HUMBLE ROOTS
Irwin
Jacobs
July 1994 // interviewed
by anthony f. Giombetti
LIGHT BULBS SOLD FOR AROUnD 89 CEn TS and i was
selling them door to door. then i thought i would enlist
the help of the boy Scouts in my troop to sell more.
every year we went to scout camp and i’d give my fellow
scouts an incentive when they sold the bulbs that we
could use to defray the cost of camp. then i thought
how much better i could do if i got all the troops in town
doing this, and not just my own group. So i did that.
Paul Walser
november 2008 //
interviewed by david Gee
BACK THEn, all i used to
do was buy scrap gunny
sacks, metals and barrels
or from whatever i could
make a dollar. it’s ironic,
but we were way ahead
of the recycling age.
[HEnRy BACHMAn SR.] CAME to Minneapolis from
Germany in 1882. he was 24 years old, spoke no
english and was penniless … his mother’s brother had
already immigrated to richfield in 1869 and established
a vegetable and garden business. uncle fred gave
henry a job.
I STARTED HAnGInG OUT
around my dad’s car dealerships dusting out parts bins
and doing whatever i could.
i remember kind of thinking
to myself at the time that i
would always do this; work
in a car dealership. Somehow i just knew i would be
in this business.
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