Modern technologies like the Internet have revolutionized the way many of us do business, and have opened up many opportunities for new enterprise.
And yet, all of these innovations pale in comparison with the old-fashioned values of hard work, fair business, and the sheer strength of personality.
The Nathan Kimmel Company, started by Nathan Kimmel in 1956, is an prime example of how one family’s hard work, lead by a memorable man with an unwavering philosophy of how to do business, laid the foundation for a company that continues to thrive a half century later.
Nathan Kimmel´s company was started in 1956, in the garage of the family home, with a bundle of surplus parachutes purchased from Douglas Aircraft.
Nathan’s daughter, Carol Kimmel Schary, now president of the company, recalls how it all began.
"This little mom and pop industry started out of our garage. He bought a ´lot´ (container) of parachutes, and he decided he was going to take the webbing from them and resell it.
We would come home from school and we’d take out the webbing, and my parents would go to the laundromat at night and wash it, and then he’d sell it. He could make a huge profit from it since he did all the labor himself."
Part of Nathan’s success was his ingenuity. Carol remembers when Barrington Plaza, in Los Angeles, was undergoing renovation.
Fireproofing and plastering debris was coating the area, including all cars parked nearby. Someone asked Nathan if he had a solution, so he started making tarps out of his surplus parachutes.
"All the buildings were covered in camouflage!"
"Initially, he started selling surplus. The second or third time he bought one of these ´lots´, there was hose in it. It was bulletproof hose. He didn’t know what it was, so he researched it, and he found a plasterer that said `this is great!´ and asked him if he could get more. So he’d go buy a ´lot´ that had this hose in it, and it would have other items, and so on."
The surplus selling business was, in every sense of the word, a family business.
"There were 4 kids at home, and since we ran the business out of our house, whenever the phone would ring, we would have to freeze and turn the television off and no one could talk. Now when the phone rings, I think I still freeze!"
This is shared purpose at its most fundamental. The family was in it together. Even the youngsters at home knew how to play their part when the phone rang.
"Everybody loved my father. He worked out of his station wagon, and they loved his personality and his pricing and the quality of service. They would ask him `Can you get me this? Can you get me that?´ He moved into a warehouse, and from there moved into this business. Whatever he could find, he would sell. That was about 1952. In 1956, he incorporated."
In the nearly fifty years that have followed, the Nathan Kimmel Co., has continued to serve the niches that got the company off the ground, and out of the garage. Today, the building trades still represent the company’s biggest lines.
Nathan Kimmel literally built a business out of becoming a teammate of his customers’, working to ensure their success. His business idea, in part, was to succeed by partnering with his customers.
