Scott Luton (00:12):
Good morning, Scott Luton here with you on this edition of this week in business history. Welcome to today’s show on this program, which is part of the supply chain. Now family of programming. We take a look back at the upcoming week, and then we share some of the most relevant events and milestones from years past, of course, mostly business focused with a little dab global supply chain. And occasionally we might just throw in a good story outside of our primary realm. So I invite you to join me on this. Look back in history to identify some of the most significant leaders, companies, innovations, and perhaps lessons learned in our collective business journey. Now let’s dive in to this week in business history.
Scott Luton (01:10):
Hello, and thanks for joining us. I’m your host Scott Luton, and welcome to this edition of this week in business history for March 22nd. Thanks so much for listening to the show on a side note, before we get started, we’re going to be celebrating a great milestone over at supply chain now, which is the mothership for this week in business history. We began podcasting in May, 2017, which frankly feels like 50 years ago at this moment. I wasn’t exactly sure what we talk about or how often we’d publish our initial cadence was two podcasts a month. I bet we’ve published over 300 episodes alone in 2020, but what I was sure about was our mission. We wanted to give voice to the global supply chain community recognized in the people and issues of the day, the people and issues that never got enough attention or visibility that was, and still is our North star.
Scott Luton (02:06):
In fact, we’ll be publishing episode number 600 on supply chain. Now this coming week, while I reflect on all of our teams, enormous investment of blood, sweat, and tears that went into each of those 600 episodes, I’m also tremendously grateful for you, our listeners step by step on this storytelling venture, both at supply chain now and here at this week in business history where we’re getting close to 50 episodes. Thanks so much. And of course keep your feedback coming. We always enjoy your ideas, constructive criticism, and of course your reviews on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from and now onward and upward. Let’s get back to this week in business history today, we’re going to be sharing the stories of two incredible innovative pioneering business, Williamson Stucky, senior, and Bette Nesmith Graham stay tuned. As I hope you’ll enjoy the surprising backstory on both of these leaders and will be surprised by a few things along the way.
Scott Luton (03:13):
Thanks again for joining us on this episode of this week in business history, powered by our team here at supply chain. Now let’s begin our look back in business history today by revisiting what may be an icon for many drivers and travelers here in the United States on March 26th, 1909, Williamson Sylvester Stuckey, senior AKA Ws Stuckey was born in Eastman, Georgia. The town sits in South central Georgia. Savannah is about 140 miles East of Eastman in Macon. Georgia sits about 60 miles Northwest let’s fast forward from 1909 to the 1930s. It’s a decade of course, of extraordinary economic term wall for so many, the great depression which had begun 1929 was roaring in the early thirties and lasted for some into the latter years of the decade. But back in Eastman, Georgia, the roots of what would become an iconic roadside empire were being formed. Ws Stuckey senior had a banner peak and year in the mid thirties and thought he’d share some of the harvest with the roadside travelers coming through town for two at Tousley us highway 23 runs through Eastman, a main thoroughfare that extends from Jacksonville, Florida on the South end through Atlanta and ends at Mackinaw city, Michigan on the North end.
Scott Luton (04:42):
Really a perfect place to set up a peak can stand as proven when the highway travelers bought all of Ws duckies pecans. This outcome didn’t just delight Mr. Stuckey, but it also called the eye of miss Ethel Stuckey. His wife, Ethel Stuckey was a masterful cook and candy maker. And she had developed quite the reputation in her family for a variety of homemade candy, such as pecan divinity, pecan brittle, and perhaps her most famous of all the P can log roll. Ethel Stuckey suggested that her husband expand his offerings and include her homemade candies for purchase. Now, this was an important moment that perhaps the Stuckey family didn’t realize at the time and it was made even more important due to Ws. Stuckey’s willingness to run and embrace Ethel’s suggestion. It would certainly be a game changer by 1937, the business which had become known as Stuckey’s was thriving.
Scott Luton (05:43):
In fact, a small candy kitchen was added to the store in Eastman. So that Ethel Stuckey and her sister Pearl Landers could more easily deliver on the high demand for the candies, their best-selling product you ask. Well, it was the famous Stuckey’s peak can log roll, but the Stuckey’s saw other ways they could serve their travelers with other food supplies, a restaurant, and even gasoline pumps. One other big addition was made perhaps one that you are already familiar with. The sloping teal blue roof in 1941 Stuckey’s would expand outside the state of Georgia for the first time and build a store and Hilliard, Florida world war II would bring sugar rationing, which would slow Stuckey’s growth a bit, but only temporarily. And after world war II, Americans would buy automobiles in droves and hit the road for adventure across the country. All of these travelers would need to stop somewhere for fuel and food.
Scott Luton (06:43):
In 1948 Stuckey’s candy plant would be opened in Eastman to help keep up with sales, but I bet Ethal Stuckey’s presence was palpable across those production lines. All told Stuckey’s business would boom for decades during its heyday. By the 1970s, over 350 Stuckey’s locations could be found across the United States. Some would say that a sloping till blue roof was just as common as McDonald’s golden arches, every Stuckey’s team member, and many of their customers would become very familiar with Ws, Stuckey, seniors, legendary motto. Every traveler is a friend. It would become a key aspect to the company culture, but as they always do times would change and would certainly bring change. A series of mergers and takeovers would lead to the Stuckey’s empire being owned and controlled by pet dairy corporation and pet dairy corporation will be acquired. Some say it was an unfriendly takeover by RC industries incorporated, a Chicago based conglomerate with roots in the railroad industry.
Scott Luton (07:52):
The U S interstate system construction would also grow extensively, especially in the 1960s and seventies. The Stuckey’s footprint was much more focused on the national highway system, which has served the American traveler so well for much of the 20th century, none of these developments will be good for the Stuckey’s enterprise in 1977, Wes Stuckey, the founder and Ethel’s dear husband and partner would pass away by the early 1980s. The new ownership of Stuckey’s had allowed the enterprise to crumble in decline, hundreds of locations have been lost, but new leadership would step in as Wes Stuckey Jr. Fresh off five terms of service in the us house of representatives was determined to reclaim his family’s business. In 1984, he would team up with a group of investors, acquire the company and get to work rebuilding the Stuckey’s enterprise Ws ducky Jr. Would introduce new offerings and business concepts as well as strengthen business relationships across the country is team’s work result in expansion back up to 115 franchise locations in 17 States, Ws ducky Jr.
Scott Luton (09:05):
Retired in 2014 and in November, 2019, his daughter Ethel, Stephanie Stuckey would acquire the company becoming its president and CEO, Greg white. And I were fortunate to be introduced to Stephanie Stuckey by our friend, Gary Smith. Who’s also served as guest host here at this week in business history. We interviewed Stephanie Stuckey back in late 2020, where she shared quote, even though Stuckey’s has been around since 1937, I joke that we’re an 80 plus year old startup because I’m reviving the brand and I’m really starting it back up again. In quote, we’ll include a link to the interview in the show notes while a member of the Stuckey’s family, Stephanie brings fresh non retail perspective, which includes work in politics and law. But when she first took the reins, Stephanie Stuckey wanted to get reacquainted with the company’s roots and beginnings. She had acquired six boxes of her grandfather, Ws, ducky, seniors, papers and belongings, all which had been in storage since his passing in 1977, Stephanie would comb through every single item and would condense the key takeaways into just three pages of notes, which would become a key aspect to the nucleus at the heart of our mission to rebuild a new golden era for the Stuckey’s organization.
Scott Luton (10:28):
And early on there have been plenty of successes, Stephanie Stuckey in her small, but robust management team have added new locations and hundreds of new retail partners, and they’ve launched into the e-commerce space. So now you can find Stuckey’s products at Stuckey’s dot com that’s S T U C K E Y s.com. And of course Amazon, and in February, 2021, the company announced the purchase of a manufacturing plant in wrens, Georgia, where they’d make some of their products for the first time in decades. The 80 plus year old startup is certainly entering a new era. So look for their products and perhaps more famous sloping, teal blue roofs in your neck of the woods. Soon up next today on this week in business history, how was liquid paper, the monkeys and MTV all related? Well, let’s find out on March 23rd, 1924, Bette Nesmith Graham was born Betty, Claire McMurry in Dallas, Texas raised in San Antonio.
Scott Luton (11:34):
She would eventually drop out of high school. And Mary Warren, Audrey Nesmith young couple would have a son that they would name Robert Michael Nesmith, Warren and Betty would divorce in 1946. And Betty as a single mother would have to find a way to make ends meet. Betty would find work as a secretary at Texas bank and trust. She was talented and earned her way to the role of executive secretary. Unfortunately though, there was a lot more of upward mobility beyond that for women in the banking industry in the 1950s, Bette Nesmith Graham would make extra money by painting holiday windows at the bank. In fact, painting would become a passion in life for bedding. More importantly, this sod job would prove critical to what great fortune was in store for Betty in her family. Back at Texas bank and trust the offices had embraced the new electronic typewriters typing was something that Betty never could master like so many of the rest of us, a key aspect of the executive secretary role was typing large contracts, memos, and the like sometimes errors not easily and legibly corrected could lead to a massive waste of time and resources.
Scott Luton (12:49):
After making a mess of several big contracts, Betty would find inspiration in her painting. It was Christmas embedded Nesmith Graham was at work, staring out the window, watching a worker paint, a bank sign. The painter made an error to and Betty would watch him simply paint over it and start over. She instantly thought of her own painting experience where when Betty made an error, she did the same thing. Just paint over it. Talk about your Eureka moments right away, but he would return to the office the next day, armed with a bottle of her temporary paint, which she made at home in her kitchen, blender, as Betty made typing mistakes. She’d cover them up with the tempera paint, which dried quickly, and then Betty would type over them. It worked like a charm so much so that her colleagues and fellow secretaries wanted a bottle of their own Betty happily obliged and would call the product mistake out for five years.
Scott Luton (13:51):
Betty wouldn’t think about selling the product, but would instead focus on making her and her associates lives easier at work. Finally, after the umpteenth, urging from friends and colleagues, Betty would attempt to produce batches of the product with the help of her son, Michael Nesmith, and sell bottles out of her garage. They worked tirelessly have the office by day and in the garage by night, but could never perfect the model enough to make money. And unfortunately the endless hours would impact buddy’s performance at the office, the banking executives didn’t like how the errors were painted over, even though they didn’t catch them very often. And in what was even a bigger problem, word of her entrepreneurial activity would leak her bosses found out and didn’t like it at all. They would fire the enterprising single mother after Betty mistakenly typed her company name, the mistake out company on a banking memo.
Scott Luton (14:50):
Betty was frustrated, broke, and jobless, but also determined and inspired to build a business. And now she could focus all of her time and energy into making that happen. Thus 1956, Betty would assemble an advisory team to help figure out a more productive and successful path forward. It would include several friends and professionals, including her son Michael’s chemistry teacher. One of the remedies that came out of the team’s work, they changed the name of the product to liquid paper, not to be confused with its competitor whiteout, which was launched in 1966 and trademarked in 1974. But back to the newly renamed liquid paper sales would soon follow the new game plan sales that Betty and the team ensured that they could deliver on by 1968, the liquid paper business was making 10,000 bottles a day, 11 years later, Bette Nesmith Graham would sell liquid paper to Gillette corporation for almost $50 million.
Scott Luton (15:58):
Before her passing in 1980, Betty would establish the Betty Claire McMurry foundation and the Guian foundation, which were both focused on supporting female entrepreneurs and artists, her son, Michael, when he wasn’t helping out with the family business where he was an aspiring musical artist in his own, right. You might have heard of the group. He was part of in the 1960s and seventies. Yup. The monkeys, the same band of musical and television fame and Michael Nesmith was a guitarist that wore the patented wool hat or toboggan Nesmith would lead the monkeys in the 1970s and start his own label. But in innovative fashion, much like his mother, Betty Nesmith would focus on combining audio music with videos. Nesmith had a hit in 1977 called Rio, which was released with one of the first ever music videos. The popular Rio video would lead to Michael Nesmith, launching a TV program on Nickelodeon.
Scott Luton (17:02):
Remember that channel, the program is known as pop clips. It was a TV show dedicated to music videos. Does that sound familiar? Pop clips would run for one season from 1980 to 1981, the show would lead Nickelodeon’s owners at the time Warner cable to launch music, television MTV for short and on Saturday, August 1st, 1981 at 1201 Eastern time. MTV programming would begin with the words ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll. While the words were spoken by John lack video of the space shuttle, Columbia launch would play in the background along with the launch of Apollo 11 and the iconic shot of the moon. So to bring it full circle, MTV may well have developed and launched on its own, but thanks to the brilliance, determination and success of one Bette Nesmith Graham, which allowed Michael Nesmith to chase his artistic passions. My thought is we got our MTV a lot sooner.
Scott Luton (18:09):
Blessed be the ties that bond well, that just about wraps up this edition of this week in business history. Big thanks to you, our listener for tuning into the show each week. Be sure to let us know how we’re doing. We’d love to earn your review on Apple podcast or any other podcast channels, which of course will help us get the word out better on behalf of the entire team here at this week in business history and supply chain. Now this is Scott Luton wishing all of our listeners, nothing but the best. Hey, do good give forward and be the change that’s needed in on that note. We’ll see you next time here on this week in business history.
