Wednesday, May 25, 2022
I honor the life of a man I wanted to be near me whenever the going got tough or when it wasn't. I think Phil was the most pleasant man I ever knew. I was in New York when our (Champion Papers) new manager, Ben McCall arrived. I think Ben hired Phil right out of Penn and then arranged for him to work in Marketing Services, where all the men were handsome and had good manners. Well, not all but most. Ed Russell was good at training most young men. But Phil would later connect with Ben. When I left New York to take the job in Business Planning, Phil replaced me, Ben's choice, I'm sure. It was 1966-67. I had been doing promotional work in New York as a way to "learn the business." Ben knew this was an interesting part of the business but not all. He assigned me a New York merchant (Forest) two Canadian merchants (Whyte Hooke and TB Little) two publication accounts McGraw Hill and Time Life Books. As I left, I handed over most of these to Phil, as Ben wanted. It was fun to run around New York with Phil. Later, when the ill-fated Nationwide location in New Jersey failed, Phil freed himself and worked for me as a product manager. Once you worked for Ben, you wanted it to go on forever. I felt that way about him. Phil had to move out to Cincinnati to join Business Planning and Leigh came with him but not before her employer, Chemical Bank complained. Her boss, Jack Kyle was a classmate of mine in college and knew me well. He called and quickly told me what this move would cost him. "I will pay it because I don't want to lose her. I am not happy." He proceeded to keep Leigh employed, under a retainer and used a Columbus bank to keep her banking skills sharp. She drove up from Cincinnati twice a week, four hours round trip. I think the Martyrs liked Cincinnati. I liked having them here. They adorned every group that welcomed them. Then we moved to Connecticut. Leigh went back to work for Chemical in New York. Mark Fuller, maybe others tried to talk Andy out of the Stamford move but failed. I do think this was the beginning of the end for Champion. We might have survived as a Cincinnati Company like P&G. We had little reunions over the years where Phil was Involved. They were fun but they would have been better at Lake Logan, or Thompson Park or...
