You can see from my above brief explanation that my Advertising job was very large and the worst part of all was that the previous advertising manager was promoted to Marketing manage and he was constantly looking over my shoulder at my work. He expected me to operate as he did and it became very difficult circumstances to function under.
I did the best that I could and really didn’t do too bad considering everything. I will share with you some of my thoughts and feeling as I worked.
One thing that stands out in my memories of LeFebure is the total lack of respect for the people that worked there. I was told I was not to associate with the manufacturing area of the company because they were “Labor” and I was a part of “Management”. That went totally against every principle I had ever been taught. It also explained the labor problem that was always evident.
The biggest problem is that I was dependent on the factory was needed to produce the prototype equipment I was to display at the trade shows. I ignored the fact that I was avoid associating with the employees in the factory.
I remember my first experience with working with the Osgood Display company in Chicago.
Up to them, my only experience flying was I small one engine airplanes and I was basically afraid of flying.
The first Banking Tradeshow trip to Chicago I flew on a DC-9. And it totally surprised me ..it was so smooth compared to the small planes I was use to in the past. After we landed, a man that was sitting beside me said that the flight we just experienced was probable one of the roughest rides I would experience. Well, compared to the small one engine airplanes I had flown in in the past it was not rough to me at all.
This first Trade show was in Chicago at one of the larger hotels in downtown , like the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Our semi-trucks that carried our display to the show had arrived and there were special union men called “Dredge Men” to unload the display crates.
I had to make all arrangements for the men needed to assemble our display All of the men that worked at the Show that assembled our display were Union workers and I was flatly told I was not to lift a finger to help them do anything in assembling the display. I was only suppose to supervise the assembly from the assembly plans drawn on a sheet of paper that I had brought with me. The cost of everything was outrageous, for example, a roll of silver duck-tape cost $30 and was added to the costs we were charged to assemble the display.
I will stop here and finish next Blog.
