Tom's Work Web Pages - The Zytron Years.
Zytron was still a private company at the time of this picture, a meeting of operations managers in the corporate offices in Menlo Park, California. The gentleman at far left is Sam Cavallaro who was Operations Manager for Zytron's multi-site Los Angeles Branch for many years. Next from the left is Dave Davison, the founder of Data Copy and partnered with Truett Airhart of National Micromation to create Zytron. Truett's organization included a center in Iowa (Dick Fastenau area) and a Tulsa branch where Dave Hancock hired Kent McManus (eventually a company President) and Fred Oliveiro - all three were important company leaders in their own ways. Next is Terry Bogue, Vice President of technical development. Far right is your's truly, when he had HAIR.
Our host at the above-mentioned meeting was Robert Gregory. Robert was placed in a COM operator's job at Zytron by a head hunter in 1974 after a one-day search. He left a-year-to-the-day later, but was lured back in 1976 to manage the flagship branch operation in the San Francisco area until 1979 when he moved to corporate and progressed to VP of production systems. He left the company after working on the divestiture to Anacomp in 1998. Robert has contributed many fine contributions to this website which can be found below under Robert's Review.
With Zytron's "indirect" acquisition by Dun & Bradstreet, the company Logo took on a "Serif" font as shown here in a picture of fiche jackets.
Meet a couple of long-term company employees, both of whom "came aboard" in the Zytron era. Carlene Briggs came to us in Dallas when she moved there from Kansas City, where she had worked for a local COM service brueau. Upon arriving in Dallas, she checked with the Texas Employment Office who referred her to their microfiche file of current job openings. She took the fiche to the clerk and said, "I want to work for this company." The clerk responded by saying there were many companies listed on the fiche, to which Carlene responded, "You don't understand, I want to go to work for the company that MAKES these fiche!". That was the company gain for Zytron as Carlene served the Dallas office as an excellent shift supervisor, production control manager and customer service manager for over 13 years.
To the right is Warren Hoppe who joined the Dallas branch as a salesman in 1978 or '79. His first big score was to "outsource" Zales, his former employer. (If you don't know the story but you do know Warren, ask him about how to celebrate such a big closing!) Warren is still with the company, as Sales Manager in the Dallas office.
Recently, I have had a few contributions from other, former Zytron employees. Their contributions can be found on the following pages, along with a look at one of Buddy Prestion's patented cookouts:
Derby Day '97 - to celebrate …. Oh, I don't know, how about Buckwheat's first year in Alphretta? | |
A contribution from John White - how many can YOU recognize? | |
Contributions from Zytron's perinnial VP of Production Systems - a Gold Mine! |
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