"DICK GLOVER -Chairman of the Board"  Author:Charles G. McGuigan
Published: September, 1997
Dick Glover's [former] home on LydellDrive is an unassuming brick rancher that sits on a grassy knoll. There's a latemodel Chrysler Imperial and a blue Dodge Dynasty under the car port, and a redand white Dodge pickup sits parked, its chrome gleaming, in the partial shade ofa small stand of trees on the back of the property line. Dressed down today in khakislacks and a forest green short-sleeved shirt, Dick answers the front door. Hisfather-in-law, Robert E. Sadler, who has lived with the family since they movedhere nearly three decades ago, is taking small, slow steps across the livingroom floor, his hands gripping a walker. He moves toward a chair next to thecouch and, with back stiff, slowly lowers himself to the cushion, then settlesin. Dick gestures toward thewalker. "He said to me recently that his walker's become a creeper,"he says. "You know he's lived with us since 1968 and it's been great. Hewas with our kids and we always had him here. And we all learned from him.America needs to get back to having three generations living under one roof. Youlearn from those who have lived." We enter his study and Dicksits by his desk. He opens a drawer and roots through it until he finds a shortlength of wood, rounded and pointed at one end like a horn. It is of darkwood-walnut, perhaps-and smoothed and polished by continuous palming."That's a plant peg," says Dick, fisting it and holding it like adagger, then thrusting it into the imaginary earth. "If the ground was inorder, all day long you'd go along and punch holes every few inches into the topof the hill and drop in the tobacco plants." A COUNTRY BOYHOOD Dick adjusts his aviatorglasses, lowers the well-worn plant peg to the desk. He's thinking about hisfather and the tobacco farm down in Lunenburg County. He's thinking aboutworking in those fields as a boy. When the tobacco-great pagodaspires of leaves-began to mature, he would "pull" tobacco, starting atthe base of the stalk, tearing off four leaves from each plant, tucking theleaves in the crook of his armpit, moving up between the mounds, until the loadwas too large, and then carefully lowering the valued leaves onto themule-drawn tobacco slide-a long narrow sled that kept pace with the progress inthe fields. Dick bends down, and in arhythmic motion, starts pulling imaginary tobacco leaves, tucking them betweenarm and torso, showing how it was done those many years ago. "I knew how topull tobacco," he says. When the tobacco slide wasfull, it was drawn to the barn, a building ringed in a series of flues that fedback into a furnace box on the outside. All during that flue-curing process,Dick's father would stoke the furnace box with pine logs until the temperatureinside was perfect. Once the barn was filled,keeping a watchful eye on the temperature became even more critical. So Dick andhis father would sleep in cots under a lean-to built along the outside of thebarn, would sleep through the summer's night as the tobacco cured in the barn.All through the night the fires burned and Dick's father would periodicallycheck the temperature, adding more fuel when necessary, checking the leaves tomake sure they hadn't dried out and become brittle. And as soon as the leavesthroughout the barn were just so, his father doused the embers in the furnace,loaded the tobacco onto a wagon and hauled it to the pack house where it wasstored. Before he trucked it to thetobacco auction blocks of Danville, South Hill or South Boston, Armstead BoydGlover would examine each tobacco leaf carefully. "In all," says Dick,"I think he had about five or six different grades." The leaves werethen tied together and laid out in bundles, all ready for market. "You knowhe just farmed three or four acres of tobacco, but it was just enough,"Dick remembers "One year, his best ever, he got eighty seven cents a poundand he was elated." Though the Glovers never made avast amount on the crop, they supplemented their income by raising their ownvegetables along with a couple of cows and pigs, a scattering of chickens."We had our own smokehouse and we'd have to coat the meat with Skippercompound to keep the bugs away. Till this day I won't eat any of that skin youget on a smoked ham." By the time Dick was eleven,his parents sold the farm and moved to nearby Victoria, where his father went towork for the Virginian Railroad, which merged ten years later, in 1957, withNorfolk and Western. His father started as a pipefitter and eventually moved tothe yard. The railroad was the core ofthe town's economy. "There was a one million dollar payroll and only aboutfifteen hundred people lived in Victoria," Dick explains. The voice of therailroad yards, a shrill whistle, would punctuate the air each day at seven inthe morning, at noon, three in the afternoon and eleven at night, signaling thechanging shifts. "You didn't wear a watch in Victoria," says Dick."You just listened for the whistle." BROADENING HORIZONS Throughout his youth, DickGlover heard the trains, watched the engines straining with their burden of coalcars coming out of West Virginia destined for Tidewater and deepwater ports. OnOctober 29, 1953 at age 18, Dick Glover left his family home and reported toBainbridge, Maryland. He left school before his senior year to enlist in theNavy, and in his voice, still, there is a hint of regret. "I can relate toa lot of young people who have difficulty," he says. "I'd simply lostinterest in school. But after I finished with the Navy I went back and finishedhigh school. And in that one year of high school I learned more than I learnedin all previous years." During his two years in theNavy Dick Glover also learned a thing or two. He was a country boy, whoseuniverse until that point had been delineated by the boundaries of his nativecounty with occasional trips to Richmond and Danville, South Boston and otherneighboring towns and cities. That changed abruptly. Aftercompleting basic training in Maryland, he and other raw recruits took a trainout to San Diego. At Imperial Beach he attended radio school for 16 weeks."And then I went off to Guam," he says with mounting excitement in hisvoice. "It was all something to see. Each village celebrated the feast oftheir Guardian Angel! They kept their doors open twenty-four hours, forty-eight,and some seventy-two hours. They were amazing celebrations." He talks about the mosquitoesand the iguanas and the snails on the island. "Guam is a coralisland," he says. "And you could walk five hundred feet out in thewater to the edge of the reef where the surf was breaking . You had to wearrubber shoes, though. The coral would cut you." On the pistol range one dayDick had to fire 21 rounds from his .45 sidearm at a target. "It was amassive target," says Dick, then adds with a grin, "I only hit itthree times." A Marine Sergeant gave Dick a little advice. "He toldme," Dick remembers, "'If you ever encounter the enemy, don't fire,just throw the gun at them.'" When he returned to Virginia hefinished his senior year of high school. "I went to South Boston becausethey had chemistry and physics labs there," he says. "They didn't havethat in Victoria." After graduation, Dick moved to Richmond with the intentof studying pharmacy at the Medical College of Virginia. "I'd been accepted and Iwas supposed to start on September fourth," he says. Two days before he wasto begin classes, at the entrance of the building housing the School of Pharmacyhe struck up a conversation with an older man. "I didn't know who it was,he turned out to be a dean or a professor," Dick remembers. He told the manthat he had reservations about pharmacy. "Well," this man told him,"if you're not sure about pharmacy, you probably shouldn't study it,because it requires a lot of work and commitment." Dick took his advice andenrolled in a business program at Richmond Professional Institute, now VirginiaCommonwealth University. "I studied for about ayear and then I fell in love," he says. Joan Sadler worked for C &P Telephone and lodged in the home of Dick Glover's aunt on Noble Avenue inGinter Park. At the urging of his aunt, Dick visited Joan. "I met her onJuly 13, 1957; I proposed on September 22, 1957-her birthday; and we weremarried on February 1, 1958," says Dick. "We've been married fortyyears now and I've told her, 'If you ever leave me, I'm going with you.' Ithought she was the prettiest thing I had ever laid my eyes on and I still do.She has always supported me, and has been a wonderful wife and mother." PLACE AND PRESERVATION Dick invites me for a tour ofBrookland District. It is a diverse area, a mixture of commercial and lightindustry, retail and residential-from modest homes to massive estates. As we drive along the perimeterof the district, it is evident that Dick knows quite well the area and itsinhabitants. He ticks off name after name as we drive. As we pull into TallTimbers, Dick explains how the street names were derived from an Italian womannamed Contessa Attems who had owned a portion of the land that makes up thedevelopment. "Behind everyone of these names there's a history." The preservation of historicplaces is of great importance to the Brookland District Supervisor. He's proudof the deal he helped negotiate that added historic Walkerton to the county'sreal estate holdings. He laments the razing of the old Forest Lodge on MountainRoad, wishes there was something he could do to preserve the old Laurel Schoolat Hungary and Purcell roads. Dick pulls off old WashingtonHighway in front of the old Glen Allen Elementary School. There's a spray ofloose gravel and crunching under the tires as we come to a stop. Constructionworkers are hanging duct work in the main part of the building. Two carpentersset a new window in place and Dick smiles at the work. Bit by bit now, this oldschool, which had been boarded up for years, is undergoing a transformation tobecome the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen. It was Dick who convinced fellowboard of supervisors members that it would be a crowning jewel for Henrico. Whencompleted sometime next spring it will be the largest municipal cultural artscenter in the state and home to theatre, music, the visual arts and more. Dick remembers how the ideacame to him. While attending a play at Belmont Recreation Center, he noticedthat the actors, after finishing a scene and exiting, would somehow emergethrough the side door of the building in time for their next appearance onstage. There is no back door to the small Rectangular building at Belmont, soDick was perplexed. After the production concluded he asked Someone how this wasdone and was told that the players had to climb out a window backstage and runup to the side door. "I thought, why can'tHenrico County in all its splendor be able to provide adequate services for thecreative element in our community," he says. He immediately thought of theauditorium of the old Glen Allen School and in time his vision grew. "Whynot build a center that would house all the arts? We have all these wonderfulbuildings that should be preserved. Let's do it. This will give the buddingartists throughout central Virginia an opportunity to express themselves. Itwill be great for both participant and spectator." He convinced the board ofsupervisors to commit more than $8.5 million for the renovation. And since thenthe county has created a foundation for the cultural arts center that willsolicit funding from area businesses and corporations to make the facility apublic-private partnership. In the words of a salesman, Dick had closed thedeal. We backtrack and head over tothe RF&P Park tucked back behind Meadow Farm. "If you take care of kidsand seniors, you're doing what a county government should do," Dick says ashe pulls into a complex of playing fields which includes a football field andseven baseball fields-three of which are designated for girl's softball. There'sadequate parking along with rest rooms and concession stands, lighting and evenwiring for video cameras. There's an RF&P boxcar, deep blue, for equipmentstorage. And off to one side a cellular communications tower. "They neededa sixty by sixty foot piece of land," says Dick. "We gave it to themand they donated sixty seven thousand dollars to the complex. We lease the wholepark from RF&P for something like one dollar a year. It took a lot ofnegotiating. It's the kind of thing that goes on behind the scenes." IT'S THE SALESMAN IN DICKGLOVER It's the salesman in DickGlover, his ability to negotiate and look for ways that the county can provideexceptional services at reasonable costs. Which all makes sense when youconsider that Dick Glover worked, for the better part of his life, as a salesmanand an entrepreneur. Shortly after he was married,Dick understood that he enjoyed sales, the meeting with people. "In thosedays I was selling insurance and doing very menial jobs," he says, "Iwas trying to find my niche, was looking for an ideal sales job." He went to work in 1958 forStrietmann Biscuit Company in Scott's Addition as a warehouse manager's helper.He unloaded cookies off boxcars and set them up for the sales staff for $72 aweek, $69 take home pay. Bernard Powell, who was thesales supervisor between Norfolk and Richmond at Strietmann gave me my firstchance to be a salesman," says Dick with apparent fondness. "He'd takeme out in the field and show me how to rotate cookies, how to make sure youalways had real fresh cookies on the racks. He showed me the ropes." And soon, Dick was given asales area of his own. "They gave me the smallest territory in terms ofdollar value," he says and I turned it into one of the biggest areas interms of dollar value. I broke some records with Zesta Crackers. No one had everreached a thousand dozen in one month. And then I did." His territory included most ofSouth Side Richmond, out Hull Street and Midlothian and down Jeff Davis Highway,and then a good section of the Northern Neck. Miller's Tavern, Urbanna, WhiteStone, Kilmarnock, Heathsville, Reedville and then back to Tappahannock. He'dspend the night in Tappahannock, would often eat in the now defunct Ben Davis'Quick Lunch. Fresh rockfish in season. Good home cooking. "I liked to hear the waythe people talk in the Northern Neck, how they'd say, 'Deed, so, 'Deed itis," says Dick. "It was a good time in my life." He remembers selling to Ukrop'sout on Hull Street when they had only one store. "I remember Jimmy comingout of William and Mary and going to work in the family business," he says."He was one of the fairest managers I ever called on. He was careful andconsiderate of his employees. He began to develop himself into the role that hewould eventually assume. I watched as his professionalism showed through." At about that time, the Ukropsopened the store at Buford Road and Midlothian Turnpike. "It was a nice bigstore, probably the largest one in Richmond," says Dick. "Jimmy beganto give me off-shelf displays. That's a big thing in selling in retail."And, in part, because of Jimmy Ukrop's generosity in this regard, Dick was ableto sell [a lot] of crackers and cookies. It was sometime inSeptember-"soup season"-and Campbell's was offering a deal that if youbought a can of their soup and a box of crackers and sent them the labels, theywould reimburse you for the full price of the crackers. "Jimmy let me buildanother display for the crackers," says Dick, "And let me tell you, Isold crackers like you wouldn't believe." Some time later, Jimmy Ukropagain let Dick Glover build a display for cookies. It was called the TreasureChest, a cardboard display describing a pirate's chest with the lid open. It wasfilled to the brim with Fudge Stripes, Milk Chocolate Grahams, Penguins andFudge Sticks. Dick set it up on Monday morning, loading it with 35 dozen boxesof cookies. By early afternoon it was sold out. He restocked the display and bySaturday it was empty again. "It was a great day and they keptselling," says Dick. He vividly recalls a thin sliceof time, a Friday afternoon in the fall as he was finishing up his rounds alongHull Street. He had just finished up at Ukrop's and was headed to the A&Pwhen the radio announcer said that President John F. Kennedy had been shot."I pulled off the road, "he says. "It was a chilling feeling. Ican feel it right now, but I can't really describe it. It was chilling." It was about this time thatDick decided he wanted to get into the sale of non-food products. "I hadbuilt the territory up real well, but I needed a change," he says. That's when he went to work forChapstick, which had recently been bought out by A. H. Robins. "I used tocall on virtually every drug store in Virginia," he says. "Except forNorthern Virginia, I did most of the state." Chapstick decided to puttogether a national sales force. "They sent me to Atlanta where I wasdistrict manager," says Dick. "I worked with sales people coveringeight and a half states. We started hiring our own sales force and began lettinggo of the manufacturer's reps." Two years later, Dick wastransferred back to Richmond. He became manager of special accounts includingone with the Army and Air Force Exchange out of Dallas, Texas-a very lucrativecontract as it served virtually every base in the world, a lot of Chapstick. GOING OUT ON HIS OWN In 1971 he left A. H. Robinsand started his own manufacturer's repping business for the Southeast. "Istarted it from scratch: Dick says. "And no sooner had I started it than Isaid, 'Dick, what have you done?' He managed to get some manufacturers to lethim rep. He handled items like Protein Plus Shampoo-a generic. The price wasright. Unfortunately, shipping costs were prohibitively high. "I had abunch of those kinds of lines and pretty early on I realized I needed betterproduct lines," says Dick. So, with brief case in hand, hewent to the New York Variety Show that August. He walked from one display toanother and managed to pick up quite a few lines. Leather Tree Watch Bands,Ethical Rubber Goods Warren Pet Products and Blistex. "Then I picked up TetraMin Fish Food, "says Dick. "I was one of their first reps. And it wasa great product." He quickly hired sales reps to handle the new productline-in Charlotte, Richmond and Jacksonville, Florida. He gave the reps 70percent of the commission and 30 percent went to him. Things were rolling alongjust fine. And then in 1973 came a sharpspike in gasoline prices. "It really killed me," he says. Two yearslater, he sold the company. But in the interim, Dick hadbought Toppings Letter Service for $2,500 and embarked in yet a newdirection." It was repetitive typing," he says. "And though Inever got rich, I had some great experiences." In that same time frame, Dickbecame a broker for Scott Packaging and Import. That Import company had justpurchased 39,000 oil-based artificial Christmas trees. It was Dick's job to sellthem. He lifts his hand from thesteering wheel and snaps his fingers. "I sold them just like that," hesays. "And they got so excited they ordered another 24,000 trees." Heshakes his head slowly. "The problem was that they didn't arrive untilDecember fifteenth," says Dick. "No one wants firecrackers after theFourth of July." And worse still, the goods were damaged. In the cold holesof freighters steaming from China, the plastic spines of many of the trees hadsplit and cracked. "My real loss was the lossof time," Dick says. "It was devastating." He still has thejudgment he got against the importers-a judgment for more than $112,000. Dicknever saw a nickel of it. Meanwhile, the repetitivetyping business was beginning to flourish. He used part-timers to type inaddresses, essentially personalizing letters for mass marketing. Things werebuilding slowly, but steadily. And then Phil McKown, who usedto own Custom Mailers, approached Dick and asked if he could handle 32,000pieces in six weeks. "I had never done more than seven thousand in a month,"Dick admits, "But I told him yes I could but I'd need a purchaseorder so I could borrow money to buy a couple of pieces of equipment." The equipment he needed was actually dated technology at the time; autotype, pneumatic typewriters. And though the technology was almost passe', the price was right. Dick went to Chicago, learned how to use the new equipment, then returned to Richmond and began to work. But there were problems keeping the paper straight in the platens of the typewriters. They needed constant adjusting and they were driving Dick nuts. "Two weeks had alreadygone by and I had only done about three thousand letters," he says."The September 2 deadline was creeping up." Phil McKown, understandably,was getting nervous. It was, after all, his contract. Three weeks into the jobonly about 10 percent of it was completed. Finally, though, Dick got a handle onthe technology. "I began to really produce and I began to understand thesystem," he says. "I would stay in the office over on High PointAvenue twenty-four hours. And we made it. I got it done and delivered at 4 p.m.on September 2." A steady stream of smaller jobscontinued to flow into the business. Then, someone from Avon in New York calledand asked Dick if he could produce 76,000 letters in ten weeks. "I said,'Yeah', I never said no to anyone," he explains. To achieve this number, Dickwent to Bela Kurper in Silver Spring, Maryland, a man who owned the patent ofthe Edit Writer and who had upgraded the magtype systems of the day. "Hewas really knocking out some letters, "Dick says. He leased six of themachines and finished the job which lasted four months instead of ten shortweeks. Avon called again. This timethey wanted 66,000 letters in three weeks. "It was the first time Ihesitated," says Dick. "But then I said, 'I think so.'" Dick wentdown to Norfolk and purchased a much faster system. He bought two of them-eachfor $19,000 with the understanding that if they didn't cut it, the man who soldhim the machines would put his own staff to work to finish the job. From thenon, Dick Glover did 66,000 letters for Avon each quarter. This, in addition tothe 10,000 pieces he was handling every week. "I became a sizablebusiness and moved out to Highland Springs in 1978," says Dick. "Youalways had to stay out in front with the technology. The largest order I everdid was one million one hundred and seventeen thousand pieces in sevendays." In 1982, he sold the businessbut continued running it for three years. And as part of the sale agreement, histwo sons, one of his daughters and his wife worked for the company. Dick went onthe Planning Commission in 1984," he says. "And I was first electedSupervisor in 1987 and I soon realized it was a full-time job." We drive down Lakeside Avenueand Dick pulls briefly into Axselle's Auto. Bob checks under the hood, talkswith Dick, nodding his head. "I want to see this area take off, "Dicksays. "I know these people, I live with them, I go to church with them overat Hatcher and I have to look them in the eyes. The hardest thing about being asupervisor is not being able to provide all things to all people at all times.We have a lot of the money in place now for the Enhancement Plan on Lakeside.Construction's going to start in October sometime, I think. Next year I'll beable to get another lump from the board hopefully. This year it went to otherprojects in other districts." As we ride back toward Laurel,up and down the hilly terrain of Woodman Road, sunlight flickering like a strobethrough the tree limbs, Dick says, "I want Brookland to be a saferesidential community from Lakeside to the Chickahominy. I want to see aharmonious community where people can live and recreate without difficulty ofgetting where they want to get. We need to deeply examine our educationalsystem. Our government should do things that people have difficulty doing forthemselves--building roads, education, public safety. Basic needs. If the rock'stoo big, one person can't move it." He stops at the traffic lightat Parham Road, the right blinker light flashing. "I am aconservative," he says, "Not a libertarian, though I don't think weshould over-regulate. I never have a problem defending my positions because Iget people involved in making the decisions. I want their input. I representthese people and the public makes good decisions when they're aware of what'sgoing on." We pull into his drive back onLydell. He opens his door, stands there for a second, blinks his eyes, smiles,extends his hand as if he's about to close a deal. He looks down at his shoes.He toes at the gravel. "I've had enough hard knocks in my life to relate toother people and their problems," he says with the sincerity of a countryboy. -Charles G.McGuigan September, 1997 * NORTHSIDEMAGAZINE | 
