CHAPTER 14: THE BIG DESK
In Johnnie Babcock’s colorful recollection: “If credit hours were
logged for the time I sat across the desk from Roy H. Park in the manner
logged as flying time for an airline pilot, I’d have a very full book. To
match it, a pilot would have to be maybe 113 years old.
“I had observed Roy at his desk as a casual employee, but reporting to
him personally changed things. My first summons in 1964 came on the
interoffice phone. My private office was around the corner from his in a
building that had been Duncan Hines foods headquarters before P&G took
over. Roy was comfortably ensconced behind the big desk that had
adorned his now-vacated Ag Research office. He was still on State Street
in Ithaca, just a few steps up the hill.
“My private office fell a little short of privileged. It was the former test
kitchen for Duncan Hines foods. My desk chair straddled a sunken drain
in the tiled floor. My veneered desk looked like it came from a minimally
furnished Cornell student rental room. When I moved my chair even an
inch, it became as unbalanced as a milking stool, one or two legs grasping
air instead of the floor. I was busy marking up a map showing home totals
delivered by a TV station in each county of its coverage. I rattled my chair
around to unseat myself and headed for Roy’s office. “As I rounded the
bend to his office door, he came striding out to meet me face on.
Apparently I had not been quick enough to answer his summons. I was
taken aback but still mellow at being back in my hometown. I went in
without comment and accepted the chair he pointed to across the polished
surface of his desk. He handed me a yellow pad and suggested in the
future that I bring one with me when we were to be together. There was no
small talk about the long trip to Ithaca with my family from Indianapolis.
His only personal inquiry was where my family was living and when I
would be buying a house. I replied that I was comfortably installed in a
rental unit in Lansing, and that I wanted to study the community before
choosing a permanent home. I had to close first on sale of my home in
Indiana. Roy offered help in locating a nice place and promised to get me
hooked up with the right people at the bank.
“Then we talked about pricing broadcast stations either by multiples of
sales or operating profit. I said both were important, but that sales growth
and totals were the better indicator of potential. We could use our own
devices to control expenses. Sales momentum was harder to build and
maintain. I returned to my office feeling that we were off on the right foot.
“I was to learn and remember that he tried to get every key employee to
commit to a home purchase, and the more expensive, the better. A man
saddled with house payments was more likely to remain a loyal employee
than someone who could relocate on short notice. If you had a big
mortgage, you tended to stick. The inventory of big homes tallied by
