Not Your Average Joe's Speck:Illy compiled by 71.1e Jerusalem Post —$1 EQUALS 2.9830 NIS (shelcels)- Close Price 3/430/94— Factor On The Rise The Bank of Israel's `S,' or State of the; economy indicator, rose 0.6 pereent in February, the central bank's research de- p artment reported. The rise reflects a contin- ued expansion of economic ac tivity from previous months. In January, the indicator went up 0: 7 percent. Three Army/Navy surplus stores have their own personalities. STEVE STEIN STAFF WRITER 0 ne store is on a down- town street. Another is in a freestanding build- ing. The third is in a strip mall. That begins the list of subtle — and not so subtle — differ- ences between the three Joe's Army/Navy Surplus stores owned by the father-and- son duo of Herman and Jeff Gold- smith. The company is cele- brating its 50th year of operation in 1994. Besides the Goldsmith fam- ily, the stores have one other important common denomina- tor. They all offer what could be two Joe's Army/Navy locations. In Waterford, the focus is on camping and outdoor equip- ment. The store also has the company's largest selection of outdoor footwear. The Warren and Waterford locations are both about 9,000 square feet, while the Royal Oak store is much smaller at about 3,500 square feet. But it's a busy place that attracts much stop-in traffic because of the popular restaurants in the area. "In general, military prod- ucts are very well made," Jeff Goldsmith said. "Outdoor sports enthusiasts often shop items year-round. Some of our competitors in the area already had their spring merchandise out." The late Joe Jacobson founded Joe's Army/Navy in 1944 in downtown Pontiac. The store sold basic Army/Navy sur- plus merchandise. Herman Goldsmith (and a partner he later bought out) purchased the operation in 1973, and he later left Pontiac to open a store at the current site in Waterford. Jeff Goldsmith learned the ropes of the business in the Wa- terford store, working as a stockman and sales associate Retail trade rose 3.4 per- cent in February, while the import index fell 1.7 percent. Other figures showed that in January the number of , salaried jobs in the business sector fell 0.3 percent, while industrial production rose 2.1 percent. All figures are sea- sonally adjusted. Welding Deal Sea door of the new 500 mid-size series car manufactured in Germany. Robomatix laser process - ing systems are currently used in the manufacture of Gener- al Motors, Volkswagen and Opel automobiles worldwide. Robomatix, founded in 1983, uses laser-based robot- ic components and on-line quality assurance systems based on electronic vision corn- ponents. Robomatix Technologies, an Israeli company which is trad- ed over the counter in New York, announced it has signed an $850,000 contract with BMW to supply Modulaser, its on-line laser welding system. The automobile manufac- turer will use the laser system in its new 500 series produc- tion line. The system, which will be supplied in September, will be used to connect two tangent sheets of the rear baggage A Paper Partnership C Holdings has entered into a partnership with a Hungar- ian paper manufacturer, the Israeli company announced. C Holdings signed an agree- ment in principle with the Hungarian company, which owns a paper manufacturing plant and a 100-d-unam plot which it intends to develop. The agreement is in the framework of C Holdings' pol- icy to operate in Eastern Eu rope. The company has already esta.blished a con- Photo by Daniel Up pitt : Jeff and Herman Goldsmith in their Royal Oak store. considered anti-mainstream merchandise for outdoor sports enthusiasts and outdoor work- ers: Army/Navy surplus, and a wide selection of non-military gear. While carrying that mer- chandise, each store also has carved out its own niche based on demographics and sales. In trendy downtown Royal Oak, young shoppers buy a wide se- lection of outdoor apparel, more for its current hot fashion state- ment than its utilitarian pur- pose. The Warren store, in a strip mall close to the GM Tech Cen- ter, features more high-tech camping gear than the other at Army/Navy surplus stores for this merchandise, which they can purchase second-hand at reasonable prices. By also carrying non-military outdoor gear, we feel Joe's Army/Navy provides its customers with one-stop shopping." Mr. Goldsmith said cus- tomers were pouring in at all three locations during the cold snap the Detroit area experi- enced in January and Febru- ary. "It went on for three straight weeks," Mr. Goldsmith said. "People were buying anything they could to stay warm. They knew, because of what we offer, that we carry cold-weather on weekends while attending Oak Park High-School. After graduating from Oak Park in 1981 and Michigan State University with a degree in purchasing management in 1985, he joined his father in running the company. A year later, the Royal Oak store opened. The expansion into Warren took place in 1991 following a boom period selling Desert Storm merchandise. Among the wide range of fast- selling items at Joe's Army/Navy were Israeli gas masks, U.S. Army cook's caps, hats, pins, patches and bumper stickers. ❑ struction company in Russia and a soft drink manufactur er in Moscow. C Holdings completed 1993 with a 83 percent rise in net profit to NIS 3.3 million from MS 1.8 million. Revenues grew to NIS 50.5 million from NIS 19 million. C Holdings is involved. in 25 projects, including con- struction of 2,500 housing units and about 200,000 square meters of commercial and industrial space. Fewer Cars Imported Some 110,000 new cars were imported into Israel last year, a drop of almost eight percent from the record of 120,000 set in 1992, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported. In its study of the impor- tance of durable goods to the country and the territories, the bureau reported that about 280,000 television sets were supplied to the Israel market in 1993, a 13 percent increase over 1992. Last year, some 119,000 household washing machines were supplied, compared to 103,000 the year before, a 15 percent increase and a record. The bureau also reported the supply of some 70,000 videotape players, a drop of al- most 40 percent over the 116,000 in 1992. Elbit Gains Silver Status The McDonnell Douglas Corp, aviation division has given El- bit a preferential supplier sta- tus, at the silver rank. A total of 50 comparties worldwide hold this status. At the end of 1991, Mc- Donnell Douglas decided th re- duce its list'of suppliers in the world to 3,000 from 7,000. Ap- proximately one year ago, El- bit was chosen to supply McDonnell Douglas.with'pilot display systems. The two com- panies signed a $20 million supply contract.