Ambrose John "AJ" McNamara Jr., 72, formerly or Worcester and Holden, Mass., most recently living in Los Angeles, died September 21, 2010 in Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
A significant player of the post-OSHA industrial safety field, AJ worked 17 years for Norton Co., an abrasives manufacturer that acquired a string of safety businesses in the early 1970s through AJ’s guidance. These companies were consolidated under the North Safety banner, which became one of the iconic companies in the safety market of the 1970s and 80s. North is now a brand name in the Honeywell staple of safety and health businesses.
When AJ was acquiring small, family-run safety businesses in the early 70s, the new-fangled OSHA agency, run by a Reading, Pa., department store retailer who later would own a tour bus company, (think those credentials would fly today?) was conducting 80,000 inspections a year and scaring businesses into buying all sorts of PPE. For safety distributors and manufacturers, these were the gold rush days. The manufacturing base in the U.S. was still strong, though just beginning to head overseas. Demand for hard hats, gloves, ear plugs, steel-toe shoes, respirators and “Buddy Holly” safety glasses would never be higher.
Membership boomed in the American Society of Safety Engineers and the American Industrial Hygiene Association. “Engineers” and “Industrial” were reflective of the times, far less applicable in 2010 as the professions have expanded beyond engineering and industrial operations.
The National Safety Council in the 70s and early 80s held its annual National Safety Congress in the basement of the hulking, palatial Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, the NSC’s home. Attendees trudged up and down stairs, tripped on rumpled carpet, and got lost trying to find exhibit halls tucked away on different floors and wings of the Hilton. Girls in miniskirts and bikinis waved from swing sets. The aisles were packed. I lunched one day in the Hilton with an air traffic controller recently fired by President Reagan. If Reagan had walked into the restaurant the guy would’ve punched him out. He was so angry he couldn’t shut up.
A far cry from the sleek glass and steel San Diego Convention Center where the 2010 Congress & Expo was held.
It wasn’t exactly “Mad Men,” but the Congress in the 70s and early 80s was typical of trade shows of the time. Sales meetings that wound up with cocktails all around, dinners where at least one sloshed sales manager of my acquaintance ended up face down in his plate of spaghetti, nights carousing up and down Rush Street bars, sales reps showing up for booth duty in the morning, dark circles under their eyes, hoarse and groping for coffee after two hours of shut eye.
I remember getting on the plane Sunday morning in Philadelphia to head out to my first Safety Congress. One of the owners of the magazine saw me get aboard and said, “Dave, relax, break a smile.” It was my first business trip. I had a sales meeting and sales dinner ahead of me with men my father’s age. Loud, guffawing, smoking and drinking peddlers. Reminded me of when my father had his pals over for poker night. Loud and profane. I’d sneak out of bed and peek downstairs. Through the smoke I’d see the fellas around the dining room table. Where the big boys roamed. With those damn deep voices. Scary.
My first client dinner was in a tight private dinner room with about 12-15 people around the table. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. They didn’t teach us in journalism school about small talk at sales dinners. My soon-to-be wife picked me up at the airport on Tuesday night. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “Never. I’m never going back to one of those damn dinners again.”
30 years later I’m still flying off to Safety Congresses…
Safety was an easy sell in the 70s and early 80s. The sales pitch was simple: OSHA says you need these products. That was it. The market was far from mature in those salad days. Thousands and thousands of companies were short of the required PPE.
Safety distributors never had it better. It would be decades before the likes of Grainger barged in and started stealing business. The Safety Equipment Distributors Association was a family affair, with a small, close-knit number of family-run distributorships retreating each summer to a resort where scores of their kids would run around like at a summer camp. SEDA enjoyed a good run for about 25 years, or a little more than a generation of distributor owners. Many cashed out in the 90s. Safety distributors are still prospering in niches they’ve carved out, but you won’t find them barbecuing in the Rockies on summer vacation write-offs anymore.
AJ, as those who knew him, was a proud family man. He leave his wife of 46 years, Susan McNamara of Los Angeles, three children, James and wife Olivia of Taiwan, Elizabeth and husband Tom of Los Angeles, Margaret and husband Mike of Grosse Pointe, MI. Six grandchildren, Andrew and Alyssa of Taiwan, Holden and Allison of Michigan, T.J. and Luke of Los Angeles.
AJ was something of a renaissance man: sharp business mind, maverick, natural salesman, an entrepreneur, a battler who came back from a massive heart attack in his 40s, one of For Distributors Only’s founding columnists and supporters, early enthusiast of the Internet and its profit possibilities, technologist, raconteur, formidable networker, tireless idea man.
A.J. was born in Utica, NY, graduated from White Plains High School, Bryant College and received his MBA from Boston University.
After his years at Norton, he launched John Alden Associates, a consulting business in the industrial safety field. After September 11, 2001, he passionately ventured into the field of products for first responders under the ForResponders moniker.
AJ was passionate. I recall debating with him in the 1990s about the money-making potential of the then embryonic Internet. I was the old print Luddite before print became old and said “no way.” AJ was absolutely convinced distributors and manufacturers had to sell online, and get online fast. Of course he had his own idea of how to pull that off, which he tried to sell the industry for years.
And of course now I write more copy for the magazine’s web site than I do for the print edition, and do the Twittering and Facebooking and LinkingIn things.
As a trained journalist, AJ was a mentor for me when it came to understanding the world of businesses, corporations, the likes of General Electric boss Jack Welch. AJ was once loaned out to GE from Norton and traveled with Welch on one of Neutron Jack’s “bombing runs” — riding a small plane to out-of-the-way facilities where Welch would stride in, announce wipe-out layoffs, and hop on the plane to his next nuking site. That was one of a thousand AJ stories. And every one of them ended with a punch line.
Except the time I was sitting in a Pittsburgh motel room, with a nice view of a Pennsylvania Turnpike toll plaza. The phone rang and it was AJ. An aggravated AJ, as he quickly let me know. Seems I ambushed him by publishing his column with edits I didn’t show him. “No surprises, Dave,” he said. I have since told that to every editor I’ve hired.
AJ loved to laugh. He will be missed. And in the modern, consolidated, corporate safety industry, there will never be another one like him.
A celebration of life for AJ will be held in Los Angeles on October 23, 2010. AJ surely celebrated life the way he lived it. And he loved a party.
The family encourages everyone to take care of your health. Donations to Heifer International are suggested.
- by Dave Johnson, ISHN Editor
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
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