A Mold-Maker For His Times

By Mitchell Schechter -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 6/1/2003

In his office at Singer Equipment's headquarters, Singer recently reminisced about the highlights of his career, which include earning FE&S' Dealer of the Year designation in 1987 and this year's recognition as the magazine's initial Hall of Fame inductee (that award is to his right). Photos by Addison Geary Photography

To rise from modest origins, to join a small family business and lead it to become the dominant company of its kind in its region, to help originate several industry institutions, to serve as a mentor for a new generation of leaders and become a role model for dealers nationwide. Henry Singer, FE&S' inaugural Hall of Fame inductee, who has done all these things and more, has been tested under fire and over more than five decades of business competition and has never been found wanting. Proud, stubborn, devoted equally to his vision of dealership development and the growth of colleagues, Henry Singer, as much as any dealer, has helped to establish the organizations, practices, standards and systems that now define the norms of our industry.

Born in 1926, Singer grew up in the Reading, Pa., suburb of Mt. Penn "in a little house with a little lawn." Although his father, Fred, had opened a glassware and china outlet called Singer Crockery in 1918 and earned enough to own one of only two automobiles in the Singers' neighborhood, Henry's childhood was engulfed by the Depression and the hard times it engendered throughout the 1930s left an indelible impression upon him.

"No one had any money, unemployment was rampant, yet my dad went out of his way to extend credit to whatever customers he could find and let other merchants display their products in his showroom for free. He was a very charming man, very popular with his friends and customers, and I certainly idolized him. However, there were several times during the '30s when his back must have been against the wall financially, because I later found records indicating that he had borrowed small sums, a couple of hundred dollars, against his own life insurance to keep the business going," Singer recollected recently in his window-walled office in the company's Reading headquarters.

A High-Schooler Goes To War
Henry's father, who lost his own dad at 14, had been forced to leave school after the eighth grade to earn a living, but his efforts at Singer Crockery (which became a foodservice E&S company during the late-1920s) allowed Henry to attend and graduate from Mt. Penn High School in 1944. Even as a student, Singer demonstrated his need for achievement, becoming editor of the school newspaper, manager of the basketball team, class president and finishing as number one academically. Although he could have enrolled in an Ivy League university, with the country still embroiled in World War II Singer was drafted into the Army instead, and the 18-year-old left home for the first time to take basic infantry training at Ft. Hood in Texas. "I wasn't surprised to be drafted, though Army life was quite a shock, but because it was so late in the war I never thought I'd see combat," he commented. "Then the Battle of the Bulge broke out and my unit, Company D of the 70th Infantry, was shipped out to the front lines in Alsace-Lorraine."

Flanked by son and company President Fred Singer (left) and COO John Vozzo, Henry Singer stands in the company's "super store" where products range from new and "distressed" equipment to a self-branded line of janitorial products. Photos by Addison Geary Photography

As a member of a heavy-weapons unit, Singer helped to man an 81mm mortar in combat. His company stayed in forward positions for the duration of the war in Europe, participating in two major engagements and crossing the Saar River into Germany in 1945. After the Nazis surrendered in April 1945, Singer stayed on as a member of the U.S. Army of Occupation. Due to his education, intelligence and excellent military record, Singer was selected as a potential Army appointment to West Point. After passing through a battery of interviews, he was in fact tapped to attend the U.S. Military Academy and returned home with thousands of other soldiers aboard the Queen Elizabeth. In mid-1945, Singer was sent to Amherst College in Massachusetts for pre-college prep work, and then to Ft. Benning in Georgia for infantry officers' candidate training. He was here when WWII finally ended with Japan's surrender, and it was then when the Army's doubts about whether Singer's dental work was up to military specs and his own second thoughts about investing the next decade of his life in becoming and serving as an Army officer combined to make him consider a new course.

"I decided to resign and came home to Reading to apply to civilian colleges," Singer recalled. "However, the only one I could get into for the current academic year at that late date was Hardwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., a school so small it had only one building and no dormitories."

After one semester at Hardwick, Singer was able to transfer to Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., but he was only admitted after agreeing to begin again as a first-semester freshman. Because he had government money enough for just 30 months of higher education, Singer applied himself with characteristic vigor and ability. He earned Phi Beta Kappa designation while majoring in economics, served as art editor of the campus humor magazine and won election as the independent student body president. "For whatever reason," Singer noted, "leadership opportunities have always sought me out. I don't know why, but one thing I learned from my father and upbringing was never to be afraid of accepting responsibility."

Joining The Family Firm
Singer added that he "graduated college on a Sunday in February 1950 and went to work for my father the next day at Singer Equipment Co." Asked why, with all the options then available to an educated, decorated young veteran such as himself he chose to work for a small (under $1 million in annual sales) E&S dealership, Singer replied, "It was for my dad. He had worked so long and so hard to build up what we had, and I knew the dream in his heart was that I would someday choose to join him. And I had rachmonus [compassion] for him; he deserved help. I felt that I just couldn't fail him; I had to do it."

Henry's first contribution to his family's firm was as an outside salesperson calling on bars, clubs and independent restaurants, which, in those days, were mostly diners with attached, freestanding kitchens. "We sold those customers a lot of patterned china, which was like an annuity since it created so much replacement business, and we helped to design many of the diners whose kitchens we would later equip," Singer explained. "It was also during the 1950s that we got seriously into the paper business because I realized, during an enlightened moment, that it would lead to larger institutional sales and give us the ability to sell consumables to a larger variety of users."

Singer takes a moment to meet with Vince Owens, a warehouse manager, who was organizing a shipment destined for a local community college.

Singer further mentioned that shortly after he joined his father's business it became clear that he was expected to inherit the mantle of corporate leadership, and that dad and son had very different management styles. "My father was not an aggressive businessman, he was risk-adverse," he pointed out. "He wanted to maintain the status quo and avoid change. I, on the other hand, felt that change, improvement and growth were all essential, and that we had to pursue as many of the opportunities we could discover in the marketplace as possible. That's why at various times I got us involved with equipment fabrication, parts sales, repair services and the sale of self-branded janitorial products. I also tried to take on competitors early, before they could hurt us, and to look for new territories, such as metro Philadelphia and south Jersey into which we could expand."

Aiding Singer in his administrative duties and handling much of the buying was his younger brother, Bernie, who joined the company a few years after Henry and served as a partner until the end of the 1980s.

Becoming A Change Manager
Having changed the company's name to Singer Equipment, Henry presided over its first period of rapid growth during the 1960s, when adjoining Lancaster County "exploded" as a tourist destination, and chain and independent restaurants began to proliferate to serve the ever more-mobile American public. Singer quickly increased his sales force to eight and personally managed this team, introducing the first corporate training programs and joining DSRs on sales calls. At this time, he also managed pricing, ran the company's showroom and was developing a burgeoning retail housewares division that became the biggest of its kind in Reading.

Towards the end of the 1960s, with Singer Equipment now recording several million dollars in annual sales, Henry attended an early FEDA meeting and had another epiphanic moment. "I heard a broadliner speaker tell us that traditional dealers were going to be run out of the supply business by firms like his that made more calls and carried a higher dollar volume on their trucks," Singer stated. "I was outraged, but I also knew he could be right and that we had to respond. We had to re-direct our company and product lines to be more like the broadliners, to call on customers more frequently and get more re-orders. The key was developing our field salespeople to sell more replacement equipment. When we accomplished that, and had well-trained salespeople who understood the equipment and competitive prices on paper and disposable items, we created a model the broadliners, at least in our area, couldn't match."

Bringing New Groups To Life
Singer stressed that he learned so much from his early networking that he developed the habit of meeting regularly with non-competing peers to discuss problems and challenges common to the dealer profession as an adjunct to his participation in industry groups. (Singer served as FEDA president, for example, from 1985 to 1987 and was on the association's board for 14 years.)

After joining the ABC buying group (shortly after becoming a FEDA member), Singer looked to implement a long-cherished notion of organizing common equipment buying among group members, to augment the marketing efforts that were then such organizations' raison d'etre. After several years of discussion, and with the help of Walter Simon from General Hotel and Robert Autenreith, Singer worked with ABC's directors to found a new, equipment-only buying group (IFED), which began activity some 20 years ago.

In a similar vein, Singer worked with other major dealers a little over a decade ago to form Supply America, the industry's only selling group. "With the expansion of chain restaurants during the early-'90s, many regional dealers saw that we were in jeopardy of losing accounts that were growing out of our territories," he related. "So, I got together with dealers such as Paul Ellingson, Paul Klein, Walter Simon, Howard Fishman, Denny Horowitz and Bill Boelter and proposed that we set up a selling network that would assure the factories and our customers that we could handle providing products to accounts from coast to coast. We met with several large manufacturers to present this idea and their response was very positive but, again, it took several more years of urging and encouraging before enough dealers really saw the need, bought in and we could initiate Supply America."

Though he was intensely involved in devising industry organizations (and building up a real estate portfolio lucrative enough to allow him to reinvest much of Singer Equipment's earnings in its people and infrastructure), Singer continued to develop his company during the intervening years. After reaching $9 million in sales by the mid-'70s, the company grew to $18 million by 1986, when Singer set the stage for its next transformation by bringing in a new generation of management talent.

First hired was John Vozzo, now executive VP and COO, who took on sales management, warehouse management and buying responsibilities. Vozzo said that he was originally attracted by Singer's "very strong entrepreneurial spirit and non-restrictive management style. He quickly allowed me to use our resources to do what had to be done to help us become the leader in our region." Vozzo added that he has come to appreciate most the fact that "Henry is never afraid to share information. He helped me learn how to run a company and to have a sense of ownership. He also encouraged me to become involved in the industry, so today I serve on the board and as an executive in ABC. I feel very strongly that I've been incredibly fortunate to have had Henry as a mentor and colleague." Singer also noted that the hiring of Anita Rubin, who served the company as CFO for over 20 years was another critical step in its evolution. "Mrs. Rubin instituted every system we have now and was brilliant at executing our growth plans without exceeding our budgets," he emphasized.

Perhaps the best example of Singer's penchant for calculated risk-taking also occurred during the late-1980s, when he brought in VP Jim Gatch, a veteran of the contract business, who ran a contract bid house in southern New Jersey, giving Singer Equipment access to a new business and a new market in a single stroke. This move was followed by the debut, less than a decade later, of Singer Equipment's 50,000-square-foot "super store" in Philadelphia. Three years ago, the company opened its latest location, a second contract office in North Bergenfield, N.J., which has provided Singer Equipment with a new presence in the northern section of the state.

A Paragon Of Values
It was steps such as these that helped Henry Singer increase his company's current sales to approximately $70 million, up from the roughly $22 million the firm was earning in 1993, when Henry's elder son, Fred, joined the business. (Henry and wife Helene's younger son, Andy, is an investment banker.) Fred, who took over the presidency of the company from Henry in 2000, characterized the chance to work with his father as a "special opportunity to see him in his largest role and develop a professional relationship. Henry has been instrumental in helping me learn to do my job, mentoring me by always discussing my questions and new ideas and offering his opinions."

Having run the business from its headquarters on Kutztown Road in Reading for 17 years, Singer revealed that the company will soon be relocating to larger local quarters. The sign above the building's main entrance lets walk-in shoppers know that a wide variety of E&S is available in the "super store" inside.

Fred also credited his father with "teaching me how to reach win-win outcomes with customers and vendors, and how to cut through sticky situations with good practices. Henry's a visionary who leads through passion, not a micro-manager, but he knows from his experience how to get to solutions and who should be responsible for different tasks. Most of all," Fred observed, "he has always embodied clear values, such as fair dealing with customers and treating vendors with the same consideration shown to end-users. In short, Henry's always looked to add value for everyone with whom we do business."

Though Singer has become less involved in daily company operations during the past few years, he still meets regularly with Fred, Vozzo and current Controller Jim Batty, visits with key customers and stays in touch with vendors. Though he takes time now to enjoy his house on the Jersey Shore and vacations in St. Barts and Europe, Singer still can't see himself leaving the industry, which, he claimed, "is now implanted in my chromosomes." Whenever he does leave the scene, though, there will be just cause to remember Henry Singer as a leader who was unafraid to dream and do all he could to help others, and as a man who lived a life of industry and integrity