by John B. Babcock
There remains only one person who worked one-on-one with the late Roy H. Park, and that has to be me, John B. Babcock. As I said, I was acquainted with Roy back in the early ’40s when he often sought advice from my father, H.E. “Ed” Babcock, out at our Inlet Valley farm, Sunnygables. He hired me to write copy at the State Street offices of Agricultural Advertising and Research for a few months before leaving for WWII, and I started working there again after finishing my studies in English and literature at Cornell after the war. My duties included projects for the successful agricultural campaign during Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 quest for the presidency which Park headed with help from my father, Ed Babcock. Park proved that he had learned to communicate with farmers, studied how they thought, and knew what was needed to motivate them.
When I was sent south to manage his Richmond, VA, Ag Research ad agency office, for a year or so, my specialty there was ad ideas, copy and effective communication with top management of our client, Southern States Cooperative. That co-op was so similar to GLF with which I had grown up, that I found it easy to carry out my duties. I had little to do with Park personally except on visits back to Ithaca, when he would regale me with his growing list of accomplishments. During this time, Southern States’ marketing manager, T.K Wolfe, whose son Tom was later the celebrated journalist and novelist in the white suit, gave me some lessons about writing.
I left my Richmond position with Park when I returned to Ithaca in 1949 after my dad’s first heart attack. Famous for his writing and farm economics expertise, Ed Babcock was serving on Avco Corporation’s Board at the invitation of Victor Emanuel. Emanuel in turn provided solid support during Dad’s chairmanship of the Cornell Board of Trustees. A business magnate in his own right, Emanuel took charge of the finance committee of Cornell’s board. Emanuel introduced me to the intriguing world of broadcast communications. In 1949, I left Park to take a much better pay
ing job at Avco’s Crosley Broadcasting Division. I spent fifteen years with various divisions of Avco Corporation, starting as a farm announcer at WLW radio in Cincinnati. From there, I was promoted to construct and manage the last Midwest TV station owned by Crosley, WLWI, Indianapolis.
Convinced that I was bright and capable, Emanuel opened up the corporate world for me. I was inundated with copies of Avco interdivisional office correspondence as Emanuel sought to give me what he called “exposure” to the real fabric of corporate management. He was grooming me for additional responsibilities within Avco. The early wet, chemical copy machines produced copies of documents that he mailed to me almost daily. They were brittle, brown, hard to read, and very confidential.
During this time, I dropped in to see Roy whenever I visited Ithaca, including several times over the untimely death of my father in 1950. In 1956 Roy had taken an advisory position with Procter & Gamble, which had absorbed his Duncan Hines brand. Despite spectacular success and recognition, Roy was restless and ambitious to get into newspapering and broadcasting. I boasted about the fat profit margins in television, and he vowed to be part of that emerging industry despite his admitted first love for small-town newspapers.
That brings me to my path back to Park. Roy phoned me regularly in Indianapolis to talk about broadcasting and how licensees were governed and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. He loved the potential operating profit and asked me if I would join him as operations manager to seek out and acquire a group of broadcast stations. He was persuasive, promising eventual stock participation and a retirement plan.
I took him up on his offer early in 1964, resigning a promising and remunerative career as a corporate VP in the Midwest. I happily moved my wife, Nancy, and three little daughters to my old stamping grounds, Ithaca, NY. I was an early victim of what will be pointed out later as the “Ithaca Trap,” Park’s practice of persuading new employees to buy an expensive home that would keep them tied close to the job as continuing payments came due. I cashed in my Avco retirement program equity for the down payment on my Ithaca house, confident that it would be replaced and improved on by Park’s promised but never fulfilled retirement program.
Roy, Jr., then twenty-six, had graduated from the Johnson School and was working with J. Walter Thompson in New York City and Miami when I joined his father’s company for a second time. I was forty-two and aware that I was entering those prime years of executive productivity that contribute most to a successful business career. Roy Park lured me away from vice presidency at a major broadcast corporation with the charm and wiles that made him a great salesman.
Looking back, I realized that Park’s personal courtship had been persistent and deliberate. He never remained long out of touch, and when I was available, he was a gracious host in his comfortable Cayuga Heights home. He performed at home just as he did at the office, burrowing immediately into his business affairs and exploits, the atmosphere somewhat softened by a taste or two of excellent cognac. His wife, Dorothy, was always warm and cordial but quick to leave us alone in his well-appointed home office to pursue business. I was soon to find out that my employer rarely took a vacation. When he did, his office and daily regime hit the road with him. When others in the company took vacations, he referred belittlingly to the absent staff member as “being on holiday.” I learned soon that even hard-earned vacations were so frowned upon as to discourage even trying to plan for them.
So there I was in 1964 headed for another tour of duty for the next nineteen years as Roy H. Park’s vice president for operations. I brought to the table years of experience in broadcast management and the maturity imparted by effective big business performance. I was the perfect age to assume top executive responsibilities and brought along a tolerance for hard work. I was to spend more time personally with Roy than any of his associates or family.