The Entrepreneur
The Beginning
In his junior year of high school, the guidance director called him into his office and asked, “What do you want to be?” 70 years later, he still has not decided.
His first paying job was delivering newspapers. At 16, he was a camp counselor at Camp Mohawk. The next summer he delivered laundry for the Sunshine Laundry Company. The next year he worked for Litchfield Cleaners delivering and various jobs in the cleaners. During his years at military college he earned money playing in his band.
Sayford Specialty Paper Company hired him after college. $5,600 a year was about average for a college graduate with a BS in Business Administration. He trained in the factory in Buena Vista, Virginia, so as Sales Manager he would know the product in and out. He also played guitar in the Roy Painter Band.
Nothing is more definite than change! They moved the printing division to Litchfield and made Graham Plant Manager. Their customers included 100% of Howard Johnson place mats, Whitman Candy liners and thousands of other national locations. He was trained to operate the presses and while operating the Green Hornet offset press, he cut his right ring finger off. Sayford’s main product was double-wrapped coffee cups. The industry switched to single-wrap cups to be used in coffee machines and the company could not survive the change.
He took a job at Schick Safety Razor in Milford as supervisor of the Packaging Division. Later they offered him a promotion to General Manager of the ribbon razor division. It was a new product made at night and was often referred to as the “Bugs Bunny Room”. He could not accept a job at night and left to become Purchasing Manager at TRW. He joined the Purchasing Managers’ Association and was the director of Plant Visitation. He took the association members to the Fairless Works of US Steel in Pennsylvania, Scoville Brass in Waterbury, the Chevrolet Assembly plant in North Tarrytown, NY and several others.
Ralph Bolton wrote a book called “Systems Contracting” that described a cost reduction idea for buying MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operating) supplies. He formed his 1st company, “Kelson Marketing”, and sold the concept to manufacturing companies. Bill Smith, president of CS Mersick Supersupply, an industrial supply in North Haven, contracted him to sell the idea to their customers.
In 1965 he joined the Connecticut State Police and in 1967 he was sworn in as a Plainville Police Officer. He bought into a company that sold paintings by offering them for sale at local restaurants. The company dissolved, leaving him with over 100 paintings to sell. He rented a storefront in Plainville and sold the paintings. He bought the inventory from the closed Simsbury Hobby Store and opened the “Hobby Stop”. The landlord wanted him to rent the other half of the building but he could not afford to invest in another business so he suggested an arcade. Graham asked the Chief, Frank Roache, if he thought it was ok with him and he said yes. Graham was a Plainville Police Officer, Hobby Store owner, Arcade owner and charter boat owner.
He resigned from the police department in 1976 and took a job in charge of security at Middlesex Hospital. Maureen Roberts was admitted to the hospital. She discovered Graham had a Merchant Marine license and asked him to talk to her husband Jack about relocating their 85-foot motor yacht to Palm Beach. He took the relocating job. He moved in with his friend Brock Andrews, who lived in Fort Lauderdale. He passed the 100-ton Merchant Marine exam in Miami and was hired as Captain of the Jungle Queen, a 385-passenger sightseeing riverboat.
He moved back to Connecticut and was hired as District Sales Manager by Kyocera Ceramics and Cutting Tools Division. Kyocera is a multinational manufacturer located in Kyoto, Japan. They produced a ceramic cutting tool that could machine aircraft materials like Inconel 718 at many times the speed. General Electric jet engine division in Lynn, Massachusetts was his biggest success. They were cutting jet engine 16-inch rings at 700 surface feet per minute. He earned the “Salesman of the Year” award 2 years in a row. They sent him to Japan to visit several manufacturing locations. In the evenings he was taken to karaoke lounges. This would change his future. After returning home he formed High Performance Tools LLC. He sold carbide from various grinding shops, Kyocera Ceramic and Mitsubishi cutting tools.
Karaoke is a Japanese word meaning “empty orchestra”.