Change of direction is on right path
linda denicola
The Hub
Lois Grossman
Losing your lifetime partner, the most important person in your life, is devastating enough, but having to give up work that you love only compounds the grief. When Lois Grossman’s husband Art died two years ago, she was faced with a big decision — to continue to teach or to retire and take over the family business, Arlo Printing and Copy Center of Red Bank.
Lois agonized over the decision and decided to give up teaching after 26 years, and become a business woman, running the Monmouth Street business that her husband had started in 1977. "It hasn’t been easy," Lois said, "but the business is doing well.
"I haven’t missed a deadline yet," the attractive widow added.
Over the past two years she has had to learn accounting, bill paying, money management and all forms of taxes. "Art did leave a paper trail, and he even tried to show me how to manage the business, but I didn’t have a head for numbers. Accounting and business were not my thing — children and education were.
"Besides Art knew what he was doing, why should I bother? I didn’t need to know about these things. Art did," she said.
Life often has its way with complacency. "Who could image beginning a new career at the age of 58?" Lois said. "I had a lot to learn and in such a little time."
When her husband passed away in the summer of 1998, she was on her own for the first time in her life. "I knew I could make or break this business. I was determined to make it."
The business has continued to be successful and over the years, it has taken on larger and larger jobs. "Sometimes it can be overwhelming. Then I have to get away, take a walk or a drive. When I come back, things look more manageable."
Lois said she is proud of herself because she recently negotiated for two large color copiers, equipment that is so important to her business. She was thinking ahead when she purchased the equipment. Art always thought ahead, she said, and she has incorporated his caution into her business philosophy.
"Art believed very strongly in no surprises. He was always looking a month ahead. I found that invaluable. Now I stay a month ahead. There are certain things that I know because of hearing him talk about them."
But there are some things that her husband didn’t know, like computers. "He continued to rely on pen and paper records," she said. "I use the computer as much as I can. She also has a looser style. "Art was more serious. We have fun here. I try not to let things stress me out."
She works much longer hours now than she did as a schoolteacher and she works six days a week. They are long days, but she has wonderful employees, she said. "We’re like a family. Tony has been with us for 21 years. He went to high school with our younger daughter."
Tony Perez is a manager, runs the printing press and operates the dark room. He started at Arlo when he was a senior in high school and has been with the company ever since.
Besides taking care of the financial aspects of the business, Lois now does quotes and some of them are large quotes. "Tony is a tremendous help, especially with things like quotes and price lists. We had to totally change the pricing list because of increased costs, especially paper."
And then there’s Maureen O’Connell, who has been with the company for two years now. Ironically she started on the day that Art found out he had cancer, Lois said. Maureen manages the front desk, artwork and deals with customers. "We pride ourselves on looking for ways to help people save money when they come in with a printing need. She’s great at that."
Added Lois: "We all do whatever has to be done. Tony runs the press and the darkroom, but he pitches in with everything else. So does Maureen and so do I."
Lois was only 17 years old when she met her "true love" Art Grossman. She was registering for her first year of college at Hofstra University, Long Island, N.Y. He was taking summer classes there. He graduated that year, and she ultimately left school to become his wife, and eventually the mother of their three children. "I was a strong believer in being taken care of and white picket fences. The world was a wonderful place," she said.
But she quickly became disillusioned with changing diapers, feeding and playing with babies all day and decided to go back for her teaching degree. For nine years she attended school at night, first at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and then at Newark State, which is now Kean College, Union.
"My husband watched the children on the nights I went to school. Weaver frozen chicken and Swanson dinners were a family staple."
Once she had completed two years toward her degree, she was offered an uncertified teaching position with a local Head Start program. "I survived the hard work, physical exhaustion, and the awful guilt of taking a nine-to-five job when my youngest daughter was only 4 years old and graduated with a degree in elementary education. As soon as I completed my degree, I was hired by Frank Defino, then the school superintendent in Marlboro.
"I spent the following years teaching kindergarten through second grade as well as continuing to raise my family. Life was grand," she said.
She and Art had their careers — he as a corporate accountant in a major firm, and she as a teacher. "We were busy, happy, and we had a second income."
But as their three daughters grew older, they began to think of the future. With college expenses looming, they sought out ideas for a money-making venture. A year later, after doing a lot of research, they decided to open a printing and copying business. For the first few years, they hired people to run the shop during the day and continued to work at their jobs.
"We worked through the night and into the mornings on many occasions, while using trial and error and Art’s business experience to make a go of the new business," she said.
After two difficult years of working day and night jobs, the opportunity came for Art to leave his accounting position and join the crew at Arlo, full time, she said. "Art worked during the day running the business, while I joined him after school, where I tended to the accounts receivable."
Their daughters graduated from college, married and had families of their own. Grossman now has eight grandchildren and one of her daughters followed in her footsteps and became an elementary school teacher.
For a while, they were teaching the same grade in the same school district.
In February 1998, Art was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
With chemotherapy and radiation treatments he quickly became unable to run the shop, Lois said. Although Perez and O’Connell were there, and daughters Barbara, a computer programmer, and Sue, pitched in, Lois knew that if the business that Art built was going to survive she would have to become involved full time.
She knew how hard Art had worked to get the business off the ground. It started out more like a disaster in the making than the success story it has become.
When Art started the business, it was a franchise, part of now-defunct Curry Copy Centers of America.
The Grossmans spent about $26,000 to join the Curry chain, but found that the franchiser training, support, equipment and methodology was so inferior that Art was forced to break away from the organization and achieve independence for his shop. The shop didn’t show a profit until its fourth year of business.
Grossman said that when her husband died, the Borough Council honored him with a plaque. Since then, she has found the mayor and council to be very supportive. "They stop in to see how I am doing. We’ve heard from other business owners that when times are tough, the mayor and council are there.
"I would never leave this town," she said.
Lois has just started attending RiverCenter meetings. As a shop in the Special Improvement District (SID) she pays the special assessment that funds RiverCenter, the non-profit corporation that manages the SID. "It’s another step in learning to be a single person and doing things alone."
Because Lois spends long days at the shop, she brings her dog Lingling to work. She has a cage on the floor near her desk where Lingling stays. There have been times when she has had a playpen behind the front desk for her grandchildren to stay while her daughters helped out in the shop.
Her choices were to continue teaching and sell or lose the shop, or to retire from teaching, a job that gave her tremendous satisfaction. "It was a difficult decision. I truly loved teaching; however, I chose the latter. The past two years have been difficult, full of doubts and setbacks," she noted. But I know that Art is proud of me as I am of myself. I can honestly say that I am enjoying the change and have kept our business going strong."