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Transcript of interview with Doug Unger by Barbara Tabach, August 26, 2014

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2014-08-26

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Interview with Doug Unger by Barbara Tabach on August 26, 2014. In the interview, Unger discusses his schooling, his family's mattress business, and his endeavors in the company and the mattress industry in Las Vegas. Unger becomes involved in Holocaust education and the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center.

Doug Unger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up working summers in a mattress factory, a family business started by his maternal grandfather. After graduating from high school in Cleveland, Doug attended the University of Cincinnati until moving to Steamboat Springs, and enrolled in Denver University, though ended his college career one class away from graduation. Eventually, Unger moved back to Cleveland, then to Las Vegas. In 1976, Dough bought Supreme Mattress and moved to Las Vegas to build his new business. Outside his successful career, Doug was always an active member in the city's Jewish community. He joined Congregation Ner Tamid, where he was a trustee. He became involved with the Jewish Federation, serving as treasurer and later as president. When he moved to Reno, Doug joined Temples Sinai and Emanu-el, and also became heavily involved with Guide Dogs for the Blind Friends Committee, serving as its director for a period of time. He was also the co-chair of the Governor's Advisory Council on Education Related to the Holocaust (GAC). Doug was instrumental in establishing the Library for Holocaust Studies as a successful organization, independent of the Jewish Federation. The Library is now located in its own, donated space, run by trained staff, and receives $200,000 from the state biennially.

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jhp000074
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    Doug Unger oral history interview, 2014 August 26. OH-02153. [Transcript]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1dv1gq4q

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    AN INTERVIEW WITH DOUG UNGER An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans ii The recorded Interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada Las Vegas ii i PREFACE In 1950, in Cleveland, Ohio, Doug Unger was born into "a very mattress family." He grew up working summers in a mattress factory, a family business started by his maternal grandfather; two of his uncles would later become the presidents of Serta and Sealy. Doug would also go on to have his own successful career in the mattress industry. After graduating from high school in Cleveland, Doug attended the University of Cincinnati. However, during Christmas vacation his senior year, he fell in love with Steamboat Springs, Colorado and quit college. After spending the winter skiing, Doug enrolled in Denver University, though ended his college career one class away from graduation. This did not hold him back. Later that year, he landed a job with Sealy in Puerto Rico, where he worked before returning to Cleveland a year later. Doug achieved much success selling mattresses in Cleveland, and soon was looking for new challenges, which he ultimately found in Las Vegas. In 1976, Dough bought Supreme Mattress and moved to Las Vegas to build his new business. His break into the local market was getting the job to make mattresses for the Golden Nugget, newly acquired by Steve Wynn. From there, Doug sold to Walker Furniture, Garret's Furniture, Ethan Allen and several other hotels. After several sales and acquisitions, Doug eventually got out of the mattress industry completely. In 2002, he moved to Reno and built other business, including a retail furniture outlet. Outside his successful career, Doug was always an active member in the city's Jewish community. In addition to inclusion in the social scene, he joined Congregation Ner Tamid, where he later became a trustee. Shortly after this he became involved with the Jewish Federation, serving as treasurer and later as president. When he moved to Reno, Doug joined Temples Sinai and Emanu-el, and also became heavily involved with Guide Dogs for the Blind Friends Committee, serving as its director for a period of time. In 2004, Edythe Katz asked Doug to co-chair the Governor's Advisory Council on Education Related to the Holocaust (GAC) with her, which he does remotely until moving to back to Las Vegas a few years later. Doug was instrumental in establishing the Library for Holocaust Studies as a successful organization, independent of the Jewish Federation. The Library is now located in its own, donated space, run by trained staff, and receives $200,000 from the state biennially. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Doug Unger August 26, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface iv Chats about childhood in Cleveland; attending Jewish summer camp, religious school on Saturdays. Recalls young entrepreneurship selling candy to kids on temple bus. Talks about father and uncle going into mattress business with maternal grandfather; working various jobs at company growing up; evolution of the construction of mattresses 1-5 Discusses leaving public school; attending boarding school in Philadelphia; visiting cousin in New York. Talks about returning to public school in Cleveland; high school sweetheart; first non-mattress factory job working at architect's office. Mentions joining Jewish youth group; dating in college. Speaks about Christmas vacation trip to Colorado and quitting college to stay in Steamboat Springs; starts at Denver University in fall; quits just before graduating 6-10 Lands a job with Sealy in Puerto Rico; reassigned to factory in Cleveland; gets into sales. Mentions an office romance. Lives off commissions, looking for a change; buys a mattress factory in Las Vegas. Describes city when arrived in 1970s; Cleveland connections; running his business; getting big break with order by Steve Wynn making mattresses for Golden Nugget. Talks about local mattress industry, trends; business operations, including staffing issues...11- 17 Speaks about first invitation to Jewish Federation meeting; being surprised by adamant appeal to make substantial donation and coloring his perception of organization for next decade. Mentions parents briefly living in Las Vegas father opening restaurant. Discusses attending high holiday services at Beth Shalom; switching to Ner Tamid congregation; developing relationship with Chabad Rabbi Harlig; changes in Jewish Federation leadership and becoming involved 18-22 Talks about long-term relationships, eventually meeting and marrying Laura Rhinefield, later divorcing. Discusses new federation director; becoming president of federation; selling manufacturing business; failed attempt to buy another mattress factory in L.A. Withdraws from mattress business, letting salesman run operations; buys voicemail business. More about federation presidency; controversy while in office involving Goodman and Adelman 23-27 Discusses taking over flooring business in Reno from friend who passed away; a missed opportunity starting a Jewish wing in assisted living home while federation president; issues with federation office real estate; building new central location, including Holocaust library. While living in Reno, becomes involved with Guide Dogs for the Blind. Returns to Las Vegas 28-33 Co-chairs Holocaust Library committee with Edythe Katz; handles separation from federation, moving locations twice; deals with leadership battles within organization, eventually takes over v organization, funding operations with own money. Talks about outreach, fundraising activities; successfully negotiates increasing levels of funding from governor's office; library staffing and recruiting members to council; starting survivor lunches. Mentions personal relationships...34-45 Library staff, Myra and Sue, speak about library operations, raising funds from state government; Doug's critical role in the library's current success, especially with fundraising; admiration for leadership. Doug talks about library programming with educators 47-49 Index 50-51 v i I'm sitting with Doug Unger. This is Barbara Tabach. Today is August 26, 2014, and we are sitting in the Holocaust Resource Center on Tropicana and Eastern. Doug, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. We were just chatting. Let's start with your background, the years before you got to Nevada. Where did it all begin? I was born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 15, 1950. I have two sisters; I'm in the middle - one three years older, one three years younger. My mother had two brothers and my father had a brother and sister. They all lived in Cleveland. So I grew up with aunts and uncles and cousins. We did birthday parties together and, of course, holidays; we went to synagogue together. Was it a Jewish community or neighborhood that you grew up in? It was not necessarily a Jewish neighborhood or community. At that point really I didn't think about my Jewish identity. It wasn't really an important factor for me. An elementary school was right around the corner and I walked to that school. The junior high was up the street and I used to walk to that school too. I had a pretty normal childhood. I was really lucky; my parents sent me to summer camp in Maine. I did maybe four years of summer camps. What kind of summer camp was it? It was an all-Jewish summer camp, all Jewish boys. That was really the first time I feel like I was really in an all-Jewish environment. Even the day camps that I went to were not all Jewish. The next thing I remember after camps and going to school was religious school and going to synagogue. I remember my parents used to take me. First we were carpooled and then eventually..! was maybe eight-years-old, so I'm guessing 1958, and we lived on a street that had a train on it and the train went all the way downtown. It stopped along the way at a shopping center called Shaker Square, not far from the house. My parents found out that on Saturdays when I went 1 to religious school on Saturday mornings they didn't have to take me if I could take the bus, and so they allowed me to take the rapid transit to Shaker Square where I would transfer and take the bus to temple school. This is at the age of eight? I think I was eight. Right around there. That makes sense back then. Today people would be fearful of doing that maybe. Maybe I was nine or ten, but right in that range, I think so. That's pretty cool. I remember sitting in synagogue. I have very vivid memories. Friends of mine that I talk to today whom I grew up with in synagogue say exactly the same thing as me. We all would sit there and count the blocks on the pillars in the synagogue during services. But I do have a real recollection of my days at temple and that was when my rabbi, Rabbi Dan Silver, who was a big man, called me in the office one day. I remember I was taken out of class and down to the temple office. Sit in his office. I had never been in his office before. He pretty much was scolding me for selling candy on the temple bus, and he was kind of laughing at the same time he was scolding me. He couldn't keep a straight face; he was telling me that I had to stop; that he thought that was really admirable of me, but I had to quit selling candy. I remember telling him that I was making money doing this; that this was a terrific thing for me, and all the kids loved it. He thought, you're right; you're done; you're out of business. So you were a young entrepreneur. Isn't that something? Yes. what inspired you to do it? At the train station, at the rapid stop, was a little store, and I could buy things there. Then I would 2 get on the bus. Well, the kids that were already on the bus did not have a chance to go to the store. So I got on the bus with all the food, all the candy. And you made a profit. Definitely. That was my first business. Rabbi Dan put me out of business. Was your father in some sort of business or your mother? What did they have when you were young? The father story is probably the easiest. We'll come into my mother. My father and his brother were overseas in 1948, I think, in China when their father passed away who had started a company in Cleveland called the Unger Company. He developed a plastic bag for rye bread. Even today if you go in some delicatessens, you look at the roll and it will say the Unger Company. So my grandfather had taken in some relatives?nephews and cousins?into the business, and signed, which was I guess at the time something very fashionable to do, a stock transfer: that if I die your stock would then go to someone else in the family. Evidently my grandfather was the youngest of the brothers and nephews that went into the business and signed this form with everyone. He died first and one of the uncles took the business away from my grandmother. So when my father and uncle came back from China, the Unger Company was already in someone else's hands. They were very bitter, to the point where when I went to junior high school...of course, it was a different class than my elementary school and we sat in alphabetical order and behind me sat a kid named Jerry Unger. I remember going home and telling my mom and dad at dinner that there was a Jerry Unger in my class. My father then said to me, "Well, he's your cousin." That I had never heard about, never knew about this whole side of the family; my father never would talk about it, living right there, not a mile away from us when I grew up. I mean, he was a little bitter. 3 My mother's father took in both my father and uncle in his business, which was the mattress business. It was called the Ohio Mattress Company. Eventually they bought a Sealy franchise and it became the Sealy Mattress Company. Interesting. So summers growing up, my father put me in the mattress factory, and so that's how I learned the mattress business. I'm curious, did the brothers ever make up? Did they ever resolve their issues? Absolutely not. I was somewhat friendly with Jerry. But, no, they never made up. As a matter of fact, the Unger Company came up for sale a number of years later and I actually approached my dad and said, "Would you like to buy this company?" He went, "No." He was so bitter, still. So the mattress business, what kind of tasks did a young kid do in a mattress company? My first job was sweeping out railroad cars, and then eventually they allowed me in the factory and I was allowed to sweep out production areas. Then they put a tool in my hand. As I got older I learned every job. By the time I got out of college, I pretty much knew everything. I worked other jobs. But I worked at least four summers in the mattress factory, and most summers I did two or three jobs. So by the time I graduated high school I knew how to do almost everything in the factory. It seems like mattresses are such an important item in a household. We all want to be comfortable on a mattress. What kind of construction were mattresses at that time? Like the box springs and all of that, can you describe? Because today people think you push a button and they roll them down and they've got pillow tops. It was a pretty involved business, but it evolved. It was very labor intensive and used a lot of materials. So it was a small industry. I knew everybody in the industry. When I started, one of the 4 machines that I ran was the button machine. I don't know if you remember mattresses that had buttons in them. Buttons for tucking like, yes. That was called tufting. Tufting; that's it. It was a dangerous machine. I remember this thing, being really afraid of it. That machine was then replaced by a machine called the multi-needle quilt machine. Today these machines are like a million and a half dollars that you program on a computer and you can design anything you want in the quilt pattern on the top of a mattress. So they really evolved. They've become really efficient. Mattress factories today maybe are four or five times larger than they ever used to be. They're huge factories today, putting out thousands of pieces a day. There's not that many around the country. When I came to Las Vegas I became friends with lots of independent guys like me. So the mattress business was kind of what I was?and at that point, I think the late fifties, my grandfather bought one of the original six Sealy licensees. So I really grew up in the Sealy mattress business. That's a very famous brand. Yes, it was. At the time Simmons was so much larger than Sealy; we all thought Sealy would never be as big as Simmons. They were so much larger. But that changed, too. That's interesting. How many people were employed in the factory at one time? Back when I was younger, in the sixties, there could have been two hundred people. The factories had a lot of people. Today they could do the same production with about sixty people. Wow. At that time the family business had a lot of employees. Yes. Unions. There were both the Teamsters union and the Upholsters union. It was a big 5 business. I remember going to the factory growing up, all the time. I was definitely a factory kid. That's great. So you did this all through high school? I did. I left public school. In ninth grade I had a friend named Rodney who was my best friend. This is around 1963. Rodney and I became really good friends. He started hanging around with a different group and I distanced myself from Rodney. I really didn't have a lot of friends. I wasn't very connected in school. I had done some sports, but I didn't like the guys on the sports teams. I remember being very unhappy in junior high school. I didn't have a good group of friends. I wasn't in the right group. Rodney dies of a heroin overdose. So he gets with the wrong group. I was thirteen when he was doing heroin. It was unbelievable. Were there a lot of kids in the community? Never heard of it before, no. He was the only one that ever died that I knew at that young age. I remember discussing that with my parents and they said, "Well, what would you like to do?" They suggested?they went to a counselor and the counselor suggested a private school. I said, "Yeah, I would consider that." My parents took me around to Washington, Philadelphia and New York, maybe to four or five different schools. A school in Philadelphia caught my attention and I said, "Yes, I think I can do this." So in 1963, I went to this private school. I was maybe one of three Jewish kids at the school. There were maybe a hundred kids, very wealthy families for the most part from the east. What was the name of the school? Phelps Academy. A lot of politicians' kids, big corporations' sons and musicians. It was really a tough experience for me to start off with. I was very homesick. When I started I thought I made a really big mistake. We were stuck in study halls all the day, so I was studying all the time. I then started to get really good grades and the school had a policy that if you did have good grades you 6 could leave. So I got permission from my parents to leave campus. I used to go to Philadelphia on my own for the day and then eventually I would take weekend trips. I had a cousin that was going to NYU at the time. I used to take two trains and go to New York to visit him. I would fly home to Cleveland and visit. So that year I did a lot on my own and was allowed to do a lot on my own; I did a lot of traveling and things on my own. I was thirteen, fourteen years old. That's very impressive. That one year did it to me, and the next year I went back to high school and went to Shaker Heights High School. Then I did [grades] ten, eleven, twelve - three years of high school. I dated a girl at a Catholic school, Nancy Fleming. That was not a great period in time. I was totally infatuated with her, but, of course, my parents were not and did not like her or her family. Because of religion? Not so much. Maybe some because of her religion, but mostly her parents were not going to ever be friendly with my parents. They had nothing in common. We dated for maybe a year, year and a half. Then I went to college in Cincinnati; she went to college in Boston. We dated for a while and that didn't last but maybe six or eight months, during my freshman year. I left two things out from high school. I had one other part-time job that was fabulous. A designer that designed one of the mattress factories for us, who was way older than me, drove a Corvette, and I was infatuated by this car. what color was it? His first car was like a red Corvette or something like that. He hired me in his office. It was my first after-school job not in the mattress factory. I remember he instructed me on how to do a filing system. So I filed all his catalogs. It took me almost two years of after-school projects. It was a fabulous job and he really taught me how to get 7 organized. What was the nature of his business? He was an architect. So he designed interiors only or the whole thing? He did all buildings and interiors and homes. He even designed the interior of our house that we lived in. He really became a friend of our family and was like a big brother to me. I also joined AZA [Aleph Zadik Aleph]. What is AZA? Jewish boys group. BBG would be girls. That was really the first time I ever got involved in anything all-Jewish. Slowly I developed a nice friend network that I hadn't had before I went away to Phelps. When I came back I was starting to develop new friends and this group of Jewish guys became my new friends. I could jump ahead and tell you today we still all talk and we're still together. So this core group that I met in high school, we all still talk today. That's wonderful. Yes. So I graduated from Shaker. Like I said, I went to Cincinnati; Nancy went to Boston. Maybe not quite a year into being at school I got fixed up with a Jewish woman Eileen. Her grandmother used to call her Cookie, so I also called her Cookie. I dated Cookie for a couple of years at Cincinnati. I just was not happy with her. We were having issues and she got mad at me and transferred to Ohio State. That was my senior year of college. We had dated, then, over two years, two and a half years. A group of my buddies, we all drove out Christmas vacation to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to go skiing. I fell in love with Steamboat Springs and quit college. Before you quit talking about college, those years, when was Kent State? Were you there 8 when all of that was going on? I'm going to say that was?I had to have been working. Wasn't it '69 or '68? I think I was in college, maybe. So I was probably in Cincinnati at the time. You don't remember that affecting you? Sure, I remember it. I remember protesting on the college campus at Cincinnati. My older sister went to Wisconsin and I used to go visit her in Wisconsin. That school was maybe one of the top two or three protesting schools in the country. I remember going to big street protests with tens of thousands of kids. My sister used to fix me up with her girlfriends that were three years older than me. So I was in high school going out with college girls, which was very cool. Especially, yes, that's a tumultuous time. I remember that really well. But we had no violence at all in Cincinnati. I remember the riots in Cleveland when I was in high school. That was probably '66-67; sometime around there. I had a police radio. I used to go to robberies and burglaries and all these things that were going on and follow tanks around Cleveland. You would go? Oh, absolutely. My friends and I would go to all these things. It was an exciting time. You were inquisitive. I guess. And brave. I guess. And young. [Laughing] Truly. 9 Yes, because that was a lot of stuff going on in Ohio during that era. Yes. Besides you just growing up as a teenage boy. At the time I thought it was great because we had four seasons, which was terrific. I think I was thirteen the first time my parents took my sisters and I to California, and that was the first time I realized that the sun is up every day some places. Big contrast for sure. So then you started to say you end up in Denver? Steamboat Springs. I skied that winter. I had a great winter. I did nothing but play. I lived in a motel. I worked days cleaning rooms and the guy let me stay in the motel. I took care of myself, paid all my own bills, skied all winter long. In the fall, I went to Denver. I had an apartment in Denver. Enrolled in Denver University. I was going to finish my last semester and graduate college. About two or three weeks before graduation, the dean of the business college called me into his office and he said, "Doug, I'm going to tell you something. You're not going to like this, but you're not going to graduate." I had gotten a D in calculus at Cincinnati. I remember I was happy just to get the D. He said to me, "We have a policy here of not transferring D's and you're not going to graduate." And I remember looking at the dean, sitting across his desk saying, "Dean, I'm ready to go to work; I'm done with college; this is it. I've completed everything now. You're going to make me go to college one semester for one class? You're going to keep me from graduating?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Dean, if you do that I'm going to quit school." He said, "Go ahead." And I did. My parents were again really disappointed in me, the second time I had quit school. My dad says, "Know-it-all, what are you going to do now?" I said, "I don't know; I'm going to find 10 something to do." It was at the time that Sealy was interviewing for someone to do a small manufacturing job in Puerto Rico, one of the factories that the company had bought. My dad said, "Why don't you come interview for the job?" I really didn't want to and I went, "Okay, okay, I will." I flew back to Cleveland. I had long hair and a mustache. I was interviewed by a University of Virginia graduate that they had just hired to run the company. He knew that I was one of the owners' sons and said to me in the interview something like you hardly have a chance at this; I'm just doing this to appease your dad, and goodbye. And that was the interview. I remember going back to Colorado thinking, I'll figure something out. He calls me reluctantly and he says, "Come back for a second interview." I went back and he said, "I'm going to have to hire you because you're the most qualified person for the job." [Laughing] This is in spite of the long hair and the mustache. He sent me to Puerto Rico. I was there almost a year. Did you speak Spanish at all? I spoke no Spanish whatsoever. So it was really a challenge. Only the mechanic there spoke English and Spanish. Everything I wanted to do, I had to go get the mechanic and have him come with me and tell somebody what to do. So it took a while; it was a nine-month project. All I did was work while I was there. I stayed at the factory late at night. I was there early in the morning. I finished the job in about nine or ten months. Everybody was really happy with what I did and they said, "Okay, come back to Cleveland." They reassigned me to the factory in Cleveland. Evidently, there was a guy running the factory that was also the office manager. They were having big issues. My boss, the same guy Rod, calls me in the office. He says, "So here's how this is going to go. I'm never going to help 11 you and if you screw up, you get in trouble, I'm going to make sure I tell everybody in the company. Good luck." A real mentor. Those were my welcoming words from Rod. What did you feel like when he said that? I knew he didn't like me and I knew he didn't want to hire me, but he was kind of stuck in the position. We never had a good relationship. I was there two and a half years. The factory became second in profitability. It went way up in every area and I really got to the point where I just said I just can't do this anymore; I'm not enjoying it and I quit. My dad says to me, "All right," again, "Know-it-all, what are you going to do?" By this time, how old are you about? Are you in your twenties? Twenty-three. My dad said, "You should get in the sales department." I said, "Okay," and I did. I was living in the country. I lived on a forty-acre farm with a friend of mine, one of these kids in the AZA that had become one of my best friends. We rented this house. It was a forty-acre farm out in the country. It was fabulous. We had our own dirt track, and our own tractor and swimming pool. Not far away was the sales manager that had the Cleveland area, Carl Guckleberger, and Carl became my boss. I did that for almost two years. I called on department stores and furniture stores, and I did anything Carl wanted me to do. He taught me how to drink, business lunches. He really taught me how to deal with a customer and [provide] good customer service. What was your territory? Just Cleveland and Akron. That was all I covered. I haven't talked about girls lately. When I was there I dated the receptionist, Anna. I remember the office manager had hired her. This was the cutest woman. Months and months and 12 months went by in talking to her and then finally I started dating her. She unfortunately started to come in and tell all the girls in the office all the things we were doing. Finally I just had to break up with her. And finally I had to go to my friendly office manager and have him fire her. That was really the first time I learned a really important lesson about dating at work. That was not good, which was an important lesson. I learned it early. I lived in a carriage house. I had a boat. I lived on my boat. I became a non-working salesman. I was so good at my job I stopped calling on my customers and started calling them on the telephone. I remember one day I was on my boat and I called my dad on my marine radio and he said to me, "I can't believe you're on your boat." It's like Tuesday afternoon. "You should be working and you out on the lake boating." I went, you know what? You're right. I've got to refocus. Were you living off commissions, living on the sales? Yes. I said to my father, "I'm ready for another change again." My dad said, "Well, I know there's a mattress factory in Las Vegas for sale. Why don't you go take a look?" I came here in the middle of August. It was like a hundred and eighty, hot as could be here. I spent the whole day looking at the factory and driving around Las Vegas. I had been here as a kid four or five times. I came here first when I was like ten, eleven, twelve years old, stayed at the Desert Inn. You didn't come by yourself, did you? My parents brought my sisters and me. We had come several times. So I knew Las Vegas. But now I was an adult; I looked at it a little different and I was looking at it from a business standpoint. I liked selling mattresses to hotels. I had sold a couple of hotels mattresses in Cleveland, and it was way different than calling on furniture stores and department stores. It was 13 much quicker. I knew the sale because I was a factory guy. I knew the product. It was a quick sale, get paid commission; it was over. I loved it. Because they're buying in quantity, I'm assuming. That's right. How much does a hotel switch out? At the time not often. It was about every ten, eleven, twelve years at that time. They did not buy very good products, either. Usually, by the time designers got to the room's mattress, they had spent all the money and the owners just said buy whatever of to, put in whatever bed you can. So beds in hotels and motels, for the most part, really were bad for years and years. This is 1970. Nineteen seventy-six. What was Vegas like then? It was hot. But what did the city look like to you? What do you remember? How do you describe? I can tell you the best way to describe it is some afternoons I remember in my factory in the middle of the afternoon, when the wind would pick up, it would be so dusty and windy it would be almost dark, night outside, because there was nothing to stop the sand from blowing. It would be massive sandstorms that would turn the city dark right in the middle of the afternoon. Two-lane streets all around town and dirt. I remember driving out Charleston; you were in the middle of nowhere in ten minutes. This was like the only street that had lights that went out of town. Where did you live? I lived off Sierra Vista. It was in an apartment complex that at the time was a nice complex. But I wasn't there very much; I was always at my factory. What part of town is Sierra Vista? 14 East. It was east near Maryland Parkway. This was where the mall was just built. This was like the nicest part of town. I bought the business. I moved out here. I packed up my Dodge van and everything fit in it when I drove out here. That's all I came with. I hardly knew anybody except Billy and Jean Weinberger who were friends of my parents from Cle