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GOOD
WISNES FOR
A VERY
NAPPY
PASSOVER
CLASSIC CUISINE
Approved by Council of Orthodox Rabbis
PHILIP TEWEL
50
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Synagogues,
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Food and Beverage Director
(313) 661.4050 or (313) 968.1200
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Business
WRITE STUFF page 49
growth, Mr. Shaw was named
in 1992 to the board of Pilot's
parent company in Japan. The
move made him only the sixth
American ever to sit on the
board of a Japanese company,
which is considered a huge hon-
or in Japan.
"I didn't think it would ever
happen," says Mr. Shaw, 55.
"And I used to say this would
never happen with the same
conviction I said that I didn't
think we'll ever see a Jewish
president of the United States.
So you never know."
Sitting in his plush offices,
Mr. Shaw says that as a young
Jewish boy in Philadelphia, he
never aspired to be president or
a business success. From age 6,
he was in love with porailAr mu-
sic of the period, and all he
wanted to do was play the pi-
ano.
He began listening to the big-
band tunes on the radio and
plucked out the melodies on the
piano, demanding piano
lessons. He frustrated his teach-
ers by refusing to learn classi-
cal music, insisting that his
teachers help him sound like
Tommy Dorsey and Benny
Goodman.
Music was an escape from a
childhood marked by anti-
Semitic taunting from neigh-
borhood children. He was called
"rotten dirty Jew" in the street
and rocks were thrown into his
parents' small grocery store,
above which the family lived.
Mr. Shaw was pushed down a
sewer, and the boy was almost
killed when he was shoved into
the path of a moving trolley car.
"I was saved by the fact that
it was winter, there was ice on
the ground, and I slid across the
tracks out of the path of the
car," he said.
Because of his mother's bad
health, partially caused by
frayed nerves, doctors recom-
mended that the family move
to a warmer climate. They went
to Miami. For a star-struck boy,
Mr. Shaw says, Miami "was
probably the most exciting place
in America."
Professional piano playing
gradually led Mr. Shaw to oth-
er sides of show business. As a
teen-ager, he interviewed Jim-
my Durante, Clark Gable and
Bob Hope on an NBC radio pro-
gram for youths. Mr. Shaw says
he found his true calling when
he was asked to act as a last-
minute replacement for a co-
median. When he heard an
audience laugh at his jokes, "a
feeling came over me that I
can't adequately express."
In 1956 and 1957, still in his
late teens, Mr. Shaw worked as
a classic Catskills comedian,
performing in the legendary
Jewish resort area in the sum-
mers and working the circuit of
Florida hotels and clubs in the
winter.
In 1958, events converged to
shorten his performing career.
First came a recession which
found him back in Miami, work-
ing at what he calls "a low-class
strip joint" for $125 a week un-
der an assumed name. He was
married to Phyllis when he was
21 and she was 19. Although
she was willing to go on the
road with him to support his
show-business dreams, she be-
came pregnant, and Mr. Shaw
was forced to reassess.
"I thought, This is no way to
raise a kid,' " he said.
First he tried selling insur-
ance, which he found depress-
ing
"It meant essentially going
into people's homes and finding
100 different ways to say 'God
forbid,' " he said.
LEADING ISRAELI STOCKS
TRADED ON U.S. EXCHANGES
Symbol
SCIXF
ECILF
TEVIY
IEC
ELBTF
ELT
ELRNF
TAD
CMVT
LANTF
ISL
Name
Scitex
ECI Telecom
Teva Phami
PEC Israel
Elbit Computers
Elscint LTD
Elron Electronics
Tadiran
Comverse
Lannet Data
First Israel Fund
Exchange
NASDAQ
NASDAQ
NASDAQ
NYSE
NASDAQ
NYSE
NASDAQ
NYSE
NASDAQ
NASDAQ
NYSE
March 11 March 18 Change
24.25
5 25.50
+51.25
24.63
26.50
+51.88
90.25
90.38
+50.13
28.25
5 29.00
+50.75
92.25
95.50
+9.25
9.25
9.50
+$0.25
5 14.63
5 15.00
+50.38
21.5
21.50
5 0.00
14.63
5 9.63
5 16.38
-$0.38
5 0.00
+10.63
5 15.00
9.63
5 15.750
5
5
Source: Allen Olender, Prudential Securities,
West Bloomfield.
Eventually, his wife found an
ad in the Miami Herald for a
salesman to sell Bic pens. Mr.
Shaw took to sales naturally,
using his performing skills to
his advantage.
"I found that I really sold my-
self; in order to sell the pens, I
had to sell me," he said.
Mr. Shaw rapidly rose up the
company ladder at Bic, han-
dling larger and larger areas of
sales, and he moved his grow-
ing family from Miami to At-
lanta, Chicago and Detroit. At
age 30, he was named national
sales manager, a job he held for
six years. His relationship with
Bic ended painfully, when he
was replaced by a member of
the family that controls the
company.
"At 36, I was fired because of
nepotism, and it was the worst
day of my life," he said.
His departure merited a
small paragraph in the New
York Times and the Wall Street
Journal. Soon afterwards, "I
was called by some Japanese
guys" he could hardly under-
stand.
In 1974, Pilot Pen's sales in
the U.S. were so negligible that
Sales run to
$96 million.
Mr. Shaw at first turned up his
nose at working for them. He
named terms that he was sure
Pilot would not agree to: for ex-
ample, he asked for a percent-
age of sales in place of a hefty
salary.
That turned out to be a smart
move because Mr. Shaw lifted
sales to $20 million in 1979 and
he continued to push them even
higher throughout the 1980s.
Although he had no formal
marketing background, most of
the changes he made were com-
mon-sense moves.
He took special fine-point
pens and markers that the corn-
pany had marketed strictly to
architects and draftsmen and
started aiming advertisements
at waitresses and accountants.
He also injected a sense of
humor, encouraging the com-
pany's advertising staffers to
stretch their imaginations. The
resulting advertisements were
distinctively witty and humor-
ous. For example, the compa-
ny ran a New Yorker-style
cartoon of a man asking his psy-
chiatrist, "Is it sick for a man to
love his pen?"
The psychiatrist replies,
scribbling on his pad: "It's per-
fectly normal - as long as it's
a Pilot Pen."
Mr. Shaw admits frankly
that working with the Japan-
ese is never easy, and not only
because of jet lag in the more
than 30 trips he has made to
Tokyo.
ti