Flashing Trophies.
Corey's lifelong friend Ky is a
bright young man. He was also a student of mine at one time.
He designed a new trophy. Not just
any trophy, but one with 7 different, flashing and rolling lighting
patterns in the column. Like none other. He needed a partner. A
person with a strong sales and business background, someone he could
trust. My son Corey fit the ticket.
The next job was to find someone
who could actually build such a thing, inexpensively. After much
looking, He finally located a company in China who said they could do
it. They did. They shipped Ky a small load to approve.
Corey and Ky gave me some of them
to go over, look for problem areas. They worked, but I did
discover a problem. A few of them seemed to have a weak switch. When
pressed, the switch just sometimes broke loose inside. Taking it
apart, I saw the switch was glued into place. Sometimes, those with
less glue just gave way.
I called Ky, explained the
problem. That switch just needed to be reworked. The switch issue was
resolved, we thought. Corey and Ky, just sure they were onto the next
"Big thing," ordered a shipping container load. They are
both very big thinkers. Financing became a problem, and they offered
Barbara and me 20% interest in the company if we backed their loan.
Not a thing characteristic of us, we did. After Dad's Great Depression
days, he made a family rule, one I had always followed to that point.
A Gillum never signs another person's note. But, this seemed like a sure
hit.
When the container arrived, and
boxes were stacked in a warehouse, we went to inspect. The stacks and
rows of boxed trophies seemed to stretch on forever.
We opened a box, and started
testing. The earlier batch had been shipped in the summertime. Only
a few failed. This container load had been shipped in the winter. The
glue must have gotten very cold on that long voyage.
One switch failed. And the next.
And another. Somehow, in the communication between Me, Ky, and China,
the seriousness of the problem was not fully understood. They had not
remolded the plastic column, providing a solid backing, but had added
more glue, and tested a great deal. But they obviously had not taken
into account the effect of the cold. Apparently, warm glue holds
better that cold. We were looking at 22,500 non-functional trophies.
The International Trophy Show, in
Las Vegas, was in March. It was late December. We had two months to
straighten this mess out.
Ky negotiated with the Chinese for
days, but from a position of weakness. They had our money.
Shipping them back was not an option
for them. That was the major expense. Them sending a team of workers
over was discussed.
Then we got to thinking. If they
could repair them, we could too. We had a second generation trophy,
still on the drawing boards. We could not afford it at this time, for
this year's Trophy Show.
If they could redesign the switch
correctly, Build the larger trophies, and ship them all for free to
us, in exchange for their switch mess up, We could come out ahead. If
we repaired the stock in hand. A very big IF.
China went for it, very anxious to
please us, and keep their selves in position for much profit when the
really big orders came in. The deal was sealed.
Figuring out just how to repair
this mountain of trophies fell upon me.
For days I tried one idea after
another. Heating worked, but after a night in the freezer, we were
back in the same boat. Finally, I discovered that if I took the
trophy out of it's box, took the batteries out, and put a very short
screw into the bottom of the battery case at exactly the right place,
it could be tightened up against the back of the switch, and hold it
firmly in place. It worked!
But it was slow. It would take a
virtual army of men to repair all these by March. Then it hit me....................
Continued
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