22. READY FOR THE BAD NEWS

During the past few years in Charlotte, I really played a lot of golf and took a lot of golf trips. I even went to Scotland on a 13-day golf trip that was probably the best trip ever. Glen Youngblood, one of my good friends and customers arranged the trip and I convinced my best friend, Jack Setliff to come along. He talked a friend of his from Danville, Earl Stogner to go along and complete our foursome. We flew to Boston and I arranged the hotel reservations for the night along with a golf tee time at Newton, Massachusetts. After playing golf in Newton, we flew out the next morning for Shannon, Ireland, and then on to Scotland for 12 days of the best golf in the world. The food was great as were all the accommodations in every place we stayed. This was a trip none of us will ever forget.

All the good things I had been experiencing, as had Barbara, was about to come to a screeching halt since Servomation was selling out to Allegheny Beverage Corporation based in Washington, D.C. Morton Lipidas, who also owned several Pepsi Cola operations and had just purchased Servomation’s fiercest competitor, the Macke Company, owned Allegheny Beverage. The sale was completed in a few short weeks and the changes we had been assured would not happen suddenly started to happen. The company’s name at that time became Service America Corporation.

The first item on their agenda was to have a meeting with all Servomation managers to announce that we were making too much money and would be receiving no raises until the Macke managers caught up. What an introduction to a new company! One could only assume this was to bring forth some resignations, as well it did. In just a few short weeks while most of the Servomation managers were contemplating their next move, everyone received a letter from Morton Lipidas suspending all vacations and time-offs that had been scheduled. He had already cancelled the ‘cruise ship’ that Alan Lucht, Servomation president, had reserved for our next meeting and forfeited a $150,000 deposit that had been fronted. The letter firmly stated that no one would be allowed time off until every single entity of the company was in perfect shape as regards to proper pricing and profitability. The instruction was that when you get your area of responsibility at the acceptance level, then you should go and help the others get theirs right. It was one of the absolute worst letters I had ever received and everyone else felt the same.

Sam Brown, who was the district manager in Greeneville, S.C., and a very close friend of mine, agreed to meet with me to decide what we should do. After discussion, we decided to contact Gene Rountree, owner of Food Service, Inc. in Columbia, S.C. and discuss the possibility of a partnership in our respective areas. We met with Gene and came to an agreement with him where he would be fronting the majority of the necessary cash to set up Branches in Greenville S.C. and Charlotte, N.C.

Figure 52 - Barbara Dillard, Sam and Elaine Brown during visit to Danville in 1991.

Sam and I gave a 30-days notice and joined Gene in forming a new company named “Food Service”. We began calling on accounts and getting them. We rented office and warehouse space and were well under way. I had hired Ted Randall, my former service manager, as operations manager as well as maintenance and route manager. In other words, Ted did it all, even counted the money and deposited it in the bank. I also hired W. H. Griffin, my former route supervisor as route man and warehouse man. I had a real efficient 3-man operation

After about a year of this, I became disillusioned since I felt obligated to share in the night calls. After a few of those 2:00 a.m. calls to come replenish a dollar changer, I decided I was too old to start over and began considering other options.

I made an agreement with Gene and Sam to buy me out and pay me monthly over a two-year period. They agreed and I wound up at my old company with my old friends. The only change was that it was now called Consolidated Coin Caterers Corporation (or for short, 4-Cs). It was the past vending affiliate of Coca-Cola Charlotte known then as Carolina Coin Caterers Corporation and had been bought by Shields Harvey and a group of others including many of their employees. I joined them in 1987 and was really impressed with the entire operation. They had a brand new facility with the finest commissary for food preparation I had ever seen. The offices and furnishings were also second to none.

It was great to get back with someone that was more in the mode of Bill Whitaker and always took the high road by going first class. Shields had always been that way. It was first class or no class as far as he was concerned. He gave me the title of ‘Major Accounts and Governmental Affairs Executive’. My assignment was to call on super large accounts only and lobby the politicians in Raleigh. This required me to travel a lot but I did love the job. I replaced Al Aldridge, a good friend of mine for years, who had just passed away.

After working for about a year, Shields asked me to come to his office for a talk. He proceeded to advise me that he had sold the company to Canteen Corporation. Canteen was at that time the largest food service company in the United States and was known as a first class company on a par with Servomation. This made me very happy since I knew a lot of Canteen management people and knew their reputations. Shields went on to say that he didn’t want to sell but they made such an offer, he could not refuse. He said he made so much money; he wouldn’t be able to spend the interest. I quickly offered to help if help was needed. Shields made a real deal by getting a five-year contract at full pay and no real duties to perform. He also kept his expense account, which was considerable. The first thing he did was to buy a stretch Lincoln limo. He would not, however bring it to the office. He would take it to vending association meetings where Barbara, as well as many of our friends and I, had occasion to ride it out to dinner or other places of interest.

After about six months of this, Shields was banned from Canteen property because Ed Williams, vice president in charge of the area felt he was financing some of his former employees in starting a new vending business; this was not true, but Shields didn’t care since he hardly ever came to the office anyway. He would keep up with things by calling me and I would tell him anything I felt would not betray the company.

I teamed up with Shields and we were successful in getting the Kelly- Springfield account in Fayetteville from Service America. This was a feather in our caps since it involved three million dollars in annual sales. It did not, however, change Ed Williams' feelings about Shields. Shortly afterwards I was assigned a sales territory that covered from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach. With my expense account still intact, this suited me to a tee and I mean a golf tee since Myrtle Beach, as stated earlier, was and is my favorite golfing area.

I was given a budget goal of three million dollars in sales in 1989. By March of 1989, I had signed or installed a projected 2.3 million in sales. We were required to turn in a weekly report showing the number of calls, how many were face-to-face meetings with prospects and the results of the meetings. I was one that believed in results rather than numbers so I did not list a lot of contacts that meant nothing; instead, I would concentrate on those that would yield results. Apparently, Ed Williams did not share my views for he called me in for a meeting and suggested that I could never achieve my budget goal with results as shown on my report. He felt I was not making enough calls and continued to have that feeling even after I pointed out my three months results. What a dumbbell he was.

Ed was overheard to say during a meeting that Jim O’Conner, one of his managers, was too old for the job and would be replaced. I overheard it myself, but left it to others to tell Jim. Someone told him after he was fired and he immediately sued Canteen and got a nice settlement. The last time I saw Ed, he had lost his job, probably because of Jim O’Conner.


Figure 53 - Woody and Rita Reeves, great friends of Barbara and me.

Directly after my meeting with Ed Williams, I called my good friend Woody Reeves in Danville and asked if he would be interested in me and if so, I felt I could help him attain the Goodyear account in Danville. [Woody was President and one-half owner in Piedmont Vendors, an offshoot of Pepsi Cola]. This was an account I had been working on and it was a sister plant of Kelly-Springfield. I had developed a good relationship with their personnel manager, Ben Miller, who had become one of my golfing pals. I felt sure Woody and I could win him over from his current vendor, that happened to be Greyhound Food Services. Woody seemed excited and suggested I come up to Danville and sit down with his partner, Bill Aiken to discuss it. I arranged a trip to Danville the next day and after discussions with Woody and Bill, accepted the job of major accounts executive. Woody immediately arranged for me to pick up my brand new automobile in Hickory, N.C. It was a 1990 Chevrolet Brougham and was a real beauty. In addition, I received an expense account that was never questioned, nor abused. He also agreed to pay all moving expenses that saved me about $3,500.00.
Woody and I were great friends and had been friendly competitors for many years. We had served on the convention board together, had been to Bermuda and Jamaica together, as well as many other various endeavors.

I returned to Charlotte the next day and submitted my letter of resignation, giving 30 days notice. I knew they would not want me to stay on for 30 days since I was going to compete with them, but felt they would pay me for the time and they did.

I had my friend, Zed Bradley, a long time employee with Coca-Cola and their various vending enterprises take me to Hickory to pick up the car. Zed seemed sort of envious at my new opportunity since he was becoming disenchanted with Ed also.

After briefing Canteen personnel on the accounts that would need attention, which took one day, I took off for Danville to begin what I considered my ‘retirement position’.