A Chat with Steve Singer, president, Hartford York

CS: When you came over to Harford York, what was your biggest challenge the first few years?

Singer: My biggest challenge was to figure out how to get a customer the right size hat, minimizing returns and exchanges. We accomplished that by devising a bind-in

insert — basically an order form on 70-lb stock that when unfolded was about 28 inches long and had a head-measuring device — a ruler basically — attached to it. The ruler could be detached via a perforation and used by the customer to measure his head size. It worked, but it was expensive.