Adventurous 99 year old Pete Scotese | American Businessman | Vance Crowe Podcast Episode 34

Vance Crowe [00:00:01] So I just wanna have a really quick conversation with just the podcast listeners, the YouTube channel, where you can actually see me and Pete in his apartment doing this interview. They're, they're not gonna hear this. This is just for the people that pick it up on audio. Thanks for coming along for this journey. This conversation that I'm about to have is with a man named Pete Scot, and he is a, a wonderful human being, and it is with a great deal of humility that I put forward a podcast with Pete because he is so impactful and he has made such a big difference to me that I wanted other people to be able to see it. And I know how difficult it is to take wisdom and to distill it into bite-sized things for the internet. You know, recording a podcast, it's hard to replicate the mentor mentee conversation and make it one that would be interesting for other people. But I, I tried to stop and ask myself, what are the questions that I don't think to ask Pete? Because it's a little intimidating to ask, or that I know what his answers are. I, I, I know that there's some insight there. I maybe don't know how he got all of that insight, but I know, I know what's down there. And so I tried to have a conversation where I included listener questions. So many of you saw either on Facebook or on Twitter after I asked about, Hey, who has questions for my 99-year-old mentor about looking back on his last 100 years?

Vance Crowe [00:01:34] And people had great questions. And so essentially, I sat down and asked him a lot of those questions and tried to make it into a conversation that people could enjoy, but would still be that high context conversation that I have with my mentor. So, if we make references that you don't quite understand, I hope you stay with us. I, I tried to make it as open and non-specific as possible, but sometimes it's gonna happen that way. But as you're beginning this podcast, I, I want you to know that Pete didn't need to credential himself during the conversation. We just started talking. But he started out as an orphan, worked his way up in, in his boarding school, essentially, to joining the military and becoming an officer, and then becoming a celebrated war hero. There, there are literally parades that have happened in Amsterdam because he rescued the leader of the Dutch resistance. And Pete is a beloved businessman. I I've seen letters of people writing to him saying, one of the saddest days of their lives was when they realized he was leaving Milwaukee because he had made such a big impact on it. And Pete is adored by people, young and old today. When I go out to New York, I am often having to schedule in between many, many other people that travel from all over the United States, really even all over the world to come see Pete. So imagine the experience of being a man that is 99, almost 100 years old, and he brings so much excitement and joy into the world that people fall all over themselves to get out and go see him.

Vance Crowe [00:03:17] And usually it's to have an afternoon lunch, or maybe just spend some time sitting around his table talking. It is in his Manhattan apartment. It overlooks the UN and Trump Tower. And so it is a beautiful place, and we sit there and have conversations and people from artists that are young and old musicians. I mean, just for one example, you know, you can go in Pete's house and, and you can see that he has photographs with him. And Botero, who is for a lot of people in St. Louis, he's the artist that made the sculpture of the really fat man or woman riding a horse down in Clayton St. Louis. It's a famous sculpture, and it's, it's a really bizarre one. But Pete was on the edge of culture. He knew artists. He is famous for having given Ansel Adams, one of the first awards for doing traveling photography. So paying, using company money to be able to support the arts. And part of those arts supported Ansel Adams, which if you think about how forward thinking you'd have to be at that time, to have been one of the first people to have found Ansel Adams, that's a, that, that means you're doing something. And as the CEO of the largest textile manufacturing company in the world, he made them incredibly profitable and went on to do many, many other things. He's in fashion. He's the chairman emus of FIT in New York City. He is just extraordinary in every single way that you can imagine.

Vance Crowe [00:04:50] He was a devoted husband that has taught me so much about what it is to love a woman, what it is to care in a family, what the different roles are, and how there are times when a child has to leave behind what their parents think and go on their own. And so, I am so, so proud to be able to share this conversation with you guys. And it really all comes down to some really generous support from St. Louis Bank. And I'm, I'm proud to say that Travis, the president of St. Louis Bank, has actually met Pete before he became president, before the, the deal was officially signed and the money was spent to purchase the shares in the company. Travis went out to New York, New York with me, and we sat down with Pete for two days and talked to all about business and about how to structure and how to be a manager, and how to handle challenging situations and how to make sure you were making the right decision. And so Travis knows how valuable time with Pete is, and Travis is the, at the helm of St. Louis Bank, which has generously supported me and this podcast. And so I just want to say thank you to those guys, because the ability to grab that with three cameras to do a pretty good job with the audio, I think I made a minor mistake, but I'm, but any case, it, it really sounds great, and it is all because they believe in what I'm doing in the value of capturing good conversations, and they were excited to share it with you.

Vance Crowe [00:06:28] So if you are the type of person that's building something in St. Louis, and you wanna find other people that are in the business world that find value in people like Pete, and you'll hear how valuable Pete is, then you know, I, I would say try and contact St. Louis Bank. Those are the people that are thinking the way that Pete thinks about things. And, and I think they'd be proud of being associated with Pete, because I know he's proud of what Travis has done for the community of St. Louis by keeping that bank going. So I'm gonna sign off for now. Join the podcast. I'm gonna go straight into an introduction and then we will head into there. Thank you so much. And I will see you on Friday for another episode of As the Crow Flies.

Pete Scotese [00:07:14] Yeah, I was a pretty bad boy.

Vance Crowe [00:07:17] I went over the wall

Pete Scotese [00:07:18] For 10 days. I was caught smoking in the shower room. I punched a counselor. Oh, I also went in the new chapel while it was being built, and went up in the rafters, threw a crowbar at a watchman, and so they exit, were gonna exit me. My mother come in and pleaded with him to keep me, gimme another chance. And this teacher, Dr. James Day, white, white, said, I'm taking Peter. I think he has a lot of good quality. I'll take responsibility for him from here on out, if you'll give him another chance. This is the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:08:02] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we are with my mentor and longtime friend, 99-year-old Pete Scotus. Pete, welcome to the podcast.

Pete Scotese [00:08:14] Glad to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:08:15] So I put out on Twitter and Facebook that you and I were going to sit down and talk my mentor that helped me learn how to be a professional in the world and how to be a man of integrity. And I asked, what questions would you have for a person that's turning 100 years old this year? And I got a whole bunch of questions, but I thought maybe a good one to start on is actually something that you and I have talked about several times, and it's really pretty personal, but it's something that everybody faces, which is, what do you think happens when you die?

Pete Scotese [00:08:56] I've thought about it a great deal. It's a damn good question. And it's in a lot of people's minds. It's hard to answer. I don't really have a point, a strong point of view about it. We do have a universe. I do feel that there's a, a greater force in the universe whether the force is religious or, or whatever. And it's kind of been puzzling to me as to what might happen in the Catholic church. Of course, I grew up with a notion that you either went to hell, purgatory or heaven. I've kind of outgrown, I wouldn't say outgrown, but I find that difficult to absorb at this stage in my life. And while I've allowed myself to dwell on the answer to your question, when I read from Einstein's book my out of my later years and figure out that he hasn't figured it out yet, I don't waste a hell of a lot of time, I figured if he couldn't figure it out, it's probably not gonna be difficult to me.

Pete Scotese [00:10:34] And I think it's one of the things that I, as I look forward to my own demise, I I am concerned that there's a probability that I will never again be in contact with friends, family, relatives that I've gotten to know over a lifetime and that I being cremated. I just wonder if I go into, I, I would say that maybe the Buddhism philosophy of nothingness is the, is is what I'll be in nothingness, but nothingness can be ecstasy. And so I kind of semi rationalize my feeling is being one where I go into a nothingness, which would be equivalent to you're going to bed at night, getting into a deep sleep and not waking up. I've had the experience of, of, of, of the tunnel, the tunnel of light, which had been written up, and where people feel themselves going down a light tunnel when they're dying and into this magnificent resplendent room and get a very ecstatic feeling.

Pete Scotese [00:12:25] And then the lights go out. And I thought I was u unique in having that experience, but I talk to someone who interprets dreams. They put me online, and I found out a lot of people have that vision of a tunnel of light.

Vance Crowe [00:12:42] When did that happen? What was going on? That

Pete Scotese [00:12:44] Happened about 10 years ago. Interestingly, the director of spiritual welfare at Marquette, father John Naus, who was a Jesuit priest, was a house guest of mine when that happened.

Vance Crowe [00:13:01] Oh, really?

Pete Scotese [00:13:04] But I thought nothing evident it, I never even talked to him about it. I just said, gee, that was a funny dream. So I I I've walked all around your question and I haven't given you an answer, except that I think it, I'm not capable of giving you an answer. I'm only capable of giving my feeling.

Vance Crowe [00:13:28] You know, you said that you talked about your friendships and all of your family that you would want to see again.

Pete Scotese [00:13:35] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:13:36] Friendship and family is maybe the biggest part of your life now. Yeah. What do you think you've learned or what has changed about the way thought about friendship now that you're 99? Yeah. As opposed to when you were, say, my age at 38?

Pete Scotese [00:13:50] Yeah. I, I think as I got older in my later years since friends are family, you choose, I found that my friendships were every bit as strong emotionally and otherwise with friends as they were and are with family. So friends became a vital part of my existence for that reason. Yeah. And I, I, in, in my case, I thought about friends in categories, and one way I would categorize a friend would be, in my own mind, if I were committed to a destination for eternity, and I could take my family, my immediate family, and five friends with me for the rest of time, who would I take among my friend? And it was a way of kind of sorting out who might be the most important. And it couldn't be a someone who was demise. And I often, and I, I thought, well, you know, I, I would hate to limit it to five because when I look back on life, I have a whole trial, a whole trail of people who I were friends, mentors, and who I would not wish to give up if I had any choices at all.

Vance Crowe [00:15:44] Did you notice any patterns emerge about the type of people you considered for those five?

Pete Scotese [00:15:51] They were always people who had leadership qualities where I learned where they had a side to them experience wise and otherwise, which was different from mine. So I would, could learn a great deal from them and where their interests were broad, not narrow and deep, so that we could talk on a broad range of subjects when we were talking both personal, whether it was in the field of art or business or, or whatever. So there are people with very broad ranging interests and not, not narrow and deep in how they lived in thought.

Vance Crowe [00:16:45] Much of what I learned about friendship as an adult came from you and I speaking a lot about various problems that I would have or right. Challenges that you face along the way. What, what changed with you over time with, with the friendships that you were able to cultivate as an older person as opposed to when you were a young person?

Pete Scotese [00:17:13] The question is, I mean, what

Vance Crowe [00:17:15] You difference?

Pete Scotese [00:17:16] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:17:16] I mean, you have still many, many friendships, but they're

Pete Scotese [00:17:19] Different

Vance Crowe [00:17:20] Now in some way.

Pete Scotese [00:17:23] I find in my older friendships, I was more on the tutoring giving hand and not the recipient as much as it was in the earlier friendships. So it was, I was kind of moving from mentoree to mentor, but assembling, collecting friends in the same way, but with a different, not a different purpose, but with different conversations, different discussions, different outputs and inputs.

Vance Crowe [00:18:19] Ever since I've known you, we have, you have surrounded yourself with many, many young people. I was around, but there were many other Yeah. And a lot of them. Beautiful young women and people excited about life and in into the arts. I think you are living the dream of an older person. How did you continue to be able to find and cultivate relationships with young people as you got older and older? Most old people, older people don't, don't have those relationships.

Pete Scotese [00:18:53] Well, interestingly, many of the people you're talking about, the younger were members of second, third, and even fourth generation of people that, my wife and I, my wife of 75 years. And I knew way back, way, way back. And after Millie died, the children of the people that Bill and I knew chose to stay in touch with me, and then the children's children did it and be and beyond that. But as we grew and developed our, our relationship, they seemed to come to me for advice and counsel. But they also would suggest to their friends that, Hey, you got a problem. You may want to talk to Pete about

Vance Crowe [00:19:48] It. I do that.

Pete Scotese [00:19:49] So I think the, I was fortunate enough to, to become kind of a, a mentor to a lot of people who were close to me, but who had friends that were close to them, and they felt my benefit from these kinds of discussion. And I've enjoyed doing that. And it's more importantly, I guess it's, it's, I've benefited from the fact that many of them are so much younger that I'm learning a lot about, I am learning a lot about the younger generation and the way they act and behave and think and feel emotion. And otherwise,

Vance Crowe [00:20:37] There are two qualities that you have that I think make you a person that people are drawn to that for many reasons. You have a lot of wisdom. But there's two things I think in particular. The first one is you have almost no judgment of people. Like if they're doing something that is not without integrity, you don't have time for that. But when people have a completely different way of living their life Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:21:02] You're

Vance Crowe [00:21:02] Very open to that. And the other thing that you do that I find extraordinary is if I were to say, Hey, we're thinking about coming to visit you, you always say, okay, get out your calendar, get your pencil out. You never wait to get things scheduled. Right. That seems to me to be one of the things that was really important to you having all these relationships, is you didn't put off scheduling.

Pete Scotese [00:21:26] Do you agree with that? That's a good point. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about it, but I think if you're sincere about people visiting or whatever, you shouldn't say, all right, let's do it. Let's put it on the account. Let's make it happen.

Vance Crowe [00:21:41] Yeah. And I think most people,

Pete Scotese [00:21:43] And not just lead people on,

Vance Crowe [00:21:44] Right. Do you ever tell people you don't wanna see them? I mean, like, 'cause my experience with you has always

Pete Scotese [00:21:49] Been talking about, no, I'll say, I can't see you then, but let's make a another date within the next day or two or now. Because I think by indicating by not doing that, you're indicating that they're, that you're not anxious to proceed and have a relationship or, or to see them to

Vance Crowe [00:22:14] Prioritize it. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:22:16] So I, I that's, that's a good point you made. I think if you wanna be sincere with people and they, then you've got to be very positive about those kinds of reactions. Yes, I do wanna see you. Yes. Let's make the date. So you're indicating then by that alone, hey, you're, you're, you're important to this guy or to this girl, or to this.

Vance Crowe [00:22:42] Yeah. My natural reaction is to procrastinate, putting something down on the calendar. But since I've made the observation that that's one of the ways that you've kept so many good relationships, well, has really made a big difference to me. Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:22:56] When,

Vance Crowe [00:22:58] When I look around at the world right now, it seems crazy, right? We're right across from Trump Tower over there. Right. And we know that the UN and the US have all these problems. It seems hyper chaotic, but that may just be because it's the present day and it always feels chaotic with a hundred years of time. Do you feel like now is a particularly chaotic, dangerous time? Or is this just the cycle of life?

Pete Scotese [00:23:32] I'm not sure it's more chaotic, but I'm double damn sure that it's, that we're being more informed about the chaos. Oh. And I think the difference was in the early days, 50, a hundred years, we did not have the means of instant communication that we now have. We didn't have the tools of relating that we now have, and more importantly, that we have on the horizon, whether it's a one or, or cloud computing or 3D printing or whatever. And I think you've struck on another vital point, and that is the speed with which information technology e is changing our coming on stream A and changing the lives of everyone on the planet. A huge tsunami of information and information gathering and information cascading that people are gonna have to sort through.

Vance Crowe [00:24:50] Yeah. It seems like it was the automatic, it seemed like everybody believed, Hey, when the internet comes and we can all be connected with one another, right.

Pete Scotese [00:24:58] That

Vance Crowe [00:24:58] It will by just default be good. Right. It will all be positive.

Pete Scotese [00:25:02] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:25:03] And we did not predict, at least when I was in first grade, or you know, sixth grade when people were talking about the internet, nobody said, well, one of the consequences that's gonna come is you're gonna know and be outraged about things that are so far away from you. And yet that be, that will become a part of your life because you're so interconnected with information.

Pete Scotese [00:25:22] Yeah. Among other things.

Vance Crowe [00:25:23] Among other things.

Pete Scotese [00:25:25] And the other thing is what the internet can promote. That's like, I think the New York Times devoted one or two pages to the promotion of child pornography because of the internet.

Vance Crowe [00:25:39] Right.

Pete Scotese [00:25:40] And their ability to reach the predator's, ability to reach children directly. So it, the Internet's creating, as I said earlier, a tsunami of problems as well as opportunity.

Vance Crowe [00:25:59] It's interesting that so many young people come to you to ask for advice, whether they're jazz musicians or artists or students or business, because you are not a part of the day-to-day hustle of, of 3D printing

Pete Scotese [00:26:16] And

Vance Crowe [00:26:16] Virtual reality and these things. Why do you think people are so drawn to mentors that have such long time?

Pete Scotese [00:26:23] Because I think they're looking for an anchor that's, that's, that's not emotion emotionally that, that, that drive not their emotions, but, but their logic. They're looking for more things that are more constant in their lives. And I, I think they find that I'm living and have lived a life that I've enjoyed thoroughly left large footprint. And that they have that kind of a life to look forward to. Also, if they navigate properly through this labyrinth of information technology, that's, that's creating so much in the, in the way of uncertainties at every level of everything they do. So it's comforting for them to talk to someone who, in this climate of uncertainty, can offer basic advice and also lay some of the fears they have about their own futures, about jobs, about their passion, or about what they wanna do 10 years from now, five years from now, about their employment and the what they like about it or don't like about it.

Pete Scotese [00:28:05] So I, I represent the past with an understanding of the future.

Vance Crowe [00:28:11] Yeah. I think that's

Pete Scotese [00:28:12] Absolutely

Vance Crowe [00:28:13] Right. Yeah. You've probably had to hear the same questions and concerns from

Pete Scotese [00:28:17] Exactly

Vance Crowe [00:28:18] All the young people that walk in here.

Pete Scotese [00:28:20] And I think their parents in many cases do not do that. Their parents try to, particularly with millennials, I find that the parents often will try to, I won't call it manipulate, but we'll try to guide their children through channels that, that they're comfortable, they, the parents are comfortable with, because it works for them. And I often counsel with parents about the fact that their children have grown up in a totally different environment, and that they should give them slack as my grand, my son says, in coming to their own conclusion over time. I think that's probably the single biggest rift between teenagers and parents, particularly among the younger generation where they

Vance Crowe [00:29:20] Yeah. Even people in their twenties. I mean, that Oh yeah. That's where it really comes to a head now.

Pete Scotese [00:29:24] Yeah. Right on up.

Vance Crowe [00:29:26] What did you find difficult about being a, a mentor? I mean, like, you, you have to watch people navigate and go through, I mean, there are times in my life where you were watching me have no idea what I was gonna do.

Pete Scotese [00:29:38] Yeah. Well, you say, what, what was your question? What

Vance Crowe [00:29:41] Is difficult about being a mentor?

Pete Scotese [00:29:43] No, nothing as far as I'm concerned.

Vance Crowe [00:29:45] Well, that's great.

Pete Scotese [00:29:46] I mean, I don't fret about it. I don't, I think I'm comfortable in the advice I give because I never give, I never suggested this is what you should do.

Vance Crowe [00:30:01] That's right.

Pete Scotese [00:30:02] I think my a a advice is always based on my own life, here are some alternatives in where in the set of circumstances you just described might work for you. Think about them, but think about others that might come up while you do that. So I never say, I think what you should do is it. And parents have a tendency to say, here's what you should do. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:28] You can't resist. And

Pete Scotese [00:30:29] I say, I think, so what I offer most is a potpourri of recommendation that they can choose from that works for me. That might lead them to use one of 'em or may give them an idea for, for, for another approach to the

Vance Crowe [00:30:49] Who was, who was a pivotal mentor to you as you were growing up?

Pete Scotese [00:30:53] Well, I had, I, I was very fortunate because I didn't have a father. My father died shortly after I was born. I was, went to an orphanage where for nine years. And we had excellent teachers and some of them stayed in my memory and were mentors long after I left the institution. One was a, a teacher named Dr. James White, who influenced my life when I was in there. Matter of fact, saved me from getting kicked out of the institution and became a friend for the rest. Wait,

Vance Crowe [00:31:31] Wait. Saved you from getting kicked out. What did you do?

Pete Scotese [00:31:33] Well, I did. I was a pretty bad boy. I went over the wall for 10 days. I was caught smoking in the shower room. I punched a counselor. Oh. I also went in the new chapel while it was being built and went up in the rafters, threw a crowbar at a watchman. And so they exit, were gonna exit me. My mother come in and pleaded with him to keep me, gimme another chance. And this teacher, Dr. James Day, white, white, said, I'm taking Peter. I think he has a lot of good quality. I'll take responsibility for him from here on out if you'll give him another chance. At that point, I had two very objectable and three unsatisfactory, which meant out you go. What I never knew until after I graduated was that when I was put into Girard College, first grade, that my mother had to sign an indenture paper, the same enslaved, I was indentured to that college. She could not interfere with my life or they would kick me out.

Vance Crowe [00:32:47] Wow.

Pete Scotese [00:32:47] I had to, I had to live under their structure, their methodology. Best thing ever happened to me. I could still see her and do all the other things, but they, she could not interfere with what they did and how they did it.

Vance Crowe [00:33:02] What ultimately got you to straighten up? Because there's a sword in there of you being the drill instructor for the whole

Pete Scotese [00:33:09] Yeah. Well, as I, as I, after I repented and I went, turned around, became a good boy, I became captain of my battalion. I became a member of the National Honors Society, became head of the yearbook, captain of the gym team. So I did convert rather rapidly to doing things that were more constructive.

Vance Crowe [00:33:38] What do you think was driving you to be the type of person that was getting in trouble in the first place?

Pete Scotese [00:33:44] Adventure. Just, I wouldn't use the, but it would adventure. Matter of fact, when I went over the wall, I was over for 10 days and finally got so hungry, got tired of stealing bread from the storefront, and was getting hungry. I flagged the police car and asked them to take me back home. Take me to Gerard. And they said, why'd you come back? I said, because I'm hungry. They, I got news for you. There's a epidemic of of, to help then what? There was an epidemic and you're gonna have to be quarantined for 48 hours and you can't eat anything.

Vance Crowe [00:34:26] And so after you were hungry enough to come home, they told you you will go two more days without eating?

Pete Scotese [00:34:32] I, I could not get anything needed

Vance Crowe [00:34:35] For two, because

Pete Scotese [00:34:36] I was quarantined to make sure I didn't have the disease.

Vance Crowe [00:34:39] Wow.

Pete Scotese [00:34:39] 'cause it was transferrable polio, there was a polio epidemic.

Vance Crowe [00:34:45] Wow.

Pete Scotese [00:34:46] Polio was deadly then.

Vance Crowe [00:34:47] And how common was it for people to, did you know people that got polio?

Pete Scotese [00:34:52] I knew that. I knew that we had polio out there.

Vance Crowe [00:34:55] Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:34:56] And, but it's just an aside, the fact that I fooled myself because it didn't, I never

Vance Crowe [00:35:05] What were you doing for those 10 days that you had gone over the wall?

Pete Scotese [00:35:09] Not much.

Vance Crowe [00:35:11] Where'd you sleep at night?

Pete Scotese [00:35:13] I slept in the field. I had another guy with me, but I had been standing up in the corner for punishment in one of the counselor's rooms. He went to bed, went to sleep, and he shoved a, a hair, a, a dresser against the wall. But I opened the window and got out through the window while he was sleeping. So I escaped from that punishment, went over the wall.

Vance Crowe [00:35:48] And then you went on and, and joined the military. Went

Pete Scotese [00:35:52] In the military. I said I was always adventuresome. That's why I transferred. When I was transferred from anti aircraft arturi to to, to infantry, I volunteered for parachute infantry. 'cause it, it was adventuresome more adventurous than foot infantry. And I got paid a hundred bucks a month extra. That was a big deal during the depression.

Vance Crowe [00:36:20] Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:36:20] A hundred dollars a month on top of my officer's pay.

Vance Crowe [00:36:23] When you look back on the span of time, are there things that you regret not doing? Were there adventures you didn't go on that you wish you had gone on?

Pete Scotese [00:36:33] The only thing I thought about was if I had my life to live over, I would live in another country. Another civil

Vance Crowe [00:36:45] Culture. Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:36:47] For at least a year. I think it's vital that you, we don't think that America and democracy is the only form of, and, and, and even though I traveled a great deal, it was never as though I had to live there among the population and understand their religion, understand their everything about them, and realize that they are, because they're not a democracy, that they're still a damn good way of life. And so, and I, and I think our foreign relations suffer from the fact that in my memory, only George, only Bush senior ever lived overseas.

Vance Crowe [00:37:34] Really?

Pete Scotese [00:37:35] He lived for one year when he was in the CIA.

Vance Crowe [00:37:39] And that's a different kind of living overseas. Yeah.

Pete Scotese [00:37:41] So we didn't, we didn't have, we don't have presidents that understand foreign policy because they haven't lived in another culture. I was stunned when I went to China and on 1970s and saw how primitive, but on the move China was,

Vance Crowe [00:38:04] Why did you go in the 1970s? You were one of the first people to go.

Pete Scotese [00:38:08] I was able, because we had invited their textile group, Chinese technical group, to come and visit our mills. I was the head of Springs Industries then. And during that visit, they said, have you ever been to China? I said, no. Would you like to go? Yes. This was in May or June. They said, you'll hear from us in September. By the way, we did not have embassy. They had, we had a representative from China in, on the ground here. But I got a note that they would receive me in Beijing in September, so and so and so, and so, so-and-so. And I had to go by way of Hong Kong. So I took Millie and a couple of people from our company flew to Hong Kong over flew, flew around Korea, landed in Beijing, and were hosted by the Japanese textile department for 10 days. So I was lucky, but I was stunned by the d by how, what, what, how different China was to the us.

Vance Crowe [00:39:21] What sticks out to you most about what you saw?

Pete Scotese [00:39:25] What, how manpower can produce sheer manpower can produce as much as machine power because of its numbers. There were a million bicycles on the streets of Beijing. Scaffolding was built by hand of bamboo. And they tied at every corner. But it was going up, up, up inevitably. But the sheer weight of people at, at work was what drove that, that economy.

Vance Crowe [00:40:08] So you went from being an orphan all the way up to being the CEO of the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. A rags to riches. Yeah. Do you think that that is still possible in today's America?

Pete Scotese [00:40:20] That's a good question. By the way, it wasn't rags to riches because the textile industry didn't pay that well. And they were, and, and that's, they did not give their chief executives the, the huge sum that they get today. Hundreds of millions.

Vance Crowe [00:40:40] Right.

Pete Scotese [00:40:40] 50 million. That was unthinkable in those days. And we managed, I would say from the bottom up, we made sure our entry level employees were happy. We fed them well. We, we, they ate from, they used glassware in China and hot food. And Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:41:02] That's where that you talk about. They, they were factory workers that came in and had like real China to

Pete Scotese [00:41:06] Eat on

Vance Crowe [00:41:07] As opposed to just like some

Pete Scotese [00:41:08] Cap. So, and even though we didn't pay a lot entry level, we gave them secure jobs. We had company stores where they could buy goods wholesale. We had clinics where they go for their health. So it wasn't, I liked the idea that we were oriented to our employees, but it started at the bottom, made sure that people at the bottom were well taken care of them more. And we put limits on what people like myself, A CEO could get in terms of salaries. And if I got salaries and bonuses, all the people below me had to get, were moved up. So you, you had to think about that.

Vance Crowe [00:41:54] Oh, so if you increased yourself, you had to increase everybody else. Everybody

Pete Scotese [00:41:57] Else. Yeah. Always had,

Vance Crowe [00:41:58] You couldn't just take your percentage.

Pete Scotese [00:41:59] That's right. They had to be within, they couldn't be, I couldn't be more than 10% above the next level.

Vance Crowe [00:42:07] Well, that does not happen now. No.

Pete Scotese [00:42:09] Oh god no. They pay them. It's egregious. What's happening now.

Vance Crowe [00:42:14] You think so? You think that they're paid too?

Pete Scotese [00:42:17] Oh, oh. They're paying much too much for CEOs. They're paying. And, and that's why there's a more and more spread between middle class and the richer, getting richer. And the other, I mean, I think there's, there's been a, a mishandling of human resources in that connection where there's too much emphasis on compensation at the top and not enough emphasis on, pardon me. You know, everybody else.

Vance Crowe [00:42:55] Do you think that will ever change? Or do you, do you think this is the new normal forever that CEOs will make? 30, 40, 50 10?

Pete Scotese [00:43:02] I don't think we can predict. I think it's awful hard to disengage from that kind of egregious payment. Now, I realize that people in many companies are entitled to whatever, you know, they're employing a lot of people and they're helping the economy. But thi this is happening across the board where more and more top executives are, are being overcompensated.

Vance Crowe [00:43:35] Well, you wrote about that even in, in Yeah, I, I wrote about it in a book that you, what? Where did you write about that? Was it Harvard Business Review?

Pete Scotese [00:43:42] I wrote, no. Yeah. I wrote it for the Harvard Business Review about Golden parachute, where if your company got bought out, you got a golden, you got a huge bonus. So they were saying in effect, run your company into the ground, somebody will buy it. And then you, you have a golden parachute and we'll pay you off to leave like your company.

Vance Crowe [00:44:05] I was gonna ask you about, what do you think about,

Pete Scotese [00:44:07] Oh, the money Monsanto being bought. Oh my God. I think the, the package they gave him was incredible. And I never saw enough publicity about that. Here's the company that's going to hell in a hand basket, drive down the stock price of the companies acquiring them and gets this. How, how much was a bonus?

Vance Crowe [00:44:26] Yeah, it was, it was a lot. Yeah. By the time he walked away,

Pete Scotese [00:44:30] A hundred, a hundred million or something. Yeah. That

Vance Crowe [00:44:34] It was interesting because now that the deal has gone through and the Roundup lawsuits happened that bear, their stock price is now worth less than the price they paid for Monsanto. That's crazy.

Pete Scotese [00:44:50] They're gonna fire the guy from Monsanto and the guy from Bayer. And, and, well, I mean, that's a whole nother subject.

Vance Crowe [00:45:02] So when, when you think about the compensation that a c-level person gets, they're, they're running multi-billion dollar companies. What should they be paid if it's not as much as they're getting paid now?

Pete Scotese [00:45:17] Well, I, I think when you look at compensation, you look at it in terms of total compensation, the way to look at total compensation. If that person were to leave the company, what expenses would drop out? You have corporate jets, you have healthcare, you have pension, you have profit sharing, you have special incentives over programs in sent over a four or five year program. You have the use of the corporate jet. You know, when, when you look at the package, the whole pay package, it's, it's substantial.

Vance Crowe [00:46:07] Yeah. And I think most people that have not worked inside of a large corporation Yeah. They don't even know that there are stock options. And there's all sorts of Oh,

Pete Scotese [00:46:16] Yeah. Stock Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:46:17] Dividends that you get incentive

Pete Scotese [00:46:18] Stock options.

Vance Crowe [00:46:19] And I'm sure that as you move up in a corporation Yeah. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Pete Scotese [00:46:24] I'll tell you, the best response I can give you is I looked at a general, I'm gonna say a, either a General Electric or a American Express annual report, once 17 pages of the annual report were devoted to executive compensation. 17 of 85 pages. That's how complicated. Yeah. Come on. You know, you could, I could explain my compensation in one paragraph.

Vance Crowe [00:47:04] At,

Pete Scotese [00:47:04] At, at, at springs. I was perfectly content with it.

Vance Crowe [00:47:09] What sort of a CEO were you, what did you care about? What made you stand out

Pete Scotese [00:47:14] Results? The bottom line is what did you do for the company? When I went there, it was doing 250 million a year and losing money. When I left, it was doing almost a billion a year. Had 30 million in cash in the bank and was making money. A lot of money.

Vance Crowe [00:47:38] What were the things that you did to make it so successful?

Pete Scotese [00:47:41] Closed. Looked over all the assets we own, and saw what those assets were returning. And I closed down plants in Indonesia. I closed down a textile plant in Indonesia. I closed down a, wrote it down to a dollar, closed down the, a carpet plant in Georgia. Closed down a plant we had just built in North Carolina for kitchen cotton and closed down a plant in oh oh a, a double knit plant in Monroe, North Carolina. So I closed, and then I took the over the counter piece goods, top of the bed and bath products and apparel fabrics, which were flourishing. Put the money from the closed plant into those businesses that were doing well in making money and expanded those. And also got a foreign presence, start farm stuff out to, and where we got, we decided we would oversell and buy excess production from, instead of building excess production, we would buy excess production from, from other people,

Vance Crowe [00:49:02] From other factories, from other companies.

Pete Scotese [00:49:04] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:49:05] And when you're making these big decisions, I mean, shutting down the factory, that changes.

Pete Scotese [00:49:10] Yeah. No, I had trouble with, you know, they looked at me like I had three head and in one case, you know, the boss who been there for a long time said, we're not gonna do it. And I said, look, you, well, I, I shouldn't say the public, but I just said that we can't waste the family's assets. We just, we have to do it.

Vance Crowe [00:49:36] And we did it. You, you hit these moments in your life where you're doing big things. How did you handle the, there's a question whether or not you're right. Right. You're gonna take an action. Yeah. And it's going to be a little bit of time before you find out whether or not it's right or not.

Pete Scotese [00:49:50] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:49:51] How did you manage the stress of making those kinds of choices?

Pete Scotese [00:49:56] Well, it's a good question. But I, I, I was comfortable in my own skin because I knew damn well that the decisions I had made were right. And would produce the right results. And within six months, I think, you know, we, things started to change around. And then everybody else, by the way, I said, if you, if you stick with me, these changes, I'll make all of you a little bit rich. Because their profit sharing and everything else would go up. And I did. During

Vance Crowe [00:50:33] This time when you were in the textiles, you started to get involved in the art scene or kind of cross between art Yeah. And textiles. Describe that. What, what, what did you do there that was so unique?

Pete Scotese [00:50:46] Well, we sponsored in, we sp one of our plant locations, we sponsored a springs art show that's from the Springs Art Show. And once a year we had an Art of the Carolinas exhibit where people, whether they were artists or not, could bring it, show it for a month. We would have a, a museum director, look them over, pick first, second, third prizes, travel those around for a year, exposing the artist. And so Springs was engaged in the arts that way. And then we sponsored with the Museum of Modern Art Photography now at the rate of 250,000 a year, promoting young photographers, because we felt that photography was an incoming art form. We did that for 10 years.

Vance Crowe [00:51:46] And it wasn't popular before you did that photography.

Pete Scotese [00:51:50] It was popular, but it was not an art form. It wasn't considered a real art form. Oh. It was popular. 'cause everybody had a camera, everybody in the children. But it wasn't, it hadn't reached a level where it was

Vance Crowe [00:52:07] An art form

Pete Scotese [00:52:08] Somebody, it was really an art for people pay a couple hundred thousand bucks for, as they would for an Ansel Adam. And then we went to the museum, to, we went, went to the Metropolitan Museum, signed a contract with them where we could access all of their textile fabrics all the way back to per the Persian Collect. And we translated a lot of that work. China were on the bedsheets bed, spreads towels, and sold it as the Metropolitan Collection by Spring made and gave them 5% of the sale. We paid them two and a half million dollars in royalties over a period of three to five years. We did that with a Guggenheim in a smaller way. So our footprint in art was constant.

Vance Crowe [00:53:03] How did you even start those conversations? Because this had to have been very different from what other people were doing, or did other people were other people doing this and you just got in on the action? No,

Pete Scotese [00:53:12] We were, we wanted to distinguish ourselves. I'd gotten a little bit of this, this is what I did in Milwaukee. When I was in Milwaukee. We had import fairs and supported the, you know, the museums. So I, I was, I let art influence what we did because art and textiles styling, you know, be, I felt we connected the other hand, hand. We would be better if we, if we took an interest in art. And because art, art is universal.

Vance Crowe [00:53:49] So you brought up Milwaukee. You ran a store called the Boston Store right.

Pete Scotese [00:53:53] In

Vance Crowe [00:53:54] Milwaukee. And it was a department store that was kind of a bargain

Pete Scotese [00:53:58] Store.

Vance Crowe [00:53:58] Yeah. Bargain

Pete Scotese [00:53:59] Basement. And you

Vance Crowe [00:53:59] Brought them up Elevated. Tell me about that experience.

Pete Scotese [00:54:04] Well, we were, I had never run a department store. I had sold the department stores, and I thought, how can I differentiate my store? As I said to your bride, how you going to, going to differentiate what she wants to do of, so I had a survey taken of all the stores within three 30 mile and what kind of goods they were selling. And I found out that they were selling mostly what I would call basement and budget price line. Now, we were, this was JC Penney, Marshall Field, gimbals, et cetera. So I came back to my group and I said, we're gonna get out of basement and budget price line. We're gonna go to moderate, upper, moderate and high because we wanna get away from, and we wanna offer people the better. Good. And as fast as we did that, our sales and profits went like that. Even though we were the one third, the size of our major competitor, really. We had Italian import faires. We built an enclosed mall shopping center, the first in the state of Wisconsin. Meaning

Vance Crowe [00:55:24] That it used to be in Wisconsin when they would go shopping, they had to be outside. And now all of their shopping, the walking stores,

Pete Scotese [00:55:30] Well, I mean, stores on the branches and the branches. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:55:33] You could go to

Pete Scotese [00:55:35] Our new branch there and stay inside and all day long. So we re juggled, we jiggled our outlying stores and rebuilt a downtown store with a whole new parking garage with ease of access and which, and, and we had a bridge that connected the garage to the store. So they didn't have to, when they left their car and parked it, they could walk across the bridge into the store.

Vance Crowe [00:56:05] And you used to sell sourdough bread up there on those bridges. Right? Oh, what?

Pete Scotese [00:56:09] Didn't

Vance Crowe [00:56:09] You sell sourdough bread or from

Pete Scotese [00:56:11] Oh, you know, in the, on the, in the tunnel that we, I mean the,

Vance Crowe [00:56:17] The bridge,

Pete Scotese [00:56:17] The bridge that we built, we decided to sell food stuffs, exotic food stuffs, including sourdough that we flew in from San Francisco and spices and stuff like that, so that they could have a shopping experience going in and a shopping experience going out. And they could lower their price that they paid for parking by buying goods and showing us the parking stuff

Vance Crowe [00:56:39] On

Pete Scotese [00:56:39] The way out. So we use a lot of innovative,

Vance Crowe [00:56:43] You had so many ideas that did well between, you know, the Boston store, and did you ever have an idea that you went big on that didn't go well?

Pete Scotese [00:56:55] I was always in situations that needed fixing. So I, the, the answer to your question is no, because they were, they needed to fixing and I fixed them.

Vance Crowe [00:57:07] That's a great answer.

Pete Scotese [00:57:08] Yeah. I really, really was never happy in a situation where everything was going smoothly. I liked running things that had problems.

Vance Crowe [00:57:18] I, and I think that's, you know, there's a phrase, and

Pete Scotese [00:57:21] Maybe that's the same way

Vance Crowe [00:57:22] I am

Pete Scotese [00:57:23] With people, with, with people. I, I enjoy people

Vance Crowe [00:57:26] With problems fixing.

Pete Scotese [00:57:27] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:57:27] That's a great point.

Pete Scotese [00:57:28] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:57:29] You know, the thing that I didn't realize where I got it from, but when people ask me about, you know, job advice or what should for a career, I always talk about find a problem that you are really good at solving.

Pete Scotese [00:57:41] Yeah. And

Vance Crowe [00:57:42] Then go solve that problem, because that's how you create value in the world. Yeah. I probably got that from you.

Pete Scotese [00:57:48] You know, I, I would be bored. Matter of fact, that's why I kept changing jobs as soon as I got on top of something and it started to get airborne and a little bit redundant. I'm looking for another challenge somewhere else. But I, on 10 boards of directors in for-profit organization, over a period of time I was on God knows how many not-for-profits in Milwaukee and everywhere I went, you know, I was involved in not-for-profit activities. Still involved with three of them.

Vance Crowe [00:58:21] And when you think about being on a board of directors, let's say four companies.

Pete Scotese [00:58:26] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:58:27] What, what goes on inside of a boardroom that people that have never been in one wouldn't know about

Pete Scotese [00:58:34] If they're well run, the emphasis, the board, the contribution the board members make is to a, make sure that they have the best possible chief executive officer. And secondly, to make sure that the company has a solid budgeted plan that they're meeting currently. And then to make sure that they have a long range plan that makes sense. They're the three, they don't get down into the operation and say, you know, you ought to fix that factory four or so. They stay above that. Make sure that the CEO has integrity. Make sure that the, the, the, the annual plan is being met and fulfilled. Make sure you have a damn good long range plan. That's what their role is. It's not to get

Vance Crowe [00:59:37] Down

Pete Scotese [00:59:38] The detail,

Vance Crowe [00:59:39] Changing the subject completely, but we have so many areas we could go into. But I'm, I'm interested in your thoughts on war

Pete Scotese [00:59:46] On what, because

Vance Crowe [00:59:47] You on war

Pete Scotese [00:59:49] Wars,

Vance Crowe [00:59:49] I'm, I'm interested in your thoughts on war. Yes. Being at war, going to war because you were,

Pete Scotese [00:59:56] I'm violently opposed to war for any reason, except in self-defense. I'm violently opposed to killing other people for whatever reason. I think that the going to war should not be an alternative to solving the problems of with other nation. That it should be diplomacy that solved it and not wars. I think it's terrible to, you know, I remember, you know, when I killed my first person still in my up here, I took somebody's life. I pulled out their, I i, we pulled out their identification to see if they had any stuff on them, about, about the unit or whatever. And see pictures of their wife, their children. They're human beings, just like all the rest of us. And yeah, that's, I'm, I think you'd find, so most soldiers would be agree with me. Last thing you want to do. In his other case, he wanted to take us over. You know, you're fighting for your life. But even then, too bad we couldn't handle it with diplomacy.

Vance Crowe [01:01:23] I have two final questions. The first one is, if 99-year-old Pete could go back and talk to 30 something year old Pete, right. You're somewhere along in your career, but definitely not at the height. What advice would you give 38-year-old Pete or 30 5-year-old Pete if you were? Well,

Pete Scotese [01:01:46] I would say, I was thinking about this with you with exercise. When I was growing up in the sos they had signs in the classrooms for nine years. Moderation in everything. A an apple a day keeps the doctor away. And the other one was cooperation makes group life possible. I thought two of those three were things you could live with all your life and, and, and, and heed. Well,

Vance Crowe [01:02:29] Yeah.

Pete Scotese [01:02:29] So you cooperate with people to get them to do things. You don't kill 'em or you don't say, I'll kill you if you don't do it. You know? And also you give in cooperation's a give and take. It's not the way I do it. I think I mentioned to you once when I, what I learned from my Harvard Business School experience was there were 131 other people up there and they had 131 different opinion as to how to do something. And every damn one of them were as smart as I was. And any, all 131 could work, work in different ways. So be very respectful of other people's opinion for two. Damn. This is why I'm very cautious with youngsters and saying, what I'm giving you is an opinion. You know, I'm not suggesting that's what you should do. I'm just saying, here are, here's some opinion.

Vance Crowe [01:03:29] And then my final question would be, you know, we started with talking about what is

Pete Scotese [01:03:34] End of

Vance Crowe [01:03:34] Life, but there are a lot of people that want to carry on your legacy, want to see the things that they learned from you, be moved forward. What could the people that you've been a mentor to do to keep your legacy going? What, what would you like to see people doing after you're gone?

Pete Scotese [01:03:55] Well, I almost go back to the Bible to treat, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. I think that I to be very, very respectful of people you work with and, and particularly people who work for you. I'd say managing from the bottom up is maybe try to imbue in them the importance of the guy running the elevator or the mail room or the, is just as important as the guy at the top. So treat everybody with the same degree of, of respect and reverence. So it's love, love, love is powerful. It's great. It's bigger than war.

Vance Crowe [01:04:58] Yeah. That's something I've seen you live

Pete Scotese [01:04:59] Yeah. For

Vance Crowe [01:05:00] Your whole life. Well, thank you so much Yeah.

Pete Scotese [01:05:02] For

Vance Crowe [01:05:02] Doing this.