Letters from Ed's computer about how he started the Deccofelt Manufacturing Co.
Post-discharge
employment
Being discharged from the service in December of 1945 I returned to Boston and Singer Sewing Machine company securing the position of Assistant Chief Clerk at the New England Central office at 55 Temple Place. That central office employed over 11 auditors serving the twenty-six New England Singer retail shops in the six New England states reporting weekly sales reports for auditing before their forwarding to the Singer headquarters in New York City. After John Robertson’s death in 1944, Frank Weisslinger secured the job of Chief Clerk of that central office while I was serving in the Marine Corps. Because he was only 38 years of age, I realized in 1946 I would have no chance of promotion for many years to come due to his young age. I was only making a salary of $50.00 per week, which was not enough to support our small family.
Reasons for leaving Boston
In the latter part of 1946 I thought I would have a far better chance of successful employment in the State of California where I had served at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard Marine Corps barracks during the 1944 and 1945. The primary reason that motivated us to relocate to the sunshine state was the good weather. Being a minority in Massachusetts with my Swedish heritage and observing the liberal Irish descendants of Massachusetts controlled the politics, the industries, as well as, the city and state jobs was another reason. Remembering that after graduating from High School, I applied for employment at the Post Office, the Police Department and the Fire Department without success. I concluded that I would be denied acceptance in any and all positions due to the fact that I was neither Irish nor Catholic.
Being discharged from the service in December of 1945 I returned to Boston and Singer Sewing Machine company securing the position of Assistant Chief Clerk at the New England Central office at 55 Temple Place. That central office employed over 11 auditors serving the twenty-six New England Singer retail shops in the six New England states reporting weekly sales reports for auditing before their forwarding to the Singer headquarters in New York City. After John Robertson’s death in 1944, Frank Weisslinger secured the job of Chief Clerk of that central office while I was serving in the Marine Corps. Because he was only 38 years of age, I realized in 1946 I would have no chance of promotion for many years to come due to his young age. I was only making a salary of $50.00 per week, which was not enough to support our small family.
Reasons for leaving Boston
In the latter part of 1946 I thought I would have a far better chance of successful employment in the State of California where I had served at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard Marine Corps barracks during the 1944 and 1945. The primary reason that motivated us to relocate to the sunshine state was the good weather. Being a minority in Massachusetts with my Swedish heritage and observing the liberal Irish descendants of Massachusetts controlled the politics, the industries, as well as, the city and state jobs was another reason. Remembering that after graduating from High School, I applied for employment at the Post Office, the Police Department and the Fire Department without success. I concluded that I would be denied acceptance in any and all positions due to the fact that I was neither Irish nor Catholic.
Boston Departure
In November of 1946 we departed Boston, Massachusetts and arrived in Southern California after three plus weeks of constant driving brother-in-law George’s new 1946 Ford sedan pulling our old 18-foot trailer, which we had purchased with the little money Ruth had saved during the Marine Corps war years. We endured this small trailer home with baby Richard, my wife Ruth and her mother, Caroline Kinsman during out trip west for three and a half weeks. We pulled the rickety old trailer from Boston, went south through Washington, D.C. before heading west over the Allegany Mountains and then followed the southerly surface roads, (well before freeways were built), without any working brakes on the trailer, which honestly was quite dangerous. In those days they did not install any means of waste disposal or toilets in trailer homes therefore we had to make many stops. We did enjoy driving across the United States stopping at many national parks including the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. Arriving in the Los Angeles area we were unable to find space for parking in any trailer park and so consequently found our way south into the Long Beach area where we were able to find space in the Seal Beach trailer park close to the Pacific Ocean and next to the mouth of the Los Angeles River. For the next two months with my portfolio of art works I sought employment as a commercial artist at various Los Angeles advertising agency without success. I was asked to do lay-out work at minimum salary in lieu of finished art work and consequently I had to refuse employment because I now had to support a child, a wife and a mother in law.
In November of 1946 we departed Boston, Massachusetts and arrived in Southern California after three plus weeks of constant driving brother-in-law George’s new 1946 Ford sedan pulling our old 18-foot trailer, which we had purchased with the little money Ruth had saved during the Marine Corps war years. We endured this small trailer home with baby Richard, my wife Ruth and her mother, Caroline Kinsman during out trip west for three and a half weeks. We pulled the rickety old trailer from Boston, went south through Washington, D.C. before heading west over the Allegany Mountains and then followed the southerly surface roads, (well before freeways were built), without any working brakes on the trailer, which honestly was quite dangerous. In those days they did not install any means of waste disposal or toilets in trailer homes therefore we had to make many stops. We did enjoy driving across the United States stopping at many national parks including the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. Arriving in the Los Angeles area we were unable to find space for parking in any trailer park and so consequently found our way south into the Long Beach area where we were able to find space in the Seal Beach trailer park close to the Pacific Ocean and next to the mouth of the Los Angeles River. For the next two months with my portfolio of art works I sought employment as a commercial artist at various Los Angeles advertising agency without success. I was asked to do lay-out work at minimum salary in lieu of finished art work and consequently I had to refuse employment because I now had to support a child, a wife and a mother in law.
I then looked for employment in various industries with my past accounting experience at Singer Sewing Machine in Boston and was interviewed by a couple of companies including the Los Angeles based Dixie Paper Cup Company but they refused to hire me because of my newly and recent arrival in California. They stated that they would not employ me because they wanted a permanent employee and not a recent transient from out of state. The last of December in 1946 I succeeded in finding employment with Coast Paint and Chemical Company on Grande Vista Avenue in Los Angeles as a bookkeeper which, looking back, I now can understand and realize that that position set me on the road to business success in California.
This Company was a paint manufacturer consisting of approximately 30
employees and founded in late 1945 by five former Sherwin-Williams Paint
Company employees, Mr. Jim Schein, President and C.E.O, Mr. Leonard Boller, Vice
President and Chief Chemical Engineer, Mr. Donald McGregor, Vice President and
Mechanical Engineer, Mr. Charles Kenney, Vice President and Sales Engineer and
Mr. Gordon Bradford, Secretary-Treasurer.
Gordon Bradford hired me as their second office employee. Mr. Bradford was absolutely wonderful to me in
teaching me office procedure and advanced accounting. My salary initially was $175 dollars per
month but we both worked many hours overtime, for which I was paid extra time
and a half. Having no automobile in
those years Mr. Bradford, (living north of the paint factory in Glendale), was
kind enough to drive me home south to our Beachwood Avenue Lynwood apartment
after working the evening work hours.
The five partners of the new concern were manufacturing house paint for
the western states in competition with next-door neighbor, the large national
concern, Sherwin-Williams Paint Company.
I do remember some of my fellow co-workers, like Seth Vining, whom I
played cribbage with every noon-time, Johnny Lopez, the champion weight lifter,
Ole Mustard, the immigrant Swedish paint chemist, Tommy Thompson, the factory
foreman, Len Feldman, a wonderful
friend and paint chemist, Connie Fembres, the color expert, George Gregory a
chemist who later was C.E.O. and President of Products Research Corp. Dick
Duncan, cost accountant, and of course my best friend Russ Morey who after
sixty years I still enjoy visiting and playing golf with in the Sierra
mountains of Coarsegold, California.
Russ was kind enough to befriend me and introduce me to his co-workers
and his family and advised me where to rent an apartment in Southern
California within reach of the Coast employment by public
transportation.
In 1947 the owners of Coast Paint and Chemical secured an agreement with the directors of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation whereby Coast Paint and Chemical would exclusively manufacture and produce the Lockheed formulations of Thiokol based compounds. The Thiokol formulated compounded products were originally a one part material or putty consisting of 70 percent solids and 30 percent water which after application eventually produced cracking and fuel tank leakage because of material shrinkage and also caused by the hard landings of aircraft. The Thiokol putty was to be manufactured by Coast Paint and Chemical to secure and seal the inner walls of aircraft hulls for cabin pressurization at high altitude and were also be used and applied to seal the inside walls of integral aircraft fuel wing tanks from leakage on all newly manufactured Lockheed production aircraft. Approximately one year after the agreement was made a catalytic two-part Thiokol material was formulated consisting of 100 percent solid matter thereby entirely eliminating any shrinkage factor after curing. I was privy to attend the Coast-Lockheed meetings with and through the courtesy of my boss Mr. Bradford to record the proceedings during several evening meetings held at the Coast plant offices. These meetings included all the Coast partners, Schein, Boller, McGregor, Kenney and Bradford along with the then Lockheed Aircraft Corporation top executives, Courtland Gross, President and CEO, Robert Gross, Executive Vice President and Mr Henry Squire, V. P. and Chief Engineer. The finished agreement was signed by all parties for Coast to commence the manufacture of Thiokol based compounds for Lockheed Aircraft at a 10% commission to Lockheed Corporation as owners of the chemical formulations. Coast in later years obtained Lockheed’s authorization and permission to manufacture these sealing compounds for the sale and use by Boeing, North American, Northrup, Consolidated-Vultee, Rohr, Martin and Douglas Aircraft companies.
During the next three years I attended chemical engineering classes at Cal Tech in Pasadena through the courtesy of Mr Leonard Boller who was then an associate Professor at that University.
After working for over a year and half with Mr Gordon Bradford in the Coast office President Schien asked me to join him on a three-day sales trip to San Diego to make sales calls on Frazee Paint Company and other retail customers. During that trip he was kind enough to ask me whether I would like to represent Coast as an outside salesman. I conferred with Mr Bradford and he consented and agreed that it would mean more money for my family and me. From that day on I was assigned as a Coast Paint and Chemical sales engineer and called on many of the processing engineers and purchasing agents of our nation’s aircraft manufacturing companies.
Using my personal automobile as transportation and receiving auto expense reimbursed by Coast Paint I was driving throughout the western states and racked up almost 30,000 miles annually using our first new automobile, a 1949 green Ford sedan purchased from Les Kelly Ford, an automobile dealer on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.
The Coast partners sold their paint company to a gentleman named Anderson and at that time Mr Anderson hired Mr Mort Boch as President and General Manager of the manufacturing company. Mort Boch had years of flying experience in aviation industry as a pilot and was original issued and held the eighth pilots license ever issued by the Federal Aviation Association. At that time Coast was also manufacturing an impregnated felt product, which was used industrially for gasketing materials. The impregnated felt process was chiefly based on a formulation of melted down wax and included a formulation of aroclors and zinc chromate materials which were impregnated and into the 3/16 inch thick wool felt of 36 inches widths supplied from a dip tank and pressure rollers. The process of melting down solid blocks of wax purchased from the petroleum companies into liquid was done with the use a boiler which melted down the wax into liquid by the use of a two hundred gallon steam feed tank. Aroclors and zinc chromate produced a finished material that was anti-rodent, water proof, anti fungus and fire proof. Navy contracts were secured for our company by bidding through the Philadelphia Naval Purchasing Office. On occasion I was privileged to fly into Philadelphia to witness the opening of those bids. The product of chromate impregnated felt was chiefly applied during construction and into the inner steel walls or the hulls of submarines chiefly for insulation from heat and cold and primarily for sound deadening purposes on all the Polaris carrying Naval Submarines built for the U.S. Navy by General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut. For every submarine that was built by General Dynamic the Coast Paint & Chemical Company supplied over 70,000 square yards of the Chromate Impregnated felt which was installed and placed between the half-inch plates of steel of every submarine hull. It was also used in the building of all our nations’ passenger aircraft as a protection layer under the seat flooring for protection from spillage, especially against liquids and alcohol to keep the aircraft cables and wires dry that were installed beneath the aircraft floorboards.
While employed at Coast Paint and Chemical Company as a
sales engineer in 1949 I devised the idea of applying a
gutta-percha compound, which was imported from Malaysian rubber trees and used
as a non-drying rubber-like gum. This gutta-percha liquid material was coated
on one side of the Coast zinc chromate felt product and used as a temporary
adhesive to hold the felt in place until the inner walls of the submarine were
put in place. I thought that I could
apply the same gutta-percha material on colored wool felt as a
pressure-sensitive adhesive material by blading it on with a putty knife or by
spraying gunning it on one side of the surface of the felt. The non-drying gutta-percha produced was made
into a finished thixotropic liquid product that was gray in color. Manufactured by U.S.
Rubber Company in the city Los Angeles, I purchased five gallon buckets of the
liquid. Since 70% wool felt was very
expensive by the square yard if purchased from the felt manufacturers, I discovered
I could purchase scraps of green felt at a greatly reduced price from a
local poker table manufacturer in Torrance, California. I proceeded to purchase the waste left over
from the green wool felt in shapes or diamond cuts, (approximately 18” by 18”),
which was the leftover scrapes from the finished tops of the octagon shaped
poker tables. I applied the gutta-percha
material by scraping it on the green felt scrap pieces with a putty knife and
set up a clothesline of wire in the garage at our Pico-Rivera home for evaporation of the water. It was
necessary for the adhesive material to dry to a tacky coating because it was a
water-dispersed product. By leaving it overnight the water was
then fully evaporated from the compound to make it tacky. After the overnight
drying period I applied a wax-coated brown meat wrapping paper (purchased
from local paper companies) to the coated surface.
Purchasing a 3/8-inch diameter saddler’s punch and a small hammer from a local hardware store I proceeded to punch out dozens of the pressure-sensitive coated green felt pads to apply to the three by five inch retail cards. I placed the saddler’s punch over the felt which had an underside of brown wax paper and punched these out over a two inch thick piece of hardwood. Ruth and I then took each 3/8 inch pad, removed the brown wax paper from the underside that protected the adhesive, and placed 24 green felt pads on each card in rows of 6 each to complete the finished product.
I came up with the name Deccofelt after investigating the national Thomas Directory of American Manufacturers found in the local libraries and discovered that the word Deco was used many times by several U.S. Companies. This prompted me to add the second “C” and the word “felt” to distinguish a name not copyrighted in America. From there I applied for a United States patent for the product and initially all retail cards were printed with the words, “Patent Pending”.
With my commercial art experience I designed a three inch by five inch retail card with one side coated with a Chroma tone coating. This made an easy release of the applied pressure-sensitive adhesive felt pads. I then had a thousand Self Stick Deccofelt retail cards printed by Jim Vincent a local printer.
Ruth and I then placed twenty-four pressure-sensitive green felt pads by hand to each card . We completed and produced a few dozen cards for samples for which to show to local retail store purchasing agents in the Southern California area. Prior to any independent sales effort I was obligated to show the product to my employer and boss Mort Bach, then Coast Paint & Chemical president. I inquired of him whether Coast Paint and Chemical Company could use and sell this product for distribution to the nation’s retail wholesalers. After some thought he replied that it was not in the Coast product line of industrial products. He kindly gave me his authorization to pursue it myself. I presented the item to a few retailers after daily working hours and on Saturdays and Sundays. During the spring of 1949 my primary thought was to be able to sell the new product to ceramic manufacturers or retail outlets selling ceramic pottery ware as a pressure sensitive adhesive protective pad to be applied to the bottoms of pottery and nick-knacks as scratch protection of table tops. Finding several pottery wholesales in the yellow pages of the Los Angeles telephone book my very first sales call was in Downey, California not too distant from our Lynwood apartment. Stewart’s Ceramics were on Lakewood Boulevard and almost directly across from the North American Aircraft parts plant. Lakewood Boulevard was then a main artery from Los Angeles to Long Beach many years before the freeways were build.
Introducing myself to Ralph and Bert Stewart, the owners of Stewart’s Ceramic Company, a retail wholesaler I presented the Deccofelt retail card. They both thought the product had great potential in their line of endeavor and advised me that there was nothing on the market at that time that would protect pottery or ceramic items from furniture scratches. They requested that I deliver them a gross of cards for testing to the retail trade. Not knowing exactly how to produce the large amount of 144 finished cards I was not keen on working for a several weeks during my spare time to hand produce this large amount. During the next two month I received two phone calls from Ralph Stewart wanting to know when I was going to deliver the gross of retail cards he had ordered from me during my last visit. So Ruth and I sat down and seriously worked in our spare time to finish the one gross of cards which the Stewart’s had ordered. We were paid $8.64 cents for our effort.
That single gross of retail cards were sold-out within days by Stewart’s Ceramics and they called to order six more gross of the new product. At this point I realized that we must have some means and help to produce the large Stewart order. During the following week I asked a few fellow employees at the Coast factory if they were interested in joining me in this new venture. Harold Munz and Ed Christy both gave me negative replies but Ed Heinrich said he was interested and would join me in this endeavor. But he did not want to drive to our Pico-Rivera garage address, some 20 miles south due to his full time employment on the Chromate Felt processing line at Coast. So I agreed to set up shop in the garage of his Monrovia house. Ruth, Thelma, Ed and I completed the six gross order, (all by hand) for Steward’s Ceramics. In my spare time I worked to hunt down tool and die makers in the Southern California area. I explained our problem of bulk cutting the 3/8 inch discs and placing of the twenty four green pressure-sensitive felt pads to the retail card, possibly using a solid female and male stainless steel cutting die. I finally found a tool and die company in Los Angeles, the Advanced Tool and Die Company, who suggested they could build a solid stainless steel tool to do the work with the aid of a two-ton punch press. Ed and Thelma as well as Ruth and I had very little money in those days so we were at a loss to know where we would or could obtain the cash to pay for not only the die but also for the two ton punch press. I personally inquired at our local Bank of America office requesting a loan but was immediately refused because the bank wanted some collateral for security. Ed and I did not have any security or assets at our current salaries. I then wrote to my father in Dedham, Massachusetts and asked him to loan me $2,000 dollars for three years at the then current interest rate of two percent. He was so very kind and receptive to consent and send me the funds, which I received in less than two weeks. The die maker finished the die and in the meantime I purchased a used two-ton punch press from a local used machinery dealer, which I paid for from the funds received from my Dad.
By this time Stewart’s Ceramics of Downey had ordered twelve additional gross of Deccofelt cards, which we now could handily produce with our new equipment. At this point I designed a small retail carton, with art work showing the possible uses of the product, which could be used by the dealers and the retail store trade. The new paperboard box containing three-dozen retail cards was an incentive to display the item to the consumers. Most retail shops displayed the new box near their check-out counters as an impulse item.
Realizing I was the entrepreneur of a brand new product, we now had the means and equipment to produce an item that was truly saleable to many outlets retails shops and to the super chains. With my samples in hand I then attended the annual Gift and Art ware Trade Show at the Furniture Mart in Los Angeles. I was received with a gracious welcome from many individuals and companies executives for producing a necessary and much needed accessory for the gift trade field. During two visits to the show that week resulted in gaining numerous orders from wholesalers and retailers.
During the year 1950 our family moved from a rented apartment on Beechwood Avenue in Lynwood and purchased our very first tract home, which was on Layman Avenue in the town of Pico, near the city of Whittier. Our first sale and delivery to Stewart’s Ceramics was recorded on April 30, 1951 in my sales journal. During that first year, 1951, our sales totaled $1,177.56 through very hard hand labor accomplished after regular working hours. On December 14th I paid $6 dollars to the U.S. Register of Copyrights for the exclusive rights to the “Deccofelt” name. In 1952 our sales doubled to $2.322.78 mostly due to shipments to Stewart’s Ceramics. We were also selling to a few local pottery manufacturers, wholesaler Forman Pottery and gift jobber Najeeb, Inc. of Los Angeles both of whom I had met by attending and displaying the product at the Los Angeles Gift Show that year. Several wholesale florists and novelty shops were now ordering but we somehow were able to keep up with production of the ten cent retail card with our new solid stainless steel cutting die, our only piece of equipment, a used two ton punch press.
Purchasing a 3/8-inch diameter saddler’s punch and a small hammer from a local hardware store I proceeded to punch out dozens of the pressure-sensitive coated green felt pads to apply to the three by five inch retail cards. I placed the saddler’s punch over the felt which had an underside of brown wax paper and punched these out over a two inch thick piece of hardwood. Ruth and I then took each 3/8 inch pad, removed the brown wax paper from the underside that protected the adhesive, and placed 24 green felt pads on each card in rows of 6 each to complete the finished product.
I came up with the name Deccofelt after investigating the national Thomas Directory of American Manufacturers found in the local libraries and discovered that the word Deco was used many times by several U.S. Companies. This prompted me to add the second “C” and the word “felt” to distinguish a name not copyrighted in America. From there I applied for a United States patent for the product and initially all retail cards were printed with the words, “Patent Pending”.
With my commercial art experience I designed a three inch by five inch retail card with one side coated with a Chroma tone coating. This made an easy release of the applied pressure-sensitive adhesive felt pads. I then had a thousand Self Stick Deccofelt retail cards printed by Jim Vincent a local printer.
Ruth and I then placed twenty-four pressure-sensitive green felt pads by hand to each card . We completed and produced a few dozen cards for samples for which to show to local retail store purchasing agents in the Southern California area. Prior to any independent sales effort I was obligated to show the product to my employer and boss Mort Bach, then Coast Paint & Chemical president. I inquired of him whether Coast Paint and Chemical Company could use and sell this product for distribution to the nation’s retail wholesalers. After some thought he replied that it was not in the Coast product line of industrial products. He kindly gave me his authorization to pursue it myself. I presented the item to a few retailers after daily working hours and on Saturdays and Sundays. During the spring of 1949 my primary thought was to be able to sell the new product to ceramic manufacturers or retail outlets selling ceramic pottery ware as a pressure sensitive adhesive protective pad to be applied to the bottoms of pottery and nick-knacks as scratch protection of table tops. Finding several pottery wholesales in the yellow pages of the Los Angeles telephone book my very first sales call was in Downey, California not too distant from our Lynwood apartment. Stewart’s Ceramics were on Lakewood Boulevard and almost directly across from the North American Aircraft parts plant. Lakewood Boulevard was then a main artery from Los Angeles to Long Beach many years before the freeways were build.
Introducing myself to Ralph and Bert Stewart, the owners of Stewart’s Ceramic Company, a retail wholesaler I presented the Deccofelt retail card. They both thought the product had great potential in their line of endeavor and advised me that there was nothing on the market at that time that would protect pottery or ceramic items from furniture scratches. They requested that I deliver them a gross of cards for testing to the retail trade. Not knowing exactly how to produce the large amount of 144 finished cards I was not keen on working for a several weeks during my spare time to hand produce this large amount. During the next two month I received two phone calls from Ralph Stewart wanting to know when I was going to deliver the gross of retail cards he had ordered from me during my last visit. So Ruth and I sat down and seriously worked in our spare time to finish the one gross of cards which the Stewart’s had ordered. We were paid $8.64 cents for our effort.
That single gross of retail cards were sold-out within days by Stewart’s Ceramics and they called to order six more gross of the new product. At this point I realized that we must have some means and help to produce the large Stewart order. During the following week I asked a few fellow employees at the Coast factory if they were interested in joining me in this new venture. Harold Munz and Ed Christy both gave me negative replies but Ed Heinrich said he was interested and would join me in this endeavor. But he did not want to drive to our Pico-Rivera garage address, some 20 miles south due to his full time employment on the Chromate Felt processing line at Coast. So I agreed to set up shop in the garage of his Monrovia house. Ruth, Thelma, Ed and I completed the six gross order, (all by hand) for Steward’s Ceramics. In my spare time I worked to hunt down tool and die makers in the Southern California area. I explained our problem of bulk cutting the 3/8 inch discs and placing of the twenty four green pressure-sensitive felt pads to the retail card, possibly using a solid female and male stainless steel cutting die. I finally found a tool and die company in Los Angeles, the Advanced Tool and Die Company, who suggested they could build a solid stainless steel tool to do the work with the aid of a two-ton punch press. Ed and Thelma as well as Ruth and I had very little money in those days so we were at a loss to know where we would or could obtain the cash to pay for not only the die but also for the two ton punch press. I personally inquired at our local Bank of America office requesting a loan but was immediately refused because the bank wanted some collateral for security. Ed and I did not have any security or assets at our current salaries. I then wrote to my father in Dedham, Massachusetts and asked him to loan me $2,000 dollars for three years at the then current interest rate of two percent. He was so very kind and receptive to consent and send me the funds, which I received in less than two weeks. The die maker finished the die and in the meantime I purchased a used two-ton punch press from a local used machinery dealer, which I paid for from the funds received from my Dad.
By this time Stewart’s Ceramics of Downey had ordered twelve additional gross of Deccofelt cards, which we now could handily produce with our new equipment. At this point I designed a small retail carton, with art work showing the possible uses of the product, which could be used by the dealers and the retail store trade. The new paperboard box containing three-dozen retail cards was an incentive to display the item to the consumers. Most retail shops displayed the new box near their check-out counters as an impulse item.
Realizing I was the entrepreneur of a brand new product, we now had the means and equipment to produce an item that was truly saleable to many outlets retails shops and to the super chains. With my samples in hand I then attended the annual Gift and Art ware Trade Show at the Furniture Mart in Los Angeles. I was received with a gracious welcome from many individuals and companies executives for producing a necessary and much needed accessory for the gift trade field. During two visits to the show that week resulted in gaining numerous orders from wholesalers and retailers.
During the year 1950 our family moved from a rented apartment on Beechwood Avenue in Lynwood and purchased our very first tract home, which was on Layman Avenue in the town of Pico, near the city of Whittier. Our first sale and delivery to Stewart’s Ceramics was recorded on April 30, 1951 in my sales journal. During that first year, 1951, our sales totaled $1,177.56 through very hard hand labor accomplished after regular working hours. On December 14th I paid $6 dollars to the U.S. Register of Copyrights for the exclusive rights to the “Deccofelt” name. In 1952 our sales doubled to $2.322.78 mostly due to shipments to Stewart’s Ceramics. We were also selling to a few local pottery manufacturers, wholesaler Forman Pottery and gift jobber Najeeb, Inc. of Los Angeles both of whom I had met by attending and displaying the product at the Los Angeles Gift Show that year. Several wholesale florists and novelty shops were now ordering but we somehow were able to keep up with production of the ten cent retail card with our new solid stainless steel cutting die, our only piece of equipment, a used two ton punch press.
Glendora Years
In January of 1953 Ed Heinrich and I hunted for a piece of land to construct a small commercial building in the city of Glendora for manufacturing the pressure sensitive adhesive felt pad retail cards. Through the courtesy of local realtor Ken Turner we were introduced to Mr. Lonnie Crumpler, a building contractor and also a councilman serving on the board of the Glendora City Council. Mr. Crumpler was the owner of several acres of orange grove property on the west side of South Vermont Avenue between Route 66, (then called Alosta Avenue), and north to West Ada Avenue and the railroad tracks. During our meeting Mr. Crumpler related to us that he could possibly have the zoning changed from it’s existing agricultural classification to that of light manufacturing as the city had very little land available for manufacturing use. At a city council meeting a few weeks later Mr. Crumpler requested the members of the Council to change and adopt the zoning of his Vermont Avenue property from it’s present zoning to that of M-2, “light manufacturing.” During that Council meeting, as matter of courtesy, Mr. Crumpler stepped down from voting because it conflicted with his ownership of the property. The unanimous vote polled by the council resulted in the change in zoning. The piece of property that we purchased for $2,500 dollars was a 50 foot wide piece of frontage on Vermont Avenue by 200 feet in depth or 10,000 square feet of land located on the west side of the street.
Fortunately our neighbor when we lived in Pico was a well know architect. Lee Maroshek was famous for designing and engineering auto dealership showrooms and other commercial buildings in California and Arizona. In the fall of 1953 we asked Lee to design a small factory building approximately 23 feet in width by 20 feet in depth, some 468 square feet of space. We obtained a County building permit and contracted with Lonnie Crumpler to construct the wood and plaster building on the lot we had purchased from him. At the time Ed Heinrich and I were still employed at Coast Paint and Chemical Company in Los Angeles while working nights and on weekends in Ed Heinrich’s Monrovia garage to fill and ship the orders of Deccofelt retail cards, primarily to Stewart’s Ceramics in Downey. During that year I had gained a total of six additional local customers: Shipley’s Gift Shop, Wilson Jewelry, O.W. Haist, James Smith and Sons and Calvin Art Shop.
According to the records of the sales journal our sales rocketed to $15,836.11 in 1953. Mostly because I had quit my sales engineering job at Coast Paint & Chemical in April and was spending full time on the road during the day in an effort to sell to the large chain stores while still laboring in the evening to produce enough to keep up with incoming orders occupying our new building.
At the end of April in 1953 I flew to Illinois after securing an appointment with the housewares purchasing agent at the Sear-Roebuck general offices in Chicago. During my appointment I demonstrated our protective pad retail cards and the retail display container. The head buyer Joe Kimball was very receptive and encouraging during our meeting exhibiting enormous interest as he related that this item had never before been manufactured and sold in any national retail store. He offered me an order of fifty gross of Deccofelt cards order for testing to the every Sears-Roebuck U.S. chain of store if the Deccofelt Company would award Sears-Roebuck a worldwide sales exclusive. At that point I was stunned, after careful thought I thank him for the offer and replied that I would bring his kind offer back to my business partner to discuss it with him. Upon departing the Sears Chicago headquarters I promised him a reply within the next couple of weeks. While in the Chicago area I made a sales call on the largest lamp manufacturing company in the United States, the Stiffel Lamp Company in the industrial section of Cicero, Illinois. This company was hand gluing six to ten diameter felt circles to the underside of their table lamps for scratch proofing and cushioning. I convinced the purchasing agent that we could supply felt of a variety of colors, at any size diameter, squares or shapes with an undercoating of pressure sensitive adhesive which would eliminate the labor factor involved with hand gluing and cleanup work.
Thinking that I should visit and show the Deccofelt card to the largest chain and retailer in the United States I then secured an appointment with the chief housewares buyer of Woolworth Company at their world headquarters office in New York City. So the first of May in the year 1953 I flew to New York City to present and demonstrate the retail item to the Woolworth buyer. His reception was even more enthusiastic than the Sear-Roebuck buyer. He did not require an exclusive sales agreement as was requested by Sears and after only a few minutes of inspecting the impulse item he handed me a bulk order for testing and shipment of one gross each, 144 cards, to one hundred Woolworth stores throughout the country. At that point I thought we had the world by the tail and immediately returned to California to help in producing and shipping the giant order. By the end of 1953 we had also gained the J. J. Newberry stores, the S. S. Kresge stores, the W. T. Grant chain of stores and many other independent variety stores.
1954 was a banner year because I had left the employment at Coast Paint and Chemical Company as a sales engineer and devoted full time to producing and selling for our own company. The year of 1954 our sales increased to $18,591.91.
In January of 1953 Ed Heinrich and I hunted for a piece of land to construct a small commercial building in the city of Glendora for manufacturing the pressure sensitive adhesive felt pad retail cards. Through the courtesy of local realtor Ken Turner we were introduced to Mr. Lonnie Crumpler, a building contractor and also a councilman serving on the board of the Glendora City Council. Mr. Crumpler was the owner of several acres of orange grove property on the west side of South Vermont Avenue between Route 66, (then called Alosta Avenue), and north to West Ada Avenue and the railroad tracks. During our meeting Mr. Crumpler related to us that he could possibly have the zoning changed from it’s existing agricultural classification to that of light manufacturing as the city had very little land available for manufacturing use. At a city council meeting a few weeks later Mr. Crumpler requested the members of the Council to change and adopt the zoning of his Vermont Avenue property from it’s present zoning to that of M-2, “light manufacturing.” During that Council meeting, as matter of courtesy, Mr. Crumpler stepped down from voting because it conflicted with his ownership of the property. The unanimous vote polled by the council resulted in the change in zoning. The piece of property that we purchased for $2,500 dollars was a 50 foot wide piece of frontage on Vermont Avenue by 200 feet in depth or 10,000 square feet of land located on the west side of the street.
Fortunately our neighbor when we lived in Pico was a well know architect. Lee Maroshek was famous for designing and engineering auto dealership showrooms and other commercial buildings in California and Arizona. In the fall of 1953 we asked Lee to design a small factory building approximately 23 feet in width by 20 feet in depth, some 468 square feet of space. We obtained a County building permit and contracted with Lonnie Crumpler to construct the wood and plaster building on the lot we had purchased from him. At the time Ed Heinrich and I were still employed at Coast Paint and Chemical Company in Los Angeles while working nights and on weekends in Ed Heinrich’s Monrovia garage to fill and ship the orders of Deccofelt retail cards, primarily to Stewart’s Ceramics in Downey. During that year I had gained a total of six additional local customers: Shipley’s Gift Shop, Wilson Jewelry, O.W. Haist, James Smith and Sons and Calvin Art Shop.
According to the records of the sales journal our sales rocketed to $15,836.11 in 1953. Mostly because I had quit my sales engineering job at Coast Paint & Chemical in April and was spending full time on the road during the day in an effort to sell to the large chain stores while still laboring in the evening to produce enough to keep up with incoming orders occupying our new building.
At the end of April in 1953 I flew to Illinois after securing an appointment with the housewares purchasing agent at the Sear-Roebuck general offices in Chicago. During my appointment I demonstrated our protective pad retail cards and the retail display container. The head buyer Joe Kimball was very receptive and encouraging during our meeting exhibiting enormous interest as he related that this item had never before been manufactured and sold in any national retail store. He offered me an order of fifty gross of Deccofelt cards order for testing to the every Sears-Roebuck U.S. chain of store if the Deccofelt Company would award Sears-Roebuck a worldwide sales exclusive. At that point I was stunned, after careful thought I thank him for the offer and replied that I would bring his kind offer back to my business partner to discuss it with him. Upon departing the Sears Chicago headquarters I promised him a reply within the next couple of weeks. While in the Chicago area I made a sales call on the largest lamp manufacturing company in the United States, the Stiffel Lamp Company in the industrial section of Cicero, Illinois. This company was hand gluing six to ten diameter felt circles to the underside of their table lamps for scratch proofing and cushioning. I convinced the purchasing agent that we could supply felt of a variety of colors, at any size diameter, squares or shapes with an undercoating of pressure sensitive adhesive which would eliminate the labor factor involved with hand gluing and cleanup work.
Thinking that I should visit and show the Deccofelt card to the largest chain and retailer in the United States I then secured an appointment with the chief housewares buyer of Woolworth Company at their world headquarters office in New York City. So the first of May in the year 1953 I flew to New York City to present and demonstrate the retail item to the Woolworth buyer. His reception was even more enthusiastic than the Sear-Roebuck buyer. He did not require an exclusive sales agreement as was requested by Sears and after only a few minutes of inspecting the impulse item he handed me a bulk order for testing and shipment of one gross each, 144 cards, to one hundred Woolworth stores throughout the country. At that point I thought we had the world by the tail and immediately returned to California to help in producing and shipping the giant order. By the end of 1953 we had also gained the J. J. Newberry stores, the S. S. Kresge stores, the W. T. Grant chain of stores and many other independent variety stores.
1954 was a banner year because I had left the employment at Coast Paint and Chemical Company as a sales engineer and devoted full time to producing and selling for our own company. The year of 1954 our sales increased to $18,591.91.
The invention and manufacturing of Polyurethane giant foam Dice. (before "Fuzzy Dice")
By Edgar Sundberg
In 1958 we were producing from Dupont catalytic chemical compounds. These polyurethane cubes were being sold by our company to R.C.A., General Electric, Raytheon and others for use in packing and cushioning the inside of shipping cartons which contained television sets. This was many years before today’s molded white Styrofoam, which is primarily used in packing and cushioning many products in their shipping cartons to prevent shipping damage to the item.
In August, 1958 while in my office I was fiddling with a pair of the three inch white square foam and just for kicks I placed six green pressure-sensitive Deccofelt 3/8 inch discs on one side of the cube, five discs on another side and four on another side, etc. Surprisingly I had made a giant pair of dice. During the ten o'clock morning rest break I brought the dice I had made into the factory where a couple women employees were having their coffee and donuts at a large table. In jest, I rolled them on the table and said, “Seven come eleven.” The ladies chuckled at the time. Lupe Zavala, our longest employee, asked me if she could have them for her nine-year-old son. thinking that he might have fun playing with them. I replied, “by all means Lupe, take them home I can easily make another pair”.
The following morning Lupe knocked on my office door during her coffee break. I ask her to come in and sit down, but she politely declined saying, “No, no, I would like you to come out to my automobile to see what my son has done with the pair of giant foam dice you made and gave me yesterday.” So we both walked outside and into the employee parking lot to her car and low and behold I was amazed and surprised to find that her son had tied a 12 inch piece of string between each dice and had hung the dice over the car’s rear view mirror. “Wow! I excitedly said, what a great idea.” I then requested Lupe to make up a dozen pairs, wrap each pair in clear cellophane and place them in a cardboard container so that I might display them to the Los Angeles wholesalers to possibly sell as a retail gift item.
The timing was perfect for it was the month of August when all the state and county fairs were about to open in our country. The following morning Lupe presented me with a dozen pairs in a container so that I might display the new item to a few carnival jobbers and wholesalers on Los Angeles Street downtown. These wholesalers were selling to our nations county and state fair game operators. The end use would be for prizes and awards for games such as the ring toss, the penny pitch game and other amusement games played by the attendees of the fairs.
The very first carnival wholesaler that I showed them to in Los Angeles was very excited and ordered a hundred dozen pairs for testing the market. That order was produced shipped and delivered within a week. Immediately full scale production of the item blossomed. We soon hired thirty employees to work in our factory assembling and packaging and an additional thirty workers were hired to work at home on piecework, to keep up with the demand in producing the new hot item. Deccofelt’s production and sales of that item were made for approximately two years before competition set in from Japanese manufacturers shipping them into the United States at half the cost of our wholesale price. We, therefore, immediately made the decision to sell and to use up our complete inventory of raw materials and to then shut down the operation because of the foreign competition. The best part of the story is the fact that we made thousands of that item each month and millions were produced for the carnival trade and retail dealers through out the country during the 24 month period resulting in enough capital to constructed and build the fourth addition to our factory.
By Edgar Sundberg
In 1958 we were producing from Dupont catalytic chemical compounds. These polyurethane cubes were being sold by our company to R.C.A., General Electric, Raytheon and others for use in packing and cushioning the inside of shipping cartons which contained television sets. This was many years before today’s molded white Styrofoam, which is primarily used in packing and cushioning many products in their shipping cartons to prevent shipping damage to the item.
In August, 1958 while in my office I was fiddling with a pair of the three inch white square foam and just for kicks I placed six green pressure-sensitive Deccofelt 3/8 inch discs on one side of the cube, five discs on another side and four on another side, etc. Surprisingly I had made a giant pair of dice. During the ten o'clock morning rest break I brought the dice I had made into the factory where a couple women employees were having their coffee and donuts at a large table. In jest, I rolled them on the table and said, “Seven come eleven.” The ladies chuckled at the time. Lupe Zavala, our longest employee, asked me if she could have them for her nine-year-old son. thinking that he might have fun playing with them. I replied, “by all means Lupe, take them home I can easily make another pair”.
The following morning Lupe knocked on my office door during her coffee break. I ask her to come in and sit down, but she politely declined saying, “No, no, I would like you to come out to my automobile to see what my son has done with the pair of giant foam dice you made and gave me yesterday.” So we both walked outside and into the employee parking lot to her car and low and behold I was amazed and surprised to find that her son had tied a 12 inch piece of string between each dice and had hung the dice over the car’s rear view mirror. “Wow! I excitedly said, what a great idea.” I then requested Lupe to make up a dozen pairs, wrap each pair in clear cellophane and place them in a cardboard container so that I might display them to the Los Angeles wholesalers to possibly sell as a retail gift item.
The timing was perfect for it was the month of August when all the state and county fairs were about to open in our country. The following morning Lupe presented me with a dozen pairs in a container so that I might display the new item to a few carnival jobbers and wholesalers on Los Angeles Street downtown. These wholesalers were selling to our nations county and state fair game operators. The end use would be for prizes and awards for games such as the ring toss, the penny pitch game and other amusement games played by the attendees of the fairs.
The very first carnival wholesaler that I showed them to in Los Angeles was very excited and ordered a hundred dozen pairs for testing the market. That order was produced shipped and delivered within a week. Immediately full scale production of the item blossomed. We soon hired thirty employees to work in our factory assembling and packaging and an additional thirty workers were hired to work at home on piecework, to keep up with the demand in producing the new hot item. Deccofelt’s production and sales of that item were made for approximately two years before competition set in from Japanese manufacturers shipping them into the United States at half the cost of our wholesale price. We, therefore, immediately made the decision to sell and to use up our complete inventory of raw materials and to then shut down the operation because of the foreign competition. The best part of the story is the fact that we made thousands of that item each month and millions were produced for the carnival trade and retail dealers through out the country during the 24 month period resulting in enough capital to constructed and build the fourth addition to our factory.