18. JOINING SERVOMATION

About two weeks after Shields was promoted to Bob’s position, I received a call from Denny Drake, region manager for Servomation in the Carolinas. His office was in Asheville and he wanted me to meet him the next day at Howard Johnson’s on High Point Road in Greensboro. This was only about six blocks from my office. We met and I was offered the district general manager’s job for the Fayetteville district. We discussed salary and their bonus plans and other items of interest concerning Servomation. After agreement was reached with my wife’s consent we then visited Fayetteville. Barbara and I picked out a split-level house on Player Avenue in Fayetteville and enjoyed the area very much.

We did not, however, like Fayetteville since the crime rate was so high. It was a rare week that a body was not found somewhere on Fort Bragg property.
Figure 47 - 3010 Player Ave., Fayetteville, approximately 1976

As with our first move, Blain was very unhappy about the move since he had all his new friends in the Greensboro area where we had only lived for 15 months. He was just getting used to them and hated to leave them in the worst kind of way. We finally convinced him it was the right thing to do and that he would be happy once the move was made. We had hardly moved in before he met many new friends, was quite happy, and would remain so for the three years we would be in Fayetteville.

Figure 48 - Fayetteville house

My initial concern was Roy Taylor who prior to my arrival was branch manager of Fayetteville that was then a branch of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, district. My assignment was to turn it in to a district operation with all the required support staff needed. This was designed to sever all contacts with Rocky Mount and Lloyd Nelms, Rocky Mount district manager. I was truly impressed with Roy and his abilities to get things done. Although I am sure he had some bad feelings towards me for coming in and taking over his operation, I tried to use that to my advantage by heeding his advice at every turn. I quickly found that he was much more often right that wrong. We developed a very good relationship and I took him and his wife Carol to the convention that first year. He had not been allowed to participate while working under Lloyd Nelms. Our relationship grew to the point we became masters at getting customers to agree with our requests. Because of this relationship, Fayetteville’s profits grew by leaps and bounds.

I had good feelings about Servomation and my future with them. These feelings were justified after the first year when I received my bonus. It was $23,000, much more than any one-year’s salary with Coca-Cola. I elected to share this with my operations manager, Roy Taylor [$8,000] and my controller, Judy White [$5,000]. My feelings were that they helped me earn it and they should share in it.

Denny Drake told me that so long as my Fayetteville profits were 10% pre-tax, he didn’t care if I never came to the office. They stayed above 10% so often that most days, I would call in on the radio and check for messages and then head for the golf course. It was a wonderful job with a great company and I regretted not having joined it years earlier. Had I done so, I think I could have become a millionaire prior to retirement.

A few weeks after moving to Fayetteville, I received a letter from John Brown inviting Barbara and I to a five-day meeting in Miami Beach. I could not believe it. In all my years with Coca-Cola, the wives of managers were not included except at the manager’s expense and here was Servomation actually inviting them. This was a wonderful introduction to a wonderful company and showed that they were first class all the way.

The first day included a golf tournament at the Doral Country Club. This was a dream of mine since it was and is one of the most popular golf courses in the United States and I had always wanted to play it. I met many new friends and associates there from all over the United States.

That evening, after golf, several groups split up and Barbara and I wound up in the company of John Brown, Denny Drake [my boss], and several others. John toasted Barbara and I several times and continued to welcome us to Servomation. It was truly an unbelievable event and was enjoyed by everyone, especially Barbara and me. We dined at the Starlight Roof, which was one of the finest places we had ever seen..

When we returned to our room at the Fountaine Bleu Hotel, there was a gift for each of us. I received a Samsonite suit bag and Barbara received a figurine that was shaped like an eagle and seemed quite expensive. The entire trip was something one would normally just dream about. The good thing about it was the fact that this was not just for show; they did it all the time and kept their people happy.

Servomation not only kept their employees happy, they spent untold numbers of dollars entertaining customers. We would have in each district a customer golf tournament each year at a local golf course. In addition, each year, several districts would join together and take a total of about 100 customers on a four-day golf trip to such places as Fripp Island or Seabrook in South Carolina. We would take our own cooks to prepare the food and the customers would be treated to the finest in all types of entertainment so long as it was legal. It was truly unreal and was greatly appreciated by everyone that participated. It also gave us an advantage when requesting price adjustments in the participant’s places of business.

I really enjoyed Servomation and the Fayetteville District. Denny Drake was a great person to work for and was very generous in every respect. He was odd in some ways though since he used a shopping bag for luggage most of the time. I recall one night; he caught a Piedmont flight from Fayetteville to his home in Asheville. The plane had a stopover in Charlotte, flew on to Asheville and then deadheaded back to Portsmouth, Virginia. As fate would have it, Denny had fallen asleep and was lying down in the rear of the plane and wound up in Portsmouth. These were just two of the many quirks Denny was famous for. It would make an interesting book if one were written about Denny.

After almost three years in Fayetteville, Barbara ands I approached our 25th anniversary which occurred on June 9, 1975. With a joint effort from Beverly, Blain, and Jean we had a wonderful anniversary party at Jean’s house. It was lovely with all our families in attendance and was truly appreciated by both Barbara and me.

Figure 49 - Our 25th anniversary at Neal's home – June 9, 1974. Pictured left to right: Randy Yarbrough, Edith Yarbrough, Henry Dillard, Lena Foster,[Henry’s Mom] Robert Dixon, Rachael Dixon, Blain Dillard, Patty Neal,[in rear] Beverly Dillard, Barbara Dillard, Jean Neal, Elsie Haskins, Calvin Neal, Michael Neal, Annie Ma Wilkinson, Yancey Wilkinson, David Wilkinson, Barry Neal, Charlotte Wilkinson and Ralph Wilkinson.

After three years in Fayetteville, Bill Whitaker, who had replaced Denny Drake as region manager, offered me the district manager’s position in Charlotte, N.C. Denny had decided to move to Missouri and take a district manager’s position and Bill had moved to Greensboro and made it his region office. Bill was a great person to work with and truly believed in promoting from within and compensating good performance. He was much more professional than Denny and carried with him, a first class attitude; this is what you always saw in him. He was first class all the way and did not believe in cheapness.

This was a much larger operation with branches in Lancaster and Florence, S.C., and obviously had more earning potential for me, which was always a welcome factor. After visiting Charlotte and negotiating moving expenses it was time to approach Blain about moving again. He was really unhappy this time. He had so many friends in Fayetteville and simply hated leaving them. There was a lot of conversation before he became convinced this was the right thing to do. Barbara and I had just scheduled a trip to Nashville to visit the Grand Ol’ Opry and we even got him a plane ticket to accompany us in spite of the fact he despised country music. However, he did enjoy the trip. We took a bus tour of the stars’ homes and the driver asked if anyone on the bus did not like country music. Blain raised his hand and the driver said, “You are in the wrong city.”

A short while before leaving Fayetteville, Barbara and I decided to go on an organized tour to Hawaii. We asked my controller, Judy White, to stay with Blain while we were gone and she graciously did so. She was a great person and a real friend. She was also very talented and managed to get promoted to the Atlanta office as assistant controller a short while after I left Fayetteville.

We decided to get in touch with Joe and Clara Chattin, our former neighbors from Gray Street whom we had not seen for years, but continued to correspond with. We arranged our return flight to layover in Los Angeles for three days with them.

They had not changed very much and we recognized them immediately when they met us at the airport. They had a very small house in Manhattan Beach and although it was extremely small and the yard just barely had room for their automobile and pickup truck, it was quite valuable. I think they had been offered something like $500,000 for it. Had it been mine, I would have sold it and moved back to Virginia, however, should they sell it and remain out there, they would have problems since they probably could not replace it for that amount of money.

We had dinner at their house the first night and planned what to do the next day. Since Clara was scheduled to work, it was decided that Joe would take us on a tour of Los Angeles. We took off early on Thursday morning and visited many places including the Hollywood Stars’ Walk of Fame, Universal Studios, Will Rogers Ranch, and J. Paul Getty’s Museum to name a few.

That night, we again had dinner at their house and discussed plans for the next day when Clara would join us. They suggested either we go to Mexico or Las Vegas. We opted for Las Vegas and the next morning we were off across the desert for the 200 plus miles of driving on Joe’s Chevrolet Impala.

The motel signs read vacancy with super deals and I kept suggesting we stop at one of them, but Joe kept waiting for a better deal closer to town. As we drove through the city, the vacancy signs started disappearing and were replaced with “No Vacancy” signs. We wound up not sleeping at all but eating and playing the nickel slot machines all night before departing for Los Angeles the next morning around 6:00 A. M.

We arrived home in the early afternoon and I suggested a nap and then I would take them to dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf. We there around 7:00 P. M. and the line was so long we sought out some other eating place which turned out to be a Mexican Fast Food Restaurant. That probably saved me a hundred dollars or more.

The next morning they took us to the airport and we were on our way back to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

About six months after returned home and after moving to Char;otte, Barbara called me at the office one day and said I should come home as soon as possible to mow the lawn and help her straighten up the house since Joe had just called and said they were on the way to visit us from Danville. I rushed home and did all that work just before the phone rang again. It was Joe and he had made an error in judging the distance and decided it was too far for them to come after all.
They have visited us on two occasions since we retired in Danville and do not seem to have changed much other that growing gracefully older as are we.