Celebrating The Life and Death of Pete Scotese

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] You know, I remember, you know, when I killed my first person, it's still in my up here, 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, their human being, just like all the rest of us. And one way I would categorize a friend would be in my own mind, if I were committed to a destination for eternity, who would I take? Particularly with millennials, I find that the parents often will try to guide their children through channel 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 gra my son said, what do you think happens when you die? I've thought about it a great deal. I'm Jeremy Osh, a retirement community, CEO, living in Eureka, Illinois, and you are listening to the Vance Pro Podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. It is, with both joy and sadness that I convey to you that Peter G's Tate, a great man, has died. Pete was my mentor. I met him when I was in my late twenties, and I had no idea how profoundly my life was about to change. I encountered this man who, even though he was in his eighties, he still drank martinis and wanted to go out to dinner, and he would sit around and talk with me about whatever I was interested in.

Vance Crowe [00:01:41] I wasn't the only person that Pete touched. In fact, throughout all of his life, I'm sure hundreds if not thousands of people look back on meeting Pete and see it as a pivotal moment where somebody helped them to understand just how much agency they have in this world, just how much their dignity and their integrity was completely under their own control. And based on what you added to the world, Pete is an amazing person. He was born an orphan that worked his way up to becoming the president of one of the largest textile manufacturing companies in the world. He was a war hero. That single handedly saved the leader of the Dutch resistance. I mean, this is no kidding. We would go to his house and I would look through books, and there were ticker tape parades that people in Amsterdam were putting on for him years and years after the war. Pete was such a humble guy, but always willing to talk and share, and really helped me to understand the wider world, things I couldn't see on my own. But the truly beautiful and magnificent part about Pete was his optimism, was his continued belief that you could do something, that there was always a possibility to make things better, and that you always had some control over what was going on in your life. I love Pete. He taught me about art. He prepared me to be a great conversationalist, and he really pushed me to think more of myself than even I did.

Vance Crowe [00:03:14] In fact, I often tell the story about how Pete got me to quit smoking. And not a moment too soon, because a couple of weeks later, I met the woman that became my wife. And if I had still been smoking, there is no chance she would've married me. I can think of hundreds of examples of tiny changes that happened in my life as a result of Pete. And so to honor his life, I'd like to share this interview with you. I did it with Pete about four years ago. He was still a bright, shiny, excited guy. We were still getting together for drinks, and we would go on little walks and out to dinner. I was visiting him in his apartment in New York City, and I had my wife with me who also got to know Pete quite well. One of the things that you may be thinking during this interview is that you were not fortunate enough to have a mentor like Pete in your life. I can understand that I didn't do anything to deserve the amount of mentorship and caring that I had from Pete, and so it was basically pure luck that I had that chance. But if you're sitting here and you're thinking about your misfortune for not having had that relationship, I would urge you to, instead of thinking about what you didn't have, try to become that thing for someone else. Try to become the mentor that's patient, that listens, that takes notes, and really deeply cares and shows that they care by always being honest with their mentee.

Vance Crowe [00:04:46] I hope that you listen to this interview and you really enjoy and embrace a truly rare and extraordinary human being. I wanna say one note to my sister, Taryn. I am so grateful that we got to share the experience of being one of Pete's orphans together. And now, without further ado, I'd like to head to the interview with my dear friend, Pete. Pete, welcome to the podcast. Glad to be here. 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? 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.

Vance Crowe [00:06:23] We do have a universe. I do feel that there's a, a greater force in need averse, 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 that's gonna be difficult to me. 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.

Vance Crowe [00:08:07] And that being cremated, I just wonder if I go into, I, I would say that maybe the Buddhism philosophy of nothingness is the, this is what I'll be in nothingness, but nothingness can be ecstasy. And so I kind of semi rationalize my feeling as 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. And then the lights go out. And I thought I was u unique in having that experience, but I will 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 [00:09:42] When did that happen? What was going on? That happened about 10 years ago. Interestingly, the director of spiritual welfare at Marquette, father John nace, who was a Jesuit priest, was a house guest mine when that happened. Oh, really? But I thought nothing evident it, I never even talked to him about it. I just said, gee, that was a funny dream. So IIII walked all around your question, and I haven't given you an answer, except that I think it's just, I'm not capable of giving you an answer. I'm only capable of giving you my feeling. You know, you said that you talked about your friendships and all of your family that you would want to see again. Yeah. Friendship and family is maybe the biggest part of your life now. What do you think you've learned or what has changed about the way you've thought about friendship now that you're 99 as opposed to when you were say, my age at 38? Yeah. I, I think as I got older in my later years since friends are family, you choose, I found that my friendship were every bit as strong emotionally and otherwise with friends as they were and are with family.

Vance Crowe [00:11:13] So friends became a vital part of my existence for that reason. Yeah. And I, I, in, 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 as 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 it I had any choices at all.

Vance Crowe [00:12:45] Did you notice any patterns emerge about the type of people you considered for those five? They were always people who had leadership qualities where I learned where they had a side to them, the 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 for business or, or whatever. So there are people with very broad ranging interests and not, not narrow and deep in how they lived and thought 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. Can 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? The question is, I mean, you difference, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:14:17] I mean, you have still, yeah. I mean, many friendships, but they're, yeah. Different now in some way. I find in my older friendships, I was more on the tutoring giving end 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 for the different, not a different purpose, but with different conversations, different discussion, different outputs and inputs. 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, 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?

Vance Crowe [00:15:48] And most old people, older people don't, don't have those relationships? 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 Millie 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 council. But they also would suggest to their friends that, Hey, you got a problem. You may wanna talk to Pete about it. I do that. 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 from motion.

Vance Crowe [00:17:36] And otherwise, 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. You're 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. 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. 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 a calendar. Let's make it happen. Yeah. And I think most not, and not just leave people off. Right. Do you ever tell people you don't wanna see them? I mean, like, 'cause my experience with you as a 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 are, that you're not anxious to proceed and have a relationship or, or to see them to prioritize it.

Vance Crowe [00:19:15] Yeah. Yeah. 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 reaction. Yes, I do wanna see you. Yes. Let's make the date. So you're indicating that by that alone, that hey, you're, you're, you're important to this guy or to this girl, or to this. 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 swaps, Israeli made a big difference to me. Yeah. When, when I look around at the world right now, it seems crazy, right? We're right across from Trump Tower over there, 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 light? 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.

Vance Crowe [00:20:54] 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 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. 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. That it will buy just default, be good. Right. It will all be positive. Right. 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. Yeah. Among other things. Among other things.

Vance Crowe [00:22:26] And the other thing is what the internet can promote. That's like, I think New York Times devoted one or two pages to the promotion of child pornography because of the internet. Right. And their, their ability to reach the predator's, ability to reach children directly. So it, the internet creating a, as I said earlier, a tsunami of problems as well as opportunity. 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 printed. Yeah. Now the reality and these things. Why do you think people are so drawn to mentors that have such long time? Because I think they're looking for an anchor that's, that that's not emotion emotionally that well, that, that drive not their emotions, but, but their logic. They're looking for more things that are more constant in their life. And I, I think they find that I'm living and have lived a life that I've enjoyed thoroughly and left large footprints.

Vance Crowe [00:24:03] 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's in this climate of uncertainty, can offer basic advice, and also outlay some of the fears they have about their own futures, about jobs, about their passion, or about what they want a do 10 years from now, five years from now, about their employment, the what they like about it or don't like about it. So I, I represent the past with an understanding of the future. Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. Yeah. You've probably had to hear the same questions and concerns from exactly all the young people that walk in here. 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 channel that, that they're comfortable, they, the parents are comfortable with, because it works for them.

Vance Crowe [00:25:49] 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 gran 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 Yeah. Even people in their twenties, I mean, oh yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Right on up. 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. Yeah. Well, you say what, what was your question? What was difficult about being a mentor? No, nothing as far as I'm concerned. Well, that's great. 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. That's right. I think my a a advice is always based on my own life, here are some alternatives. And where in the set of circumstances you've just described might work for you. Think about them, but think about others that might come up while you do that.

Vance Crowe [00:27:21] So I never say, I think what you should do is it parents have a tendency to say, here's what you should do. Yeah. You can't resist. I say I, 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 another approach to the who was, who was a pivotal mentor to you as you were growing up? 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 outta the institution and became a friend for the rest of, saved you from getting kicked out. What did you do? Well, I, 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, a watchman.

Vance Crowe [00:28:54] And so they, to 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 injectables and three unsatisfactory, which meant out you go. What I never knew until after I graduated was that when I was put into Gerard College first grade, that my mother had to sign an indenture paper, the same slave I was indentured to that college. She could not in interfere with my life or they would kick me out. Wow. I had to, I had to live under their structure, their methodology. Best thing ever happened. 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. What ultimately got you to straighten up because of, there's a sword in there of you being the drill instructor for the whole Yeah. Well, as I, as I, after I repented, then I went, turned around, became a good boy. I became captain of my battalion. I became a, a member of the National Honors Society, became head of the yearbook, captain of the gym team.

Vance Crowe [00:30:31] So I did convert rather rapidly to doing things that were more constructive. What do you think was driving you to be the type of person that was getting in trouble in the first place? Adventure. Just, I wouldn't use the, but it would adventure some 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, the storefront, and was getting, getting hungry. I flagged the police car and asked him to take me back home. Take me to Gerard. And he said, why'd you come back? I said, because I'm hungry. They said, 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. And so after you were hungry enough to come home, they told you, you will go two more days without eating? I, I could not get anything needed for two, because I was quarantine to make sure I didn't have the disease. Wow. Because it was transferrable polio. There was a polio epidemic. Wow. Polio was deadly then. And how common was it for people that, did you know people that got polio? I knew that. I knew, I knew that we had polio out there. Yeah. And, but it's just an aside, the fact that I fooled myself because I didn't, I never, did you do it for those 10 days that you had gone over the wall?

Vance Crowe [00:32:10] Not much. Where you kept get, 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 counselors 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. And then you went on and, and joined the military. Went in the military. I, I was always adventuresome. That's why I transferred. When I was transferred from 10 aircraft arturi to, to infantry, I volunteered for parachute infantry. 'cause it, it was adventure. Some more adventure than foot infantry. And I got paid a hundred bucks a month extra. That was a big deal during the depression. Yeah. A hundred dollars a month on top of my author's pay. 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? The only thing I've thought about was if I had my life to live over, I would live in another country.

Vance Crowe [00:33:45] Another So culture. Yeah. 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. Really? He lived for one year when he was in the CIA. And that's a different kind of living overseas. Yeah. So we didn't, we didn't have pre 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, why did you go in the 1970s? You were one of the first people to go. I was able, because we had invited their textile group, Chinese technical group, to come and visit our mills.

Vance Crowe [00:35:16] 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. That, 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, 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. What sticks out to you most about what you saw? What, how manpower can produce sheer manpower can produce as much as machine power because of its numbers. There were a million bicycle on the streets of Beijing.

Vance Crowe [00:36:48] Scaffolding was built by hand of bamboo. And they tied it at every corner. But it was going up, up, up inevitably. But the sheer weight of people at, at work with what drove that, that economy. So you went from being an orphan all the way up to being the CEO of the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. The rags to riches. Yeah. Do you think that that is still possible in today's America? That's a good question. By the way, it wasn't rag 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. Right. 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 and China and hot food and Yeah. That's worth that. You talk about, they they were factory workers that came in and had like real China Yeah. On. As opposed to just like, so, and even though we didn't pay a lot entry level, we gave 'em secure job. We had company stores where they could buy goods wholesale. We had clinics where they could go further their health.

Vance Crowe [00:38:20] So it wasn't, yeah, I like 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 well, and we put limits on what people like myself, the CEO could get in terms of salaries. And if I got salaries and bonuses, all the people below me had to get you were moved up. So you, you had to think about that. Oh, so if you increased yourself, you had increase everybody else. Everybody. Yeah. All we did. You couldn't just take your percentage. That's right. They had to be within, they couldn't be, I couldn't be more than 10% above the next level. Well, that does not happen now. No. Oh god no. They pay them. It egregious what's happening now. You think so? You think that they're paying? Oh, yeah. Oh, they're paying much too much for CEOs. They're paying the, and then 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, the ev everybody else.

Vance Crowe [00:39:55] Do you think that will ever change? Or do you, do you think this is the new normal forever that CEOs will make 30? 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 th this is happening across the board where more and more top executives are, are being overcompensated. Well, you wrote about that even in, in Yeah, I, I read about it in a book that you, what? Where did you write about that? Was it Harvard Business Room? I wrote No. Yeah, I wrote it for the Harvard Business view about golden parachutes, where if your company got bought out, you got a golden, you got a huge bonus. So they were saying, in fact, 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. I was gonna ask you about, what do you think about, oh, the money. Oh my God. I say the, the package they gave him was incredible. And I never saw enough publicity about that. Here's a 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 [00:41:27] Yeah, it was, it was a lot. Yeah. By the time he walked a hundred, a hundred million of something that, 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. They're gonna fire the guy from Monsanto and the guy from Bayer. And, and the, well, I mean, that's a whole nother subject. 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? No. Well, I, I think you, when you look at compensation, you look at it in terms of total compensation, the way to look at total compensation, it's 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 and sent over four or five year program. You have to use the corporate jet.

Vance Crowe [00:43:00] You know, when, when you look at the package, the whole pay package, it's, it's substantial. Yeah. 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, yeah. Stock Yeah. Dividends that you incentive stock options. Right. And I'm sure that as you move up in a corporation, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. 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. At, at, at, at springs. I was perfectly content with it. What sort of a CEO were you, what did you care about? What made you stand out 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.

Vance Crowe [00:44:33] Had 30 million in cash in the bank and was making money. A lot of money. What were the things that you did to make it so successful? 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 plan we had just built in North Carolina for kitchen cotton and closed down a plant in, oh, he had 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 plants into those businesses that were doing well in making money and expanded those. And gold 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, from other factories, from other companies.

Vance Crowe [00:46:05] Yeah. And when you're making these big decisions, I mean, shutting down factory, that changes. Yeah, no, I, 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 know, 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. And we now 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 and it's going to be a little bit of time before you find out whether or not it's right or not. Yeah. How did you manage the stress of making those kinds of choices? Well, it's a good question. But 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 result. And within six months, I think, you know, w we, things started to change around. And then everybody else, by the way, I said, if you stick with me and these changes, I'll make all of you a little bit rich. Because their profit sharing and everything else wouldn't go up. And I did. During this time when you were in the textiles, you started to get involved in the art scene or kind of cross between art Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:47:42] And textiles. Describe that. What, what, what did you do there that was so unique? 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 Spring 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. And it wasn't popular before you did that photography? It was popular, but it was not an art form. It wasn't considered a real art form. Oh. It was popular because everybody had a camera. Everybody, children, or, but it wasn't, it hadn't reached a level where it, was it an art form. It was really an art for who people pay a couple hundred thousand bucks for as they would for an Ansel at 'em.

Vance Crowe [00:49:14] 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, or 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. 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 No, we, we were 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 Arden and Textile, the sty and, you know, be, I felt we connected. Yeah. Better. We would be better if we, if we took an interest in art.

Vance Crowe [00:50:46] And because art, art is universal. So you brought up Milwaukee. You ran a store called the Boston Store right. In Milwaukee. And it was a department store that was kind of a bargain store Yeah. Bargain. And you brought them up. How? Tell me about that experience. Well, we were, I'd 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? 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, and 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.

Vance Crowe [00:52:17] We had Italian import faires. We built an enclosed more shopping center, the first in the state of Wisconsin. Meaning that it used to be in Wisconsin when they would go shopping, they had to be outside. And now all of their shopping, the walk, well, I mean, and the all in the branches. In the branches. Right. You could go to our new branch there and stay inside and all day long. So we re juggled, we re juggled our outlying stores and rebuilt a downtown store with a whole new parking garage with the 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. And you used to sell sourdough bread up there on those bridges. Oh, what didn't you sell sourdough bread? Or from Oh, you know, in the, on the, in the tunnel that we, I mean the, the bridge, the bridge that we built, we decided to sell food stuff, exotic food stuff, 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 on the way out. They, so we used a lot of innovative, 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?

Vance Crowe [00:53:55] I was always in situations that needed fixing. So I, the, the answer to your question is no, because they were, they needed to fix, and I fixed them. But that's a great answer. Yeah. I really, really was never happy in a situation where everything was going smoothly. I liked running things that had problems. I, and I think that's, you know, there's a phrase maybe that's the same way I am with people, with, with people. I, I enjoy people with problem fixing. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. 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 Right. Your career, I always talk about find a problem that you're really good at solving. Yeah. And then go solve that problem because Yeah. That's how you create value in the world. Yeah. I probably got that from you. You know, I, I would be bored. Matter of fact, that's why I kept changing job as soon as I got on top of something and it started to get airborne, I, and a little bit redundant. I'm looking for another challenge somewhere else, but I was 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. And when you think about being on a board of directors, let's say four companies.

Vance Crowe [00:55:26] Yeah. What, what goes on inside of a boardroom that people that have never been in one would know about if they're well run, the emphasis that 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, you know, 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 floor 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 phone range plan. That's what their role is. It's not to get down the detail, 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. On what? On war wars. I'm, I'm interested in your thoughts on war. Yes. Being at war, going to war because you were, I'm violently opposed to war for any reason except in self-defense.

Vance Crowe [00:57:06] I'm violently opposed to killing other people for whatever reasons. I think that the going to war should not be an alternative to solving the problems of with other nations. That it should be diplomacy that solves 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, 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, their 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 Heather 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. Put diplomacy. 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.

Vance Crowe [00:58:41] What advice would you give 38-year-old Pete or 30 5-year-old Pete? Well, I would say, I was thinking about this with you with exercise. When I was growing up in the sorbs, they had signs in the classroom for nine years, moderation in everything. 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 a thing you could live with all your life and, and, and, and heed. Well, yeah. 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, you know, and also you give in cooperation is a give and take that 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 opinions at how to do something. And every damn one of them were as smart as I was. And any, all 131 could work, but work in different ways. So be very respectful of other people's opinion.

Vance Crowe [01:00:13] We're too. Damn. This is why I'm very cautious with youngsters and saying what I'm giving you with an opinion that I'm not suggesting that's what you should do. I'm just saying here are, here's some opinion. And then my final question would be, you know, we started with talking about what is in life. Yeah. 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? Well, I almost go back to the Bible is to treat, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. I think that 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. 'cause maybe try to imbue in them the importance of the guy running the elevator or the male 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.

Vance Crowe [01:01:51] So it's love. Love on love is powerful.