A Chat With Harvey Dean, president/CEO, Pitsco

CS: Where did you find the names to mail those first 1,000?
Dean: We had a directory for a national organization of teachers in technology education, industrial arts. We also called some state education departments and got some names in the Midwest as well.

CS: So you didn’t have any experience in cataloging?
Dean: Oh no. We flew blind for years. Some people would say we still do. I’ll tell you the reason we changed the catalog when we finally did, though. I got a little flyer once that had been put together by a couple of guys in Utah. I called them on the phone. I guess it was a 16-page booklet, full-size, saddle stitched, and it was laid out well, and very graphically engaging. So I called the company that had put it together, and it was just two guys. I went out to Salt Lake City in 1978, and I asked them if they would design our catalog. And they said no. At least initially. They said they’d only do the catalog if we would paid them a sum of money to conduct a survey and profile the people to whom we were selling, the teachers.