GaryOsberg.com

Many years ago, I attended a Waite Park Chamber event hosted by MinnWest Bank. The speaker was Jill with Express Employment Professionals. Her opening statement concluded that, on average, we will each have three careers and 27 jobs in our lifetime. At first, it sounded like a bit much, but then I started counting. My three careers were drafting, office furniture/equipment sales and now nearly 27 years helping folks to “get the word” out on Minnesota Public Radio. I did have more than 20 jobs.

My first job was working at Ramlo Grocery in Upsala, (my grandparents owned the store) for fifty cents an hour. The summer between my junior and senior year in high school I worked for my step-grandfather, Francis Johnson, as a house painter in Little Falls. As I mentioned in a previous note, in 1962 I got into the drafting field thanks to my sister’s friend, Barry Larson. I worked my way up from being a draftsman on the Polaris project at Honeywell to being a manager with the very first computerized drafting service bureau in the U.S., Norwood Engineering.

We were way ahead of our time and after a rough first few months, I was laid off on the day of my daughters first birthday. The two founders had been the sales force, and they had been let go by the Board of Directors. Two guys that I had hired made up the entire production crew. They went on strike. Every day we would go to the office and negotiate for my return and then we would buy a 12 pack of beer and go to the lake for lunch. After a few weeks, the new President agreed to take me back. Since we no longer had anyone in sales, I became the sales force.

One of the two guys who went on strike for me was Eckart “Butch” Herter. Butch took me aside to tell me that my handshake sucked and that, if I was planning on being a salesman, I had better read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. He was right on. He died way too young of cancer. The other friend just retired from running a movie theater in Hutchinson.  In 1972, he and his wife were chosen as God parents for my son Erik.  I owe both Red and Butch big time.  The selling career has been very, very good to me.

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours”.  Henry David Thoreau