While much of Tom’s career has been involved in Hi-Tech or HealthCare, many of Tom’s major contributions have been in general business skills and experience. Tom started his career in science but soon transitioned into the business of science education, running various science laboratories. Tom was responsible for the development and day-to-day maintenance of the physical plant and lab equipment, management of supplies, expansion of facilities and infrastructure, and budget controls.
Tom’s next adventure took him into the land of retail by redesigning and redeveloping the concept of what a college bookstore was. Tom took a simple idea that a campus bookstore was just a place for students to acquire athletic-ware, textbooks, and art and school supplies and transformed that into a full-service store that offered everything from clothing and groceries to computer systems and other technology. Tom not only redefined what a college bookstore was to become, but he also changed the business model itself. By selling at more of a traditional retail price model the things that students wanted but didn’t need, he could offer the books and supplies they did need at a much lower cost. His mentor, Jack Andrews, retired chairman of Federated Department Stores, taught him how to plan, develop and operate a successful retail business. He learned how to negotiate with vendors and suppliers, manage inventory, merchandise, and market products, and, most importantly, manage not just a profit and loss statement but also a balance sheet.
It was at the campus Bookstore that Tom began his career as a pioneer in the PC industry. Not only was he the first person to offer full PC systems in a college bookstore. His activities helped define the future of computer sales. The success at PC sales in this small college bookstore led Tom to be one of the US’s top Epson dealers. This led Epson to recruit Tom to transfer his skills and abilities to a larger group.
Tom’s Jump to Epson took his retail experience and helped him apply what he had learned running his own operations to that of Epson’s retail dealers. Tom learned to support his store base and help them become strong, loyal Epson resellers by providing an effective support infrastructure that helped them grow their own businesses. Tom took his experience at planning and budgeting his bookstore operation to the next level at Epson.
While at Epson, Tom began developing comprehensive market analysis and projection tools that accurately predicted the computer market buying power for each territory in the U.S. down to the zip-code level. This early work led to the Computer Market Index development that was a significant tool for computer manufacturers and resellers to predict expected volume by territory in the early years. While at Epson, Tom wore many hats from channel development to market sales, sales and marketing management, special projects, and later to the general management of their Mid-Atlantic distribution operation.
At ComputerLand, Tom brought his unique perspectives and business experience to their franchise network. In the middle of a significant industry downturn, ComputerLand had over 800 stores worldwide, and a number of them were in trouble. With over 35 stores at, or near, bankruptcy, Tom redeveloped many of the tools he had used in his prior careers and re-applied them to the ComputerLand Network. In addition to the Computer Market Index, Tom also developed a series of integrated financial modeling tools offering franchisees unique insight and guidance on adapting their businesses in a changing marketplace and helped much return to profitability. While there, Tom also served on several product and vendor committees, helping provide street-level input for the next generation’s products as to what the customers wanted and what dealers needed for a product to be successful.
While at ComputerLand, Tom helped numerous franchisees either successfully start new businesses or rehab faltering franchises. Tom participated in, or led, numerous mergers and acquisitions of computer stores and a very successful market consolidation and aggregation program that helped ComputerLand grow its annual revenue from $1.3 Billion to over $3 billion in 24 months.
Tom has continued his business career since the ComputerLand days a few of the companies he has been involved with are listed above. Throughout Tom’s career, he has applied his skill as a leader, negotiator, planner, and technologist to help many other companies. You can see some comments from the leaders of these companies at the top of the page.
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