Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (19 page)

Michael went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Juilliard and a master’s in violin performance from the University of Michigan. He then embarked on what he thought would be a long and satisfying career teaching classical violin at the University of Oklahoma and at the University of North Texas. Eight years into his university career, when his father unexpectedly needed help with the start-up company, Michael responded by resigning his faculty position in Texas and returning home to Ann Arbor for good.

In those early days, Shar struggled to get a foothold in the business, Michael recalls. “String players obviously had a vital need for strings. One man who had connections to distributors in Germany controlled virtually all sales, and he was like a dictator. He blocked any competition by telling his distributors not to sell to Shar. My father went to Europe and found a distributor who was willing to ship to us, but the dictator put a stop to that, too, by threatening to cut the fellow off. This went on and on. Shar would have gone out of business had not my father appealed to our senator from Michigan, who happened to chair the Senate’s antitrust committee. The committee’s intervention, allowing us to buy imported strings, ‘opened the floodgates’ for Shar. The dictator stopped blocking our way, the word got around, and our little mail-order business began to grow.”

Even with Shar’s head start in the mail-order business, competition intensified. It wasn’t long before Michael’s younger sibling, Charles (who also studied under Elizabeth Green and Ivan Galamian and went on to the Curtis Institute), left
his
position teaching violin at the University of Michigan to join his father and brother as Shar’s chief executive officer. Modest as ever, Michael says it was all thanks to Charles’s brilliant mind for business and his bold nature that the business expanded. “My Dad and I were more conservative. Charles recommended doing things that seemed risky at the time but proved to be the right moves. Shar Music thrived and became a powerhouse.” Today, the company’s extensive inventory offers individual and institutional customers a far greater variety and more gauges of string than typical music stores can possibly carry. In addition to strings sold at a discount, Shar also sells (and rents) bowed string instruments, bows, cases and bags, electronic accessories, and more. The company is a big purveyor of Suzuki-method materials for teaching and learning a variety of instruments, such as violin, guitar, harp, viola, cello, flute, and piano.

Another member of the close-knit Avsharian family is Michael’s nephew and Charles’s son, Haig, who represents the third generation of Shar partners. Now president of the company, Haig is an exceptionally good manager who knows how to recruit and hire talented people. The three partners excel in different ways and have formed a well-balanced team.

Michael admits that he is old-fashioned and hasn’t kept up with the new technologies, such as Web-based sales. He relies on an IT manager, one of many specialists on staff. “I can get away with it at my age, and I’m an owner, so I can’t be fired,” he chuckles. “I may not be a tough enough businessman—Charles and Haig are tougher, and I’m probably
too
agreeable—but customers and employees do come to me with their questions. I’m the answer man who knows the business from its origins fifty years ago.”

In the course of the interview, Michael revealed his true passion—giving private violin instruction. For nearly sixty years he has been giving lessons to young violinists. “I’m energized by the kids I teach, and it’s exciting to see their skills develop. Most are pre-college age, some are university students.” Michael says he never really liked to perform; he always loved to teach. He neglects to mention how some of his former students have gone on to illustrious violin teaching and performance careers. Catherine Cho, a faculty member at Juilliard, is but one example.

Shar has been like a second home to Michael since he became a widower many years ago. He raised two children, then aged eleven and fourteen, after his wife passed away. Characteristically, Michael credits his wife for how well the children turned out by insisting that
she
was the major influence on them. These days, one of his greatest delights when he does have leisure time is visiting his grandchildren in Colorado. Another pleasure, a close second to music, is reading. “If I had more free time I would go to the library and browse.”

As should be apparent from reading this profile, Michael is an exceptionally modest man who says that it has always been his nature to avoid drawing attention to himself. He also believes in accepting what he cannot control and adjusting to his environment rather than endeavoring to change it. He cites an example: whenever he got water in the basement of his house, he would simply mop it up. It was only when his son’s drum set was set up in the basement that Michael took steps to remediate the water problem. More recently, with his vision, hearing, and stamina declining ever so gradually, he has adjusted by slowing down a bit.

Michael expects to continue working “as long as I’m alive and can do it. I particularly enjoy the stimulation of solving problems and getting the job done, and I’m not going to give it up. Shar provides a living, but more than that it’s a
way of life
, and one that keeps me perfectly happy. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing forever.”

The vast majority of men (more than four-fifths, or 81 percent) are working in the private sector, the remainder (19 percent) work in the public sector.

Steve Grossman spent four decades managing and growing the family business, Grossman Marketing Group, before leaving the private sector to become Massachusetts State Treasurer and Receiver General in 2011 when he was almost sixty-five. He follows Oliver Wendell Holmes’s advice to be a vital, engaged person who makes a useful contribution every day. He is “leaning strongly” toward a run for governor in 2014.

Profile: Steven Grossman

Steve Grossman is Massachusetts State Treasurer and Receiver General. Public service is a Grossman family heritage. In 1910 Maxwell Grossman, Steve’s grandfather, helped John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald get reelected as mayor of Boston. When Steve was a senior in high school, a conversation with his grandfather turned out to be a defining moment for Steve, for his grandfather spelled out the three most important things in life—get a good education so you can support a family, succeed in your career, and give back to the community. And Steve proceeded to do just that, getting his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University and an MBA at Harvard Business School; raising a family with his wife, Barbara; managing and growing the family business for the next four decades; then merging a new career
with
public service in his position as state treasurer. “I have always gravitated toward leadership opportunities. I was chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party in 1991 and 1992 and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 until 1999. I ran for governor in 2002 but did not win the nomination. When the state treasurer’s job opened up at the tail end of the 2007–9 recession, I decided to go for it. I was elected in 2010 with 1.2 million votes and took office in January 2011 when I was almost sixty-five.” Naturally, I asked Steve whether he aspires to higher office. He replied that he is leaning strongly toward running for governor again and intends to be in the best possible position for the race in 2014.

A commitment to public service is not the only trait that runs in the Grossman family; longevity does as well. His uncle Jerome is ninety-five and receives round-the-clock care, yet still gives monthly talks about politics. Steve’s mother, Shirley, is ninety-one, takes courses and is active socially. Steve’s father, Edgar, was his business partner for many years. “We were best pals who never had a real argument over business or other matters. He used to remind his kids that the seven most important words are ‘Thank you, I love you, I’m sorry.’ My dad was also a big believer in working throughout one’s lifetime, and he did work until just a few weeks before his death at age eighty. When it came time to etch something special on his gravestone, I recalled how he loved Baltimore’s third baseman and Hall of Famer, Brooks Robinson, who was known for advising Red Sox fans to ‘make optimism a way of life.’ The fact that we put ‘He made optimism a way of life’ on his gravestone tells you something about my dad—and, probably, about me.”

A little more than one hundred years ago, Maxwell Grossman founded the Massachusetts Envelope Company. His sons Edgar and Jerome joined him in the business. Grandson Steve came on board in 1969 and became CEO in 1975. Steve’s sisters also work for the company—Amy, who is marketing director, and Meg, who serves as treasurer. Their mother still works there, assisting Meg two days a week. In 1995 the company expanded its offerings and changed its name to MassEnvelopePlus. A fourth generation of Grossmans came aboard in the mid-2000s and the name was changed to Grossman Marketing Group to reflect further expansion with respect to products, services, and territory. It is now a full-service provider of marketing communications materials and promotional products to customers in fields as varied as biotechnology, law, financial services, major league sports, and the arts. Two of Steve’s sons took over leadership of Grossman Marketing when Steve stepped down to become state treasurer, and he no longer has an active role in the company.

When I asked Steve about his accomplishments during the two years he has been in office, I expected him to mention several, such as establishing the Small Business Banking Partnership to help grow small businesses and promote job creation; improved operations and efficiencies at Treasury to protect the public’s money, including better debt management and putting Treasury contracts out to competitive bid (thus saving taxpayers in reduced service fees and administrative costs); pension reform and benefit modernization; and increased state lottery and unclaimed property revenues. However, he singled out something else entirely as his proudest achievement: building relationships.

“A person in business or political life needs to be meticulous about nurturing, building, and maintaining relationships if he is to be well regarded in the community at large. My parents stressed the importance of treating each person as if they were of infinite worth because they are. It follows from that there is a big difference between wanting to be respected and being treated deferentially. When I meet someone I would rather be called ‘Steve’ than ‘Mr. Treasurer.’ And I consider the team I have built at Treasury as trusted and talented colleagues with whom I work on commonsense problem solving, not as people who work for me.”

A typical week’s schedule for the trim and energetic treasurer includes giving a breakfast talk at Temple Beth Am in the town of Randolph; meeting with small business owners, bankers, and industry leaders in the western Massachusetts city of Springfield to discuss economic development, Treasury issues, and the Small Business Banking Partnership; addressing the MetroSouth Chamber of Commerce in Easton; addressing the Needham Business Association’s annual dinner; attending the governor’s annual State of the Commonwealth speech; and cochairing the Financial Literacy Advisory Committee of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

A person who makes as many speeches as Steve does has a collection of apt stories and quotes for almost any occasion. He summons, for instance, a line from the 1884 Memorial Day speech by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in Keene, New Hampshire. On that occasion, Holmes asked his listeners to remember the noble sacrifices men and women made during the Civil War, owing to firm convictions regarding the justness of their cause, whether they were Union or Confederacy sympathizers. “As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived,” Holmes declaimed. For Steve, Holmes’s message serves as encouragement to be a vital, engaged person who makes a useful contribution every day.

Steve describes himself as a happy person who loves to work. When I ask about the remote prospect of retirement, he admits to worrying about one thing—finding other ways to keep his mind sharp. “And, like everyone else, I need to make a living as a result of the difficult economic circumstances we have all been experiencing.” Family life is a major source of Steve’s contentment. He is married to Dr. Barbara Wallace Grossman, a professor in the Department of Drama and Dance at Tufts University and vice chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Barbara is also active in professional associations, such as the American Society for Theatre Research. They have three sons and four grandchildren. After forty-four years of marriage, this two-career couple has what Steve calls “a symbiotic relationship.” Barbara prods him to exercise more, work less, and make more time for the grandchildren. She works as hard as he does, however. Neither spouse wants to retire and sit around waiting for the other.