Mark Fogelman, October 12, 2013

Interview with Mark Fogelman, October 12, 2013

SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is October 12, 2013, and our interview is, let's just leave it at that for now. This is tape one. This might seem somewhat redundant because we have interviewed your mom and your aunt. It's good to get different viewpoints, then they sort of melt together and you have confirmation with certain issues. If you could tell me your full name and your birth date to start with. This is going to be more question and answer right at the beginning.

MARK FOGELMAN: Mark Charles Fogelman and my birthday is January 18, 1960.

SC: Where were you born and where have you lived?

MF: I was born here in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

SC: What address?

MF: 2434 Livingston Street, that's where I lived most of the time. I went to 00:01:00college, first at Penn State and then transferred to Temple. I studied television -- worked in television locally for Service Electric Cable, Channel 69 -- I was a cameraman. Then I moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and quickly got a job with Merv Griffin Productions, and I was there for seven years -- until 1990. I was production manager for the game shows and in development of new game shows.

SC: And how about after that? Did you work any other place before you went into the garment industry?

MF: When I was in high school, I wanted to get my pilot's license, so I worked at Bamberger's - which became Macy's, then I worked at Hess's. Then for a while I worked at both -- selling shoes at Bamberger's and men's sportswear (on the first floor) at Hess's.

SC: As far as Hess's was concerned, what did you think about Hess's? This is 00:02:00self-interest -- I teach consumerism.

MF: I thought it was great! What happened was, I was working at Bamberger's and my best friend at the time was Steve Greenberg, and his father was President of Hess's. He heard I was working at Bamberger's - selling shoes, which was actually his first job -- selling shoes. He said, "You can't work at Bamberger's -- you have to work at Hess's." I went in and, of course, I got hired. For a little while, I worked at both because it just worked out that I could work in the morning at Bamberger's and at Hess's in the afternoon. After a month, I just went to Hess's. When they opened up Plymouth Meeting Mall -- they opened up a store there -- and I was going to Temple, so it was easy for me to go work at that store. I enjoyed working there.

SC: Did you take it to the end? Working there?

MF: No, why I stopped was -- I was commuting for a while in the summer -- I was living in Allentown, commuting to Plymouth Meeting and one night coming back from the turnpike, I fell asleep driving. I went up a hill and rolled down the 00:03:00hill, landed upside down and totaled my car -- luckily I wasn't hurt. I just couldn't do the drive anymore. In fact, the store manager came to my house because I was the number one guy opening up new credit cards. You got a dollar for every new credit card you opened up -- nobody had one down there -- it was like a gold mine. He came to my house with $200.00 worth of "Lucky Bucks" (you could spend in the store) and he asked me if I would come back to work and I said I can't . It was just too much. That's when I stopped working at Hess's.

SC: Can you talk about your education - going back to the beginning?

MF: First I went to Nursery School at the JCC. I went to the Jewish Day School from Kindergarten to sixth grade, then went on to Trexler Middle School and then 00:04:00William Allen High School. I went to Penn State, didn't really know what I wanted to do, but as a hobby with friends, we used to make movies in the back yard with a Super 8 camera -- make little stories, we had fun with that. I got on the radio station at Penn State -- just doing the news. I really enjoyed that whole thing. I thought maybe I'd go into TV and film, but they only had two courses at the time. They really had no facilities back in '78. I started looking around -- I looked at Boston, I looked at different areas. Then I looked at Temple -- they really had the best program for me where you could right away get into the program -- start making movies and video shows. Other colleges wanted another year of math and science, so I transferred to Temple -- and I wanted a big city, too - rather than being in the middle of nowhere.

SC: What was your major at Penn State?

MF: Liberal Arts -- a little bit of everything.

SC: That's wonderful -- we always think. After you went out to the west coast 00:05:00and then came back here. Can you talk a little bit about how you became involved in the textile business -- in one of the last textile businesses?

MF: Growing up, there would be occasional summers when I'd help out at the factory in the summer -- doing odd jobs, usually the dirtiest jobs, and I hated it. Even when I lived in California, I would have nightmares that I was working in the factory. I would wake up -- Oh My God! It was like taking the drive to the factory, I'd wake up - Thank God I'm in California. I told you the story. I got married and had a baby and my wife at the time needed to do a residency so it worked out perfectly that she could get into Lehigh Valley Hospital. She could have got into USC, but it was all like gunshot wounds and carrying blood 00:06:00and it wasn't really educational she thought -- then she went to Lehigh Valley. I thought I'll work in television in New York -- an hour and a half, two hour drive. I had a job all lined up, and I went in for the interview and I just couldn't do it -- because the drive was terrible - got stuck in the tunnel, got hit by a cab. For a couple months, I didn't do anything . . . thought what should I do? Then I thought I really should get into our family business -- it was growing every year at this time. It had been growing 10-20% every year -- just getting bigger and bigger, so I thought I'd just do that.

GAIL EISENBERG: What time was this?

MF: 1990. It was really growing -- I don't know if my mom told you the story -- my dad was actually going to retire -- did she tell you that whole thing?

SC: Go ahead, tell us again. It's good to have it from both viewpoints.

MF: '82-'83 -- the factory was not really doing that well at all. It couldn't really support two families, so my dad thought he would retire and become a travel agent, because he actually enjoyed that. He actually retired, had a 00:07:00going-away party. He had an office already picked out in Northampton -- nearby. He was going to work in someone's office, but he never signed any final papers that he was not part of the business. A couple weeks later, my uncle died of a heart attack at age 43. So, my dad had to come back into the business. Shortly thereafter, Alfred Dunner asked if - I think Alfred Dunner and Liz Clairborne were two big clients- both clients wanted them to be exclusive. But it still wasn't a ton of work. So they thought well, Alfred Dunner is easier to make -- there was not too much science behind it. You couldn't tell if you were making money or losing money on which garment -- they weren't too engineered at that point. They went with Alfred Dunner and that was a good move because Liz Clairborne, two years later, took everything overseas and Alfred Dunner stuck by 00:08:00us until 2009. And it kept growing by 10-20% every year. With the economy and what people were buying, for whatever, it kept growing and growing.

SC: Did you take over the business and your dad retired?

MF: No, I started out at the bottom. When I came in, it was tough, because I had a pretty good position with Merv Griffin and now I'm back to basically my "summer job" of weighing bundles of scrap in a dirty warehouse and unloading trucks of 100 lbs. rolls of fabric and into the basement. It was good -- a good experience, it reminded me of what it takes. And, it was a much bigger business, too, then when I was a kid. It was spread out among more buildings. When I started out, we had our two original buildings but shortly after we bought two more buildings in town -- just to handle the workload. We had trucks going 00:09:00between five different buildings, plus we had subcontractors. At the peak, we had twelve subcontractors. Wewere up to 385 of our own people, but it really took 1200 people to do the work that we had. So twelve different factories all over the area, some in western Pennsylvania, some in NYC -- all over the place.

SC: We've gone through all of that - the family history - could you talk a little bit about your family history? We got it from your mom and aunt, but it's good to have independent confirmation and maybe you have some other memories.

MF: They probably have more than I do. My grandfather started it. He was a tailor first, and I don't know how he grew it and made it bigger. I know one funny story -- once he decided to become more of a manufacturer rather than a 00:10:00tailor, he would go into New York for whatever client (I don't know who it was) and in those days, they would cut the work for you -- you know how the work is made -- spread out on a table and you cut it into "lots" maybe there is a 1,000 pieces in a lot -- maybe shirts or pants and different parts that you are going to have to sew together. He would go to his client and they would say, "okay, take lot number 7" so he would grab lot number 7 and half of number 8 and stick it in his truck. Then they would call him and say, "Do you know you took half of number 8?" He'd say, "Oh, I'm sorry, come and get the other half." It was a way to get more work for yourself. Everybody has little tricks you have to try to pull. I always liked that story.

SC: I hadn't heard that one.

MF: Yes, that was a good one! Everybody has little things that you do to get more work. So he started it, then my dad married my mom, and I think he was 00:11:00doing roofing or selling siding like Tin Men -- you know the movie Tin Men? That was what he was doing, he hated it, so he started working at the factory. Years later my uncle married my aunt, and then he got involved in the business and the two of them were partners, and my grandfather was involved. Probably in the '60's my grandfather was becoming less and less involved. Even as a kid, I don't remember him being there all the time. Once the two sons knew what they were doing, he kind of backed off. He even came in probably once a week or every other week -- not when I was working there because he had passed away right before. In the summers when I was a kid -- he would come in just to press his pants and probably to look around. He'd come in and say hello to everybody.

SC: Any other anecdotes that you remember before we get into the nuts and bolts of the business history?

MF: Not that I can think of.

SC: Okay, maybe we should move on to business.

GE: You already gave us a little history, your mom and aunts gave us a little history. They went with Alfred Dunner -- and this is what year?

MF: Alfred Dunner was always a client -- a very small client -- that my grandmother on my dad's side actually met and that's how that started - how we got hooked up as a client. I don't know if you heard that story. I'm surprised my mom didn't tell you that.

GE: No, no.

MF: My grandmother was at a party in New Jersey.

GE: And, that's your paternal grandmother?

MF: Yes - my dad's mother. All of the Aresty family that now owns Alfred Dunner lives in New Jersey.

SC: Would you spell the name?

MF: A-R-E-S-T-Y. The story there was that there was a real person named Afred 00:13:00Dunner -- a designer and he had a partner. I don't remember the name, but I want to say it was like Wexler -- something like that. Alfred Dunner was the designer and Wexler was more like the salesperson connected to (I think) it was Macy's. You need to have a buyer before you make anything. You have to have an "in" at the store -- even today. The two of them were partners and within a year or two, Alfred Dunner was in a car accident and killed. So, the Wexler brought in Joe Aresty, who was a buyer from Macy's -- pretty high up, but he was a buyer. The two of them thought they'll try to make this go and a year or two later, this Wexler was in a car accident and died. So now it's Aresty, and he brought in his 00:14:00brothers. Joe was always in charge of sales. The one brother was in charge of distribution to make sure things got delivered and the other brother in charge of production. Joe was the oldest brother, he is the only one still alive today. One actually got killed in a car accident -- but lived to be eighty something and the other brother, who we dealt with the most in production -- he was in production, he had cancer, but I think he was like eighty when it got him. The story that I heard is that when they were struggling and couldn't pay all their bills -- and couldn't pay us -- we carried them. We said, "Don't worry about it." The three brothers, they always remembered that we helped them get started. 00:15:00They were very loyal and even when the smarter move would have been to go overseas twenty years earlier, they said, "No, we're sticking with you guys." In fact, in 1996, we were in five different buildings in Northampton, and they had recently been in three buildings and consolidated into one giant warehouse. They found that they saved a lot of money -- efficiencies and all that stuff. They insisted that we do the same thing -- even though it didn't make sense on our end. But, that's what they wanted and that's what we had to do. We went into one big building and I said, "Instead of doing that, why don't we open up a factory in the Dominican Republic or Mexico?" He said, "No you like living in Allentown, we like living in New Jersey -- open it up in Allentown." So pretty much they stuck with us until he died (I can't believe I can't remember his name), then 00:16:00the next generation, that was my age --they had no attachment. They pretty much waited until he died, then they pulled the rug.

GE: And that happened in 2009?

MF: Yes.

GE: So you started with them -- what year was it?

MF: Probably in the '60s as a small company. Then in '83 we were really dedicated to just them.

GE: Right, they became your exclusive.

MF: Which was a risky move, but it worked out.

GE: From 1983 to 2009 and this was a growing business.

MF: Growing until 9-11. At 9-11 - BOOM - it started going down.

GE: Oh, interesting.

SC: Do you remember the addresses of the building in Northampton and in Allentown?

MF: The main one in Northampton was 1798 Main Street and there were some other buildings before -- smaller, but we eventually ended up at 1798 Main Street. 00:17:00Then we also had a few buildings on Center Street -- a former IGA supermarket, which people in Northampton know, and that was 2006 Center Street.

GE: Does your family still own any of these buildings?

MF: Yes. Do you know Northampton at all?

GE: I know the Roxy.

MF: Right behind the Roxy those are all ours. And, our factory is still there -- it's vacant -- we sold it to a guy- he was going to make apartments -- he hasn't done anything with it yet. Tanczos Beer is there and right next door is R&S Printers (it was known as at the time) - but now it's Julia Harhart, the Representative, is there and Dr. Ofrichter -- you might know -- he's a tenant in there, and Tenzio's Warehouse [?] -- they do air brakes and fix your trucks. Then 2048 Center -- was like a little house -- that was our pattern making place 00:18:00-- over the years it was a steak and sandwich shop and many other things over the years. Those three buildings, I turned into commercial real estate. They're all fully rented.

SC: That would be interesting for the history to take pictures of it.

MF: Before and after - I might have that somewhere. I have to look. I might even have the "before" -- what it looked like -- as the supermarket and how we used it - then how we fixed it up. I really made the walls taller -- with a clock tower -- like a little strip center.

GE: If you have any of that - that would be great!

MF: I'll make a list of things.

GE: I think you were most recently sharing with us the story of Alfred Dunner. You were their sole manufacturer. Is that correct?

MF: Yes, from '83. It started way back - my father's grandmother was at a party in Dover, New Jersey and happened to talk to Joe Aresty or this Wexler at the time. You talk and say, "What do you do?" "Oh, I'm in the garment business." And she said, "Well, my son has a factory." So they tried him out and that's what started the whole thing.

GE: Your understanding is that whenever they ran into difficulties in the 60's and 70's -- your family stayed as their supplier.

MF: Yes. In the early times, if they couldn't pay on time. We just kept doing their work and extending the credit -- and they always remembered that.

GE: So in 1983 they started the relationship with your family as being the sole 00:20:00supplier, and it continued until 2009 even at times when you said it didn't always make a lot of sense - and I think we have that. So tell us, with Alfred Dunner at that time, you entered the business around 1990. So tell us what the growth was like -- what was happening in terms of the kind of product they were selling, and what the growth was like of their product, and you as a producer of their product.

MF: At the time we were in one building -- actually we had two buildings -- one right behind the other and the one building would make about 6,000 pants per week, and the other building, in the back, was making about 2,000 pants per week. So we were at 8,000 pants per week between the two buildings. Maybe we 00:21:00could squeeze out 10,000 per week, but we kept growing and growing. At the point where we needed subcontractors to do more and more. Then the number really became about 30,000-35,000 per week -- before you knew it - it got up to about 140,000 pants per week -- is how many we had to make.

GE: Was that at the peak?

MF: Yes at the peak, then at Christmas time it was even worse! That's another story. That's the normal peak - then it would pick up between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We would be really swamped. We'd bring on people only for a short time. The peak was probably around the year 2000. When 9-11 hit, if you remember, the first thing they said was that the next place terrorists were going to hit was the malls. Remember they were putting barricades in front of 00:22:00all the doors at the malls. People stopped shopping -- dramatically. It made people (everybody in that world) rethink how they do their business. They were already really motivated then to do things overseas. Plus fabric mills, which we depended on, with regulations and wages and OSHA -- they were looking to do more and more overseas as well and constantly calling on our customers and saying, "We're building a new plant in Mexico. Why don't you have your pants made there? We'll make the same fabric there." They would test these things, they would do little tests. So we're seeing our numbers drop each year -- it was going down and down.

GE: So after 9-11-2001 -- they began using other factories.

MF: Right -- overseas, not locally. They were testing China and Mexico and at 00:23:00the time, their quality wasn't as good as ours, but pretty quickly, they became even better than us - real fast. And they would come to us and say, "Look what they're doing there." Because our machines are old and they are getting new machines and they have all these wheels that make nice little creases, so I had to buy new wheels -- little things. It didn't take much to fix, but we were always chasing that a little bit.

GE: People were making fabric, as they were going overseas, was that making it difficult for you to get fabric at a competitive rate?

MF: Well, they bought the fabric for us. It really made it difficult for them. They were being constantly told, "Hey, we could do this much cheaper for you in Mexico, Central America or China. We have plants there now." But, they were being loyal to us. They could have been able to save 30% or more. But at the 00:24:00time, as long as they were making money, I think they were happy.

GE: Now, did you only make pants?

MF: Yes. Occasionally we made -- like a one-piece - that was kind of like a long skirt.

GE: Like a jumper?

MF: Kind of like a long button down skirt. But mostly pants.

GE: But, you didn't make the tops?

MF: Other people made the tops. They would ask us who could make things. I know the Barson's--I don't know if you know the Barson Family. "Barsew" - my friend, Randy Barson - his brother was running the factory -- his mother is still alive down in Florida.

GE: And this is also a local family?

MF: In Lehighton.

SC: How do you spell that?

MF: B-A-R-S-O-N and it was called Barsew. They made some tops. Another one was Scotty's. Scotty's Fashion -- did you ever hear of them?

GE: No.

MF: They are not Jewish, but we introduced them because they could make the tops, and they were making coats -- like the sports coats for Russ Togs, which was another big name. They were hurting for business and our Vice President at the time started out as a secretary at Scotty's. She knew them so we connected them. They would work directly for Alfred Dunner (without going through us) to make the tops directly, but they were a sub-contractor to us for the pants. Even though we did them this huge favor, and they were making huge amounts of money, there was a time when they tried to go around us on the pants. They actually went to Alfred Dunner and said, "Here's what Tama's paying us for the pants -- 00:26:00what are you paying them?" and it was a big "tadoo." It was an interesting story -- I don't know if it fits in.

SC: It does, absolutely.

MF: It was 1994 or 95 when it was snowing every Wednesday.

GE: I think I remember that!

MF: The snow was higher than my car in the driveway. Because of that, factories closed. We had to close ours up on those days. A lot of the ladies had kids in school so they're not coming in, and why make them risk their lives for this. So we were closed and other factories were closed. What we had to do was add more factories. It actually pushed us into New Jersey towards New York - finding factories that first of all didn't have the snow. And they were open and people lived like right above the factory. So we had all these little factories that we would call and say, "Could you do two thousand per week, could you do three 00:27:00thousand per week? What could you do?" And they would do it. At the same time, Scotty's thought they had us because of the weather. They said, "We want 16% more money on what you are paying us or we are going to Alfred Dunner directly and tell them this is what you are paying us." And we didn't listen to their bluff. My dad was involved at the time, and I got on the phone with Neil Scott and said, "Are you sure you are going to close your factory that has 350 people if you can't work for this price?" "You're going to really close your factory?" Because we couldn't pay them more. We quickly called these factories and asked them, "What's the most you could do?" One said, "Oh, I could do eight thousand per week, I could do ten thousand per week." Scotty's were only doing 35 thousand per week -- the other factories were new and they knew how to make them. I said, "I said are you sure -- because your factory will be out of 00:28:00business in two weeks if you stick to this. He said, "No, I'll bet on Scotty's" -- because he was a gambler -- "I'll bet on Scotty's." We said okay. We took all our work out and gave it to all these people, and they were closed. They went to Alfred Dunner and tried to say will you pay us? Alfred Dunner said, "No, we work for Tama." Imagine 35 thousand pairs of pants -- the dollars that is -- and he could have probably made - at least another six or seven years until we had to cut back. That was an interesting little story, it even gets my blood boiling today when I think about it.

SC: That's a great story, this is what we are looking for.

MF: He just gambled the whole thing away and it was pure greed. At this point we were heavily engineered, we knew what everything costs --we knew how much they were making. There was no reason for it. They just wanted to go directly to 00:29:00Alfred Dunner and not have to get work from us. Alfred Dunner stood behind us -- they still gave them the jackets, but they didn't take away any pants to give to them.

SC: Where was their factory again?

MF: In the Kresge building. They had a bunch of factories, and they might even be open in some small way -- but I don't know what they are doing.

GE: So your family always stayed just in pants.

MF: Yes. Way back, I think we made everything. At one point, we made kids' clothing.

GE: Maybe way back. If I recall from the last interview - I think after WWII you were pretty much pants. Maybe you could also address this. I seem to recall something about that the one thing your father liked about working with Alfred Dunner was that it was an easy pants to make.

MF: Oh yes, they were easy, and that's what the worker's liked. Don't forget 00:30:00they are piece rate union workers. The easier it can be to make them, the better. It got to the point where the workers would complain that, "Oh, I got larger sizes than you." Because large sizes are more to sew -- by a few more inches and more to handle and actually we did sometimes pay more, a little more, on the larger sizes. We would have to keep books on each size each person got -- it got ridiculous, but we would do it because the Union would say, "you're giving her more large sizes." It never failed, when you looked it up -- they actually had less large sizes than the person next to them. They were always jealous of the one next to them. They were looking at the bundle next to them and they would say, "oh, I got size 8-- oh, I got size 32." It always worked out -- the one complaining always had less -- she should have kept quiet because 00:31:00then we had to give her larger sizes.

SC: What union was it?

MF: ILGWU, and then it became United.

GE: Share with us a little bit the relationship -- how large was your management group -- who were the workers? What were the relationships like? Was there any tension?

MF: Like anything - really-- there is always a few bad apples. Everyone else was great, and there are always trouble makers. There are some people who enjoy coming to work to make trouble and complain. I don't understand it, I never will -- so that's what you had. Everyone was happy and content and some were exceptional. At the peak we had about 40-50 non-union workers. That would be staff, mechanics and floor people and the rest - about 380 union people. In the 00:32:00end we had about 200 union people and about 25-30 non-union people.

GE: How were those last 7 or 8 years - morale-wise- when everything was on the decline?

MF: When it was on the decline, I knew right away I had to get government work 00:33:00-- right away. There was a law at the time - it was called the Berry Amendment -- which was a law for the military, they have to make it in the United States. I managed, through meeting people and getting the word out -- we got a small order as a subcontractor to make the Army combat pants -- the old style, the camouflage pants from an outfit out in Connecticut. We were doing really well with that, and he just stopped paying us, so we stopped shipping. We were making them, but we held on because he wasn't paying. Finally he folded, or something happened. We had a lot of pants -- like 200,000 pants that we never got paid for. Then, with a consultant at the time, we were putting in bids for work -- all the time. Finally we got one that hit -- we won the bid -- it was to make 00:34:00jogging pants for the Air Force -- like for the gym. It was a small contract, but nice. It was so easy to make that we made money the first month, which we didn't expect. It was profitable right away. In the interim, now that I had this contract, and we got to know people inside the defense department. I said, "I have all these pants that the guy didn't pay me for -- is there any way you can take them?" And they finagled because they had to make a contract for the pants. They paid me the full price -- as if I bought the fabric. You know I was a subcontractor making them for ten-dollars a pair and now they are paying me twenty eight dollars. So I got most of my money back, I didn't get it all back, but I got 80-90% of it back by holding on to those pants and selling it directly to the government. So we had this contract for the Air Force jogging pants for about a year, year and a half. They cancelled the contract because the soldiers 00:35:00didn't like the fabric. When they walked it went "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." They didn't like that sound. We worked with the Air Force, I had to fly out to Wright-Patterson out in Ohio, which was really fascinating -- I had to work with different, softer, types of fabrics. We never heard anything back though -- what they ever did with it. I don't know -- it just kind of went away. I'm sure they had some kind of jogging pants somewhere--but we never heard about that. Then we went after this huge order for the Air Force combat uniform -- which was both the jacket and the pants.

GE: So this was quite a step for you because you had been doing pants.

MF: We kind of figured right off the bat that we'd give out all the jackets, and we'd do all the pants. It was me going by the seat of my pants basically -- I didn't know if they would agree to it. Then, for the pants, we would need an 00:36:00extra 150 people to do this contract, but it was a five-year, 75 million dollar contract. We put in the bid and we would call on Senators -- what do you call it?

GE: Lobbying?

MF: The Union was actually helping me. They told me that it should count in our favor that we're a union shop. We pay healthcare benefits to these people, we have good working conditions. Why are you ordering things to people on the border of Mexico, who pay Mexicans to do the work? (which was what my sub-contractor was--.) Anyway, to make a long story short - we won this award. The first year was 22 million dollars. That sounds like you win the lottery, and they write you a check for 22 million dollars, but it doesn't work that way. You actually have to go out (with your own money) and buy the fabric, then train all these people -- buy the machines that we don't own or lease them or whatever. 00:37:00There was a learning curve and it was hard -- you are going from the easiest pair of pants to the hardest.

GE: This was what year?

MF: I want to say 2006 -- maybe -- I'm not sure. I'm all excited, and I immediately have to expand my factory. I have space in my building -- we had moved to a 190 square foot building at this point -- half of it we weren't really using. I had to put more hook-ups for more people and more machines. Three months later my contract with the Union is up and they think I won the lottery -- they think, "Oh, 22 million -- you're doing great -- we want 18% more healthcare, and we are going to give the people less of a plan." They couldn't put their families on the plan and had more of a co-pay. They had told the 00:38:00people that I was offering no wage increase and that I didn't want to pay any healthcare, and I was offering them 2% - which is pretty customary over three years -- 2, 2 and 2, and I said I'll pay the same healthcare as I pay now -- that's what I figured on. The ballot put out to the people was that Tama is offering no wage increase for three years and is not willing to pay any healthcare. Of course, they all went on strike, but the people on the negotiating team crossed the picket line and worked because they knew she was lying -- they were my key people. It was a nightmare --I had to have security - it went on for fifteen weeks. I had the best lawyer - ever.

GE: It went on for fifteen weeks?

MF: Fifteen weeks -- and I was eliminating the Union. I brought in bus loads of workers from Philadelphia -- from Chinatown-- to fill the seats and do the work, 00:39:00but we were falling behind because it was so disruptive and difficult. That allowed me to sub-contract right away for the jackets -- the government said, "Oh, you are having a strike -- you can do it." It went on for fifteen weeks and the lawyer said, "Now you can advertise for replacement workers, which is basically saying -- you don't need the Union anymore." And it's legal -- you have enough people, and now you are just looking for people to replace the people you had. Then the President of the Union called and said, "Let's have a meeting." They ended up settling. I said, "Now you cost me a lot of money, I was closed for 15 weeks. I hired security, I fell behind on all of my work. They had people picketing J.C. Penny saying , "Don't buy Alfred Dunner." That was probably the nail that sealed it for Alfred Dunner. They had a good reason to say, "What do we need this aggravation for? When we can just buy it for 30% less 00:40:00from China, and no one is going to complain." That probably didn't help either. They settled the contract -- they agreed to 0,1,& 0. Now I had to do what they had said and I said, "You cost me so much money. I can't have all this complaining about the large sizes, all this pettiness has to go away. Whether they are on military or Alfred Dunner , they can't complain. But, they still gave me a hard time when they came back. Pretty soon after I decided to sell the contract to the people in Mexico (Texas). I said, "This is not going to work, the people are just not trying, they don't care. " We even tried to pay them more money to do the work and it just wasn't happening. So I sold that contract, so that never really happened. Now I'm back to just having Alfred Dunner again, and I lost my motivation to try -- I'm doing everything to save their jobs, and 00:41:00they go on strike. At the end of the day, they follow the Union, which is stupid. I kind of thought, what's the point of it? When Alfred Dunner did call and said, "we're done" I didn't shed a tear - I felt this weight just lift off my shoulder. I was happy about it actually.

SC: And that was in 2009?

MF: Now what happened there was they were always caught short at Christmas time. Remember I told you at Christmas the numbers would jump way up. Near the end our average number per week was about 35,000 per week -- it was a normal week. At Christmas, it went up to 90,000-1000,00 per week - from Thanksgiving to the end of the year. That's what sales would be across J.C. Penney as a guide. They were always caught a little bit short -- Dunner was short and then J.C. Penney would look at what sold last year to figure on their orders for this year. So they 00:42:00thought, we are always short -- let's up it 10% and they were already short and now they are going to be short again. They are ordering less because of it. They thought this year, we'll be smart and we are going to over-order and have tons of stock ready so that we fill every single order so that next year when they order 10% more it's the real number. So they ordered a ton of work from us -- it was really busy, and we stored it in our facility because they didn't have room to store all this work. and they paid us for all of it at the time. In 2008 -- that's when the market crashed -- remember the GM was going to fold. The bulk of their customers were mid-western.

GE: Of Alfred Dunner?

MF: Their biggest buyers are mid-western.

GE: The department stores are in the midwest?

MF: Even they are everywhere here--.they just sell better in the midwest. And, we see the numbers of what's selling, normally at Christmas time -- it goes from 00:43:0035 to 90 and we were seeing numbers like 12 thousand, 9 thousand, 16 thousand and here we were making 130 thousand a week -- figuring on that kind of number. I wrote a letter to all my people saying we are going to be laid off for the next 4 months until we eat up all this extra inventory. Two weeks later the president of that company called me up and said, "Mark, we're going to have to take all our work over to China now because sales are so low, we can manage it from overseas." It was kind of an excuse for them, but it worked, and I understood it. I just had to write another letter back and say, "We're closing."

GE: So with all of that inventory that you had, were you able to sell that off?

MF: Oh yes, It was already paid for by Alfred Dunner. The styles don't change -- they make the same -- black, navy, grey, white -- depending on the time of year. 00:44:00It was standard colors -- eventually it was going to get sold. We would just ship it to them when they had holes in their warehouse and had room.

GE: This happened over 3-6 months?

MF: From February to April, May -- we got rid of all that extra.

GE: And, how many people were working for you at the time when you had to close?

MF: About 200 -- and that was 2009.

SC: So you have some good anecdotes, too?

MF: I do.

GE: Just a couple of questions. How do you think this area here has been affected? This was a very thriving textile area and now there's really none.

MF: I don't think the area really notices it because other things take its place. My biggest concern with the whole country is that we don't make things here anymore. That's a big danger. We build casinos -- so what is that? That's money spiraling down the toilet. That's not new money coming in from another country or other people. That's our own money going into different pockets. We don't make anything anymore. We are all about the service industry. Even my new business now is basically a service business. That's not the way to grow an 00:46:00economy. You can't just be serving each other hamburgers -- what kind of money are you going to make? You have to sell things to other countries to bring money in and even to make an environment that even if we are not making things right now make it so friendly that Germany wants to build a factory here or Japan. And, they do some of that with the cars, and we need more of that. I notice that even with my business, there are so many things that distract you from your business -- from focusing on your business and it's usually government related things. You are dealing with OSHA -- and OSHA is a good thing to have in place, because all these things start with good intentions but people abuse them. The day I opened up my brand new factory -- it had high ceilings and beautiful, comfortable chairs and all new stuff. The brand new air conditioning unit didn't work -- they were still putting freon in it -- it happened to be one of these 00:47:00ninety degree days -- and it was warm in the factory. People called OSHA because it was too warm -- on the opening day. OSHA came and said they have no rules regarding temperature. Just the fact that people would do that on the opening day of a brand new nice place - I put in systems that would be delivered right to the presses, and then people are complaining.

SC: Do you think we are becoming an economic colony of other countries in some ways?

MF: We are, but I think there's nothing wrong with that. The whole world is getting smaller -- everything is going to the cheapest country. Even China now -- because I spoke to the President of Alfred Dunner -- maybe last year and 00:48:00said, "How are things going?" He said , "guess what -- China and Central America are too expensive now -- we are in Bangladesh and Cambodia now." Where do you go next - to the moon? Eventually you run out of countries. The good news is that it may be more level -- as long as countries are doing things to make it more level then it's a function of are our oil prices so high that it makes no sense -- then it's like little things that you are deciding about. I just heard that they are building cell phones in the United States -- in Texas. One of the SmartPhones companies is building in Texas. Then you hear, "I'm sure it will have glitches." People have feelings like "we can't even do that right." Which I'm sure we can. We used to do everything -- we used to make TVs here and other 00:49:00things. It's not anyone's fault but the governments that make it so easy to go overseas and so difficult to make things here. When I was in Brazil -- when I worked for Merv -- I ordered a bottle of champagne. I wasn't using money, and I got the bill and it was 3 million of their money and I thought , "Whatever the exchange rate, it can't be good." It turned out to be 300 dollars. I said, "Why is this so expensive?" It was maybe a 20 dollar bottle. They said, "Because we have a 100% import tax." And you should have that -- pay for the job that was lost in your own country and make it more attractive to buy our products here. There are so many simple things we could do, except for the fact that we owe 00:50:00everything to China at this point, we probably can't do anything without their permission.

SC: And, we did have high import taxes for a long, long time in the United States.

MF: That's just my philosophy.

GE: And in terms of the local community, other things took its place and like you said, you think it's unfortunate that we have less manufacturing here. How about in terms of the Jewish community? Forty/fifty years ago there was this thriving community that was often owners of these different factories and much of that has gone away. What do you think the impact has been on the Jewish community here?

MF: It must have impacted it in some ways. I don't know what replaced that profession, but you had that group of families that not only had a good business 00:51:00or struggled with their business, but they gave back to the community a lot. Maybe you lose some of that. Being able to fundraise to build a new JCC or a new Temple might be a lot harder because you might not have the families -- that there are some families that their wealth was so great that they passed down to the generations, and they are still giving to the community. But, I don't know of too many people who have a career that can last thirty years. A lot of people that I know, whatever business they are into, before you know it - it either became outdated or something else replaced it. Other people have to re-invent themselves and some people can't.

GE: You were saying with the Jewish community there was more of the ability years ago in terms of giving back. What were some of the ways that people gave back and how about your own family?

MF: My dad was active with the Jewish Day School and was involved. I remember going to a (during those Israeli wars that would pop up) and they would have a [Jewish] Federation thing that would pop up -- and you'd say, "I pledge 1,000 dollars." They don't have those kinds of things any more or maybe it's more private.

GE: The Jewish community especially in this area - they were somehow over-represented in this industry. Why do you think that may be the case?

MF: I think it was the proximity to New York City. I think there were some rules with trucking that if you were so far from NY, there were some advantages. There was something like, 50 miles out of NY that you get away with it, you don't if you are closer.

GE: The textile industry in general had a lot of Jews and a lot of Italians. Any thoughts as to why those ethnic groups were heavily involved in the industry.

MF: We are both so very similar in a lot of ways. It comes from the training that they had -- their parents and grandparents -- that was the profession that 00:54:00you were allowed to do or just did because you enjoyed it.

GE: And what professions?

MF: Being a tailor -- especially Italians. Italians are still known for being the best tailors.

SC: And silk mills.

MF: In fact, some of our subcontractors were Italian from the Scranton area. Scotty's is actually an Italian family. They either really were Italian, or Jewish, and then, eventually, Asian. Which is current now and they were great. The thing about Asian people is if they say they're going to have it done by . . . and you say how much can you do? And if they say 20,000, and you think, wait, you only had 8,000 last week, and now you will have 20,000? They say, don't worry, I'll have it, and they do. Because what they do is they spread it out amongst all . . . things you probably don't even know what goes on. They just 00:55:00give it out to their friends' factories, and you don't even want to know where it's going, but it comes back. And they just get it done.

GE: Right, right, and they were your subcontractors at the time? How about your work force? Mostly women?

MF: Mostly women.

GE: What ethnicity were they?

MF: Mostly Pennsylvania Dutch. Probably more than any other factory, we had Pennsylvania Dutch women from the Northampton area. When I moved over by the Airport, I made sure it was close enough so that they could all make it. Then all the new people were coming from other countries. We actually found people through the Catholic Charities Group. They would find people from all over the world, so we had people from all walks of life.

GE: Did it tend to be first generation workers?

MF: The new people?

GE: Yes.

MF: The new people were -- people in their twenties, and we had to train some of 00:56:00them how to sew. They were willing to learn, and they actually were pretty good. They were really into it.

SC: A better work ethic?

MF: No, the older workers had the best work ethic. Occasionally you find someone good. But, it was hard to find people -- there were people that came in and maybe by break time they would just leave because they didn't like it -- or maybe they didn't need the money. We didn't pay a whole lot more than unemployment -- maybe we were too close to what unemployment was.

GE: It was not the work ethic?

MF: We had women 70 years old who still kept coming to work. I don't think it's because they needed the money. Maybe they wanted to get away from their husbands, or got along with the other women there, or were just saving up for a 00:57:00cruise or something. They just really enjoyed working. One benefit because of the way I closed, because they took the work overseas, the workers got two years of college retraining into another field. There are a lot of people who I run into who say that they wished that I would still be open. They say, "We didn't realize how good we had it." Some people went to Amazon.com - where they really need a Union.

GE: Where is that?

MF: In Fogelsville. I have two workers that I've run into that have lost 40 pounds working at Amazon.com. They were overweight when they worked for me and 00:58:00now they are slim and svelte because they are running -- they don't give them a break -- they go home crying.

SC: There were protests. It was awful.

MF: It's still bad. They don't let them make more than fifteen dollars per hour. Once you hit that, you'll never get a raise.

GE: Now we have two final questions.

SC: Actually three final questions. What did your family value most in life and what did you value? These are my film questions.

MF: To have family all around and have your health -- that your family is all doing well.

GE: Would you say that's both your family's values as well as your own?

MF: I would hope so, yes. They may think differently.

SC: And how were they connected to the wider community? I think we did talk about that. What gives you a sense of creativity and/or artistry. I used to always say artistry in life, not meaning actual art, but the sense of fulfillment and creativity in life.

MF: I think I am a creative person, although I don't use that a lot. I like to make jokes and laugh. If I can make a joke or do something to make people laugh -- I get a kick out of that. I didn't show you my Obama stuff. Let me go get it. 01:00:00This is just a sample of it.

GE: Now this is 2008.

MF: 2008, so he was just running for President.

SC: Oh Wow, can you put this up? We can scan that.

MF: If you google Obama visits Tama Manufacturing, you'll have a lot of pictures. I have a bunch I can send you because there was a whole bus of press there -- Time Magazine, CNN. I was on Wolf Blitzer -- the Wall -- there was a picture of me, Obama and one of my workers.

GE: Tell us about it.

MF: What happened was -- the Union lady called me on Sunday. She said, "Do you 01:01:00mind if we bring Obama in on Tuesday- which was April 1 - for a tour?" I didn't mind at all because by then he was like a rock star -- I just wanted to meet him. They said, "Just don't tell anyone because of security." He's going to walk through and shake people's hands -- spend about a half hour. Then on Monday, the Secret Service and his advance people came through to see where the bus would park, the path he would take. I asked my mom if she wanted to go, and my kids took off-- Sean and Danny. Sean was allowed to vote that year, and he plays 01:02:00basketball, and they were talking about basketball. The first bus shows up with the press. Then a half hour later Obama's bus was supposed to come. The press bus driver says, "Do you want to pull the bus around to the other side?" He said, "No, I'll wait here, I don't want to be inspected again." If either bus goes out of sight, they would have to get the dogs again. So then, Obama comes in the back door of the cutting room and keeps chatting with everyone. He asked me, "Why are you still in business, when no one else is?" I told him as long as 01:03:00fabric mills are open -- but you have to put in some of these import taxes. This is what we are fighting against. Sure enough, a year and a half later, I was closed. He was nice to everyone.

GE: He came to Muhlenberg.

SC: I wonder if it was when he came to Muhlenberg.

GE: No, I think it was in September.

MF: He went right from me to Springhouse. He spoke there and said, "I just came from Tama Manufacturing. It has a nice owner, nice people."

Then he came back two years later and went to the unemployment office and met 01:04:00some of my people. They told him he visited them at Tama Manufacturing and spoke to them, and now they don't have jobs.

SC: That gives me shivers.

MF: He said, "some jobs you just can't save."