JANUARY 13, 2024 – Early in the afternoon two hot days later, I turned down another old retail section of town not far from where I’d found the Chinese shop. Except all the action, as it were, wasn’t inside a mom and pop store but in the street—curb to curb—in front of a furniture store with large plate glass windows. I remember the store because “Furniture” was written prominently on the glass and through the glass I could see chairs, tables, and sofas crowded on the floor inside. The name of the company appeared in front of “Furniture,” but if I noticed, the name didn’t register . . . and wouldn’t until 20 years later.
The “action,” as it were, had mostly already happened. What lay strewn all over the pavement were a gazillion watermelons in various states of destruction. In the middle of the street lay an open-bed delivery truck on its side, with no more than half a dozen melons resting on the wooden slats of the truck bed side that was now one with the pavement.
A crowd had assembled to gawk at the scene, and a number of kids found themselves in some version of paradise. None of the grownups attempted to interrupt the free feast.
Eventually, I continued on my way.
Three years later I was in law school. Specifically, I was a student in a business law course in law school. The instructor was an adjunct faculty member, a practicing attorney by the name of Irv Weiser. He was well organized and well regarded. His manner was respectful, and appropriately, given the subject matter, “Professor Weiser” was pretty much all business.
Fast forward another 18 years. By that time “Professor Weiser” was CEO of Dain Rauscher, a major brokerage and investment banking firm based in Minneapolis. From class time Irv Weiser had gone big time. Occasionally I’d see him walking among the lunchtime business crowd in the skyways of downtown Minneapolis. I never expected him to recognize me—in a suit—and I was never disappointed.
Now fast forward to another day but not much later that year. I was managing a group inside the corporate trust department at Norwest Bank, a couple of years before its merger with Wells Fargo. Among other business lines under my purview were high-yield indenture trusteeships. It was a very arcane element of a narrow slice of the world of debt financing. Nationwide, only about four corporate trust shops pursued this specialized business, and my sole dedicated salesman knew each of his main competitors. I was under a mandate to grow the business line, and my choices were to “steal” one of those main competitors or “grow our own” additional “high-yield” salespersons. The problem with the first method was the cost: the candidates were based in New York and enjoyed compensation formulae that were much too rich for the P&L I had to manage. The downside of the second method—“growing our own”—was that we’d have to invest time and resources to train people, then wait for them to become productive.
I decided to split the difference: hire an established salesperson, ideally someone who already worked in finance at Norwest. Working with HR, I fashioned a job description for internal posting. A day or two later someone responded—one Gerry—who worked in Norwest Investments, the brokerage affiliate of the bank.
Gerry’s resumé was attractive, and our initial conversation by phone was promising. I extended an invitation to lunch to get better acquainted.
In keeping with my “interview” style, I encouraged Gerry to talk about himself, starting with “how he got started” and “what road map he’d followed” to wind up in the chair across the table from me.
“I grew up in Buffalo, New York,” he said. “Went to high school there, then to Northeastern University.”
“Boston!” I said. “I have a sister who lives there. When I was in college I visited her lots and took the Green Line right past Northeastern a million times . . . But Gerry, you grew up in Buffalo? One summer during college I sold books door-to-door in Buffalo.”
“What? Tell me more.”
“In a bit. First I want to hear your story.”
I let Gerry continue along his road map until he said, “I followed my brother out here to Minnesota.”
“Wait a sec,” I said. “You don’t mean Irv Weiser, do you?”
“Yep,” Gerry said. “He’s the brother I followed.”
“Small world. I had your brother as an instructor for a business law course I took in law school.”
“You’re kidding,” he said. “It sure is a small world. But I’m curious, you’ve got to tell me more about selling books in Buffalo—that’s absolutely wild. How did you wind up doing that in Buffalo? You’re not from there are you?”
Whereupon I began to describe the pertinent section of my own “road map.” Along the route, I mentioned the watermelon calamity described above—including the detail about the location of the incident in front of the furniture store.
Gerry nearly dropped his salad fork onto his French fries. “You’re not gonna believe this,” said Jerry, “but that was my dad’s furniture store and I was there when that truck with the watermelons tipped over! Right after it happened we all cleared out of the store to see what was going on!”
“Wow, Gerry. That means that over 20 years ago in a place on the other side of the Great Lakes from here, you and I were standing within a few feet of each other on the same sidewalk gaping at the same watermelons!”
You never know when or where one part of your life is going to connect with another piece.
Blogger’s Note: After writing this chapter I did some research on the Weiser family of Buffalo, New York. Fascinating. From Irv’s bio as an 11-year board member of the Bush Foundation, prominent Twin Cities-based charitable organization, I learned that Irv and Gerry’s parents were Holocaust survivors. According to Irv, “There were a lot of different ways that parents and children dealt with the war. It was just something we never asked in our family. I think I was 21 the first time that I learned anything about my dad’s experiences in the war.” Irv was born in 1947 in a refugee camp just outside Munich. Two years later the family moved to Buffalo, where the father went into the furniture business. According to Irv, their dad “worked six days and three nights a week. He always put family above everything else.” (The business flourished and eventually merged with another to form DatesWeiser, now a highly successful manufacturer of high-end architectural furniture, with its headquarters and factory still at 1700 Broadway in Buffalo but with a national sales office and showroom in the heart of Manhattan. After graduating from Brooklyn Law School, Irv came to Minneapolis in 1973 to work as an associate at Dorsey & Whitney. He—and Gerry, who followed—and their families have lived in Minneapolis ever since, playing significant roles in the life of the business, religious, charitable, and civic community.
Gerry made a very positive impression but he wound up not joining our group. As I recall he felt the specialized nature of the position was too specialized for his career goals. I regret that I lost contact with him.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
