My Grandfather was a mentor to me (Part 3):
Coming back from the war he wanted to start his own mechanic shop but he new very little about running a business so instead he decided to work for a few companies to learn as much as he could. Became a Snap-on salesman. As a new comer they gave him the worst district to manage. He generated more sales in that district than the best districts and management soon realized his potential as a salesman. They held a competition once a year country wide where the salesmen would go and compete, forget the details but there was only 1 person that beet him in that competition. They offered him a sales management position but he turned it down and by that time he new every mechanic shop across the great city of New Orleans. He chose his position well in lower St. Bernard Paris near the Violet Canal. His shop became known across New Orleans to such a large degree that people from across the city would send their vehicles to his shop to be repaired as he was the only one who could fix them right. One of the first shops to learn and repair the new automatic transmissions that came out. The years of knowledge of engine repair, boat repair, car, truck and he built his own tow truck. When he built the business he had spent every last dime that he had saved during the war and then had to take a job with someone just to cover the bills for a month and then things took off and he never looked back.
The LIFTBOAT:
He was the inventor of the so called “Liftboat OR Jackup Barge” as it is known today. He called them Elevating Boats and started a company named Elevating Boats Inc. (EBI). As a mechanic shop located near the newborn offshore oil field he was often requested to go offshore and repair something for a customer. He went out for a job once charging the customer high dollar for the time and they just kept him there sitting on the dock side. He asked why they would not let him work and they said “You see those waves out there? We cannot work in the waves on a boat or barge like this” “If you could lift the boat out of the water on some legs maybe, lol” And so the idea was place into his mind, a mind that has no limits. In between jobs he and his twin broth, my Uncle Orin (Also recently deceased), built a boat and then put some legs on it. He then tried to market it to the oil field, lol. Took him many months and a lot of money to build it. And after 6 months of trying to get someone to rent it, the only way was to pay a kickback and as a man of integrity, he refused. he gave up. Decided to sell it and then a friend called him and asked him to talk to a top level Exon Executive. So went to him, an old man, and showed him a few pictures of what he had build and what he was trying to do. The old man “You, you, mean you built this thing??, Grandpa, “Yes I built it, I just gave you pictures of it”, a bit frustrated. “So many men come to me wanting me to invest in this and that idea, but you built this thing???” “Well you built it I will put it to work” Grandpa “I don’t want to have to pay a kickback” The old man “They won’t have a choice” And so it was, so Grandpa sent the boat to them and he stayed onboard to operate it and it sat there and it sat there and so a bit frustrated he wanted to know why they were not using it. There were no waves, lol. Then the waves picked up, “Lets see if this thing can do what you say it can do Lynn” and from that day forward they never looked back. Money poured in, by the time the 1985 oil crunch hit, they had built up a fleet of 60 boats all on hire. I remember those day when the boats taken off hire filled the canal. No place to park them all.
What a man! And What a life he lived!