I’m in the business of finding gold in companies aged machine discards. To label our business as treasure hunting romanticizes the grimy work of sending flaked paint and replacing pitted bearings. I read a fascinating article in the September 24th New York Times about a more traditional treasure hunting expedition worthy of my hero, Indiana Jones. A team of shipwreck treasure hunters has signed a deal with the British government to extract up to 240 tons of silver from the sunken SS Gairsoppa, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat 300 miles southwest of Ireland in 1941. The boat had left Calcutta…
Author: Lloyd Graff
I’ve been negotiating deals for a living for a long time. It’s my livelihood, but I often feel like a bumbling novice. Noah and I drove up to Western Michigan this week to facilitate a three cornered transaction—never easy. While driving we listened to a CD by Herb Cohen, author of the superbly useful and entertaining book, You Can Negotiate Anything, which I recommend to everyone. My wife Risa and I have also attended Cohen’s lectures and Noah interviewed him in Today’s Machining World. The thrust of his message was that successful bargaining relies on attaining information about the real needs…
6:00 AM – Wake up and pick up the iPad next to my bed to check email from Europe and Asia. Nothing interesting except some Tornos cam machines in Lithuania. 6:30 – Turn on CNBC to check out the world markets. Talking heads are bemoaning Greece on the verge of default and the awful economy. Joe Kernin and Rick Santelli are hopelessly pessimistic and angry at Obama. Why am I watching this crap? Turn on Sports Center. 7:00 – Hit the treadmill. I turn CNBC on the TV and watch while on the treadmill. Listen to more dumb economists and…
Doug Purtee is a treasure hunter. He rummages though old barns around the Midwest, but his prey of choice is surprising––old copper fire extinguishers. I met him recently at a big craft show in Frankfort, Illinois, where he had his shiny copper fire extinguishers exquisitely stacked, selling for $280 each. He showed me how they worked and told me his story. He’s semi-retired, but he loves these old Acme and Pyrene extinguishers and has found a market for them as home furnishings. He lovingly cleans and buffs the tarnish off them, and travels the fair circuit showing them off and…
How do you change a habit, a behavior, a life pattern? I have been a lifelong food abuser—eating an American diet rich in fat, simple carbohydrates and refined sugars. I have tried to compensate by exercising, but my quadruple bypass surgery and chronic high blood pressure indicates rather dramatically that exercise does not a trump lousy diet. Since my near fatal heart catastrophe almost exactly three years ago I have recovered well—and gained 40 pounds. Complacency conspired with my lifelong love affair with bread and cookies to add the weight, ounce by pleasurable ounce. My wife and kids have been…
Sometimes I find something that just hits me and strikes a chord with my heart. A few days ago these lines made me slow down and connect with life. How often are we so busy acquiring that we forget all we have? How often are we so busy engaging those around us that we forget the simple gift of their presence? How often are we so busy rushing to a destination that we forget to enjoy the journey? How often are we so busy trying to make more time that we forget to be thankful for the time we have?…
A reunion is one of those odd human events that evokes distant memories of triumph and sadness. I think we choose to attend one if the sadness is sufficiently buried to allow the good feeling to flow undammed. A committee has formed recently to plan the 50th reunion next year of my high school in Chicago. This was a vehicle to reunite with two friends that go back to grade school days when we were both in the same Cub Scout den. We met last weekend when my buddy Howard, who lived across the street from me, was in town…
I was talking to John Greene a few days ago and he gave me the insider’s view of the foundry business in America. John runs FL Sales, Inc., a used machinery firm specializing in the world of molten metal. To my surprise, it’s smoking. John said that the dirty old foundries we associate with the shuttered rust belt remnants are long gone. The foundries that survived have modernized and meet environmental standards. A lot of work did flow to cheap labor countries but many companies have learned that cheap labor does not necessarily mean viable product. Greene says that virtually…
I watch the financial squawkers on TV while I’m sweating on the treadmill in the morning, but the relentless chirping about recession and doom is getting me down, which is not useful in my real life. I get no relief from NPR on the radio when I drive to work. The commentators are continually alluding to the “terrible” economy. Then, when I reach the factory I turn on my iPad to check Yahoo! Finance and peruse the Wall Street Journal online. Another dose of pessimism. Then I say hello to certain coworkers, who repeat some of the bad news I’ve already heard. What a ridiculous way to start a…
I received a call from an old business associate recently who wanted to talk about a piece in Today’s Machining World. It was a pleasant enough conversation, but all I could think about was his voice. He sounded so old. I realized that I make so many judgments on what people sound like and how they choose their words. Last night my wife wasn’t feeling well and she was expressing her sinus misery not in what she said, but in her intonation. When kids walk into the classroom, a teacher sets the mood and tone with the first utterance. We…