Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Frank Fusaro: What a Brooklyn Kid, the Marine Corps, and 50 Years in Staffing Teaches You About Life

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Frank Fusaro: What a Brooklyn Kid, the Marine Corps, and 50 Years in Staffing Teaches You About Life · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome. To another edition of the
0:06
Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences
0:10
so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how
0:14
they've overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotis Bodi,
0:21
and today's guest raised over $20 million in scholarships for
0:25
children in need, built a smart home for a catastrophically
0:29
wounded veteran, and received the title of commendatory from
0:34
the President of Italy. None of that was part of the
0:37
plan when he left the Marine Corps as a Sergeant and went to
0:40
work at Price Waterhouse Coopers.
0:42
As a young CPA, he took a leap that most people in his position
0:46
would never have considered. And what happened next took 50
0:50
years to fully unfold. And there were moments along the
0:53
way that would have stopped most people cold.
0:56
Meet Frank Fusaro, Co Founder and President of The Forum
0:59
Group, A veteran owned staffing firm he launched in New York
1:03
City in 1974. The firm now spans 10 practice
1:07
areas, employs over 100 recruiters, and has placed
1:11
talent across accounting, legal, IT, healthcare and beyond for
1:16
over half a century. Frank has earned 3 awards from
1:19
the New York State Society of Cpas, including the Lifetime
1:23
Achievement Award. His story is proof that the
1:26
discipline you build in one chapter of life has a way of
1:30
funding every other chapter that follows.
1:33
But before we get into that good stuff, today's episode is
1:35
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All right, back to our guest today, the president of the
2:22
Forum Group, Frank Fusaro. Thanks for making the time to
2:25
Share your story today. Well.
2:27
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Anthony.
2:30
So I want to go back real early. On the year that you were born,
2:35
your father passed away. Tell us about that.
2:39
Well, it's, it's not as as sad as you might think in the sense
2:44
that I think if you lose a parent when you're 10 years old,
2:47
12 years old, 15 years old, it's a lot worse.
2:51
My dad passed when I was about four months old.
2:54
We moved in with my grandmother in a very traditional situation
2:59
I had, it was a, a multi family building.
3:02
I had three uncles in the building.
3:03
So I never wanted for parental guidance, but if anyone shaped
3:08
my life, who was my hero, it was my mother here who raised us
3:16
basically. I have a certificate here from
3:19
Home Relief. This is dated January 11th,
3:24
1949. This is a grant to my brother
3:28
and I of $21.00 each. Actually, I got a penny more
3:31
because I was younger, but I always said I was worth more and
3:34
she got about $30 was total about $75.00 a month.
3:38
But I don't remember missing anything or wanting anything.
3:41
When I was eight or nine years old, my my mother remarried
3:45
Very. There's a doc boss on Pier 11 in
3:49
Brooklyn, you know, one of the neighborhood guys and but the
3:53
most ethical human being ever met.
3:55
So he was also a tremendous influence on my life.
3:59
And you know, I've been blessed so many times.
4:03
My only wish in life now is I get start all over.
4:07
And do it all over. Again, absolutely.
4:09
It's been, it's been a, a, a joy.
4:13
You know, it's unbelievable. I went to a Jesuit high school
4:19
in Brooklyn, four trains and a 15 minute walk through Crown
4:24
Heights. Just tough thing.
4:25
It's a, you know, tough neighborhood.
4:27
My brother was a senior when I was a freshman.
4:30
He was class valedictorian, editor of the yearbook, captain
4:34
of the baseball team and student council present here.
4:37
I come along and I graduate at the bottom of my class.
4:43
I know. And all I got for four years,
4:45
and I love my brother dearly, was you'll lose brother.
4:49
As a matter of fact, years later, I'll tell you a very
4:51
quick story. Years later, Tom Tizzy was a
4:54
good dear friend of mine. He was the vice chairman of AIG
4:57
and he worked directly for Hank Greenberg, who I was my client
5:00
and who I know him pretty well. And he asked me to join the
5:04
board of the of Saint Vincent Services, which was formerly
5:08
Saint Vincent's home for boys in my old neighborhood, Red Hook,
5:11
Brooklyn, where my mom threatened to send me every day
5:14
of my life. So we're the first board
5:17
meeting, and the chairman of the board comes up to me at the end
5:21
of the meeting after they introduced me, says Fusaro.
5:23
Fusaro Aloof Fusaro. Brooklyn Prep.
5:26
I said, yeah, that was my brother.
5:28
He said you must have been a D student.
5:29
I said I was, but how did you know?
5:31
He said, well, obviously AB and C students wind up working for
5:34
these students. So you did well.
5:37
So that was, I tell that story a lot when I get this, my speeches
5:40
around the, you know, around the country.
5:42
And that was going to be my question.
5:43
You know, I have a lot of guests on this show who were top of
5:46
their class, went to elite universities.
5:49
And I've got a number of folks who really struggled in school.
5:53
You know, it just wasn't for them.
5:54
Maybe there were some undiagnosed ADHD, which didn't
5:57
really exist in the time, was a learning disability.
6:00
It just what was your situation and why do you think that you
6:03
rose to the the level that you have?
6:06
Well, listen, the reason I did poorly in school, No, no ADD or
6:10
whatever. I, I was, I took four trains to
6:13
high school and if you're a minute late, you got detention.
6:17
And I was they, I was taking four years of Latin, French,
6:21
theology, etcetera, etcetera, and had basically very little
6:25
interest in it. And it was a great school, but
6:28
not for me. So that's what, you know, led to
6:32
the next chapter of my life. Before we get to that next
6:36
chapter, tell me a little bit more about your mother's
6:38
personality and what you were able to learn from her.
6:41
Growing up, you know, thinking back over the years, you know
6:47
she was a rock. She always had a smile on her
6:50
face. She was even tempered and even
6:52
keeled and she was just an inspiration.
6:56
And you know, whatever, when, when you lose a parent that
6:59
young, it, it doesn't affect you as much, you know, because this
7:03
is what I had. This is where I was and I always
7:07
embraced the situation. And I had, as they say, I had
7:09
three, three uncles and three families, cousins in the
7:12
building and so on. So that was my life.
7:15
And, you know, she made sure that we had everything we needed
7:20
and we wanted for nothing. We had nothing but we wanted for
7:24
nothing. So that was set the tone for my,
7:28
you know, my. You had the most important
7:32
thing. You had an abundance of family
7:33
around you, love. Guidance.
7:35
And so I had an uncle who was a butcher.
7:37
We had meat. He would drop off some meat a
7:40
couple of days a week. Otherwise it was pasta.
7:42
And you know, pasta by Joel and you know the other.
7:45
We had the fig tree in the back and my grandmother who didn't
7:49
speak English. So but Italians are funny. 2nd
7:53
generation Italians don't speak English because first generation
7:57
speaks to their parents in Italian.
7:59
But they were so hard bent to assimilate and become Americans.
8:04
They wanted their children to become American.
8:06
They want their children to speak English.
8:08
And you know, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
8:11
I can relate to many parts of your story there, Frank, but
8:14
let's go back. So you were at Price Waterhouse,
8:17
Cooper. You served in the Marine Corps
8:19
and then in 1974 you Co founded the Forum group.
8:23
Kind of quickly walk me through how those pieces fit together.
8:27
Well, it started, Yeah. I graduated to high school again
8:31
at the bottom of my class. It's at just turning 17.
8:35
And I, I joined the Marine Corps and that was a real turning
8:37
point in my life. Why?
8:41
And when I excuse me, why was that a big turning point for
8:44
you? Well, the Marine Corps has a way
8:45
of giving you confidence. And that's what I lacked.
8:48
You know, you go through school and you be at the bottom of the
8:51
class, struggling, just getting by and so on and so forth.
8:54
And you have a bright shining light ahead of you.
8:56
My brother boy, again, I love dearly.
9:00
You lack confidence. And what the Marine Corps did
9:02
more, more than anything. And I had a very ordinary
9:05
service. I joined at the beginning of
9:07
the, in 1964, 1st Combat Troops in Vietnam.
9:13
I had a very ordinary term with the Marine Corps.
9:16
I never went to Vietnam. Most of the guys I, I went to
9:20
the air when I was a crew chief in the helicopter squadron and
9:25
most of my, my, my original, you know, platoon at Parris Island,
9:31
They all went, you know, some came back, some didn't, but
9:35
nobody came back the way they, you know, So I think of them a
9:42
lot. Forgive me.
9:48
No. So that shaped my life and and
9:52
when I, when I went to St. John's and I did pretty well at
9:55
St. John's and knocked off the CPA
9:57
exam 123 went to Pricewaterhouse.
10:01
And while at Pricewaterhouse I was, I was actually hired by a
10:07
client of mine and it was a very difficult audit we were doing.
10:10
I was very, very adversarial position with the company, with
10:14
the my client because we were engaged by a, their parent
10:19
company and the president of the my, my client had sold his
10:23
company too. It was the old Seberg jukebox
10:26
people in, in Chicago. They were the price would ask
10:29
client who engaged us to work for a company Inland
10:32
Dynatronics. So it was a very adversarial
10:34
situation because his primary compensation of president in
10:38
selling the company was growing the company.
10:41
So every dollar was very, very material.
10:44
So at any rate, you know, a year after a year or so in the audit,
10:49
they, they asked me to join them and I was supposed to help the,
10:53
be the system controller, but also help the national sales
10:57
manager. Six months later the national
10:59
sales manager leaves and I become national sales manager
11:03
and, and I love the job And I, you know, we were selling car
11:07
radios and stereos and so on. And I opened up the military.
11:14
So we were selling our equipment all over the United States and
11:17
all over the world actually, because the ship store's afloat.
11:20
And so when I sold the Army and then the Navy and the Marine
11:25
Corps, we sold the Air Force. I opened up a couple other major
11:30
companies and started a, a program where we, I found a guy
11:33
that could replicate the, the, the, the, those pieces of a of
11:39
a, a radio and we could sell radios to new car dealers and
11:44
they could install them and they would, you know, be the same as
11:47
a, an original equipment thing. So that was very successful.
11:51
So I didn't make I made a lot of money.
11:54
So, but traveling 80% of the time problem with my, my wife,
11:59
my dear wife of married 53 years, Carol.
12:02
And you know, the travel was getting to me, but I could never
12:07
replicate the job because I didn't have the experience to
12:10
warrant that job. At any rate, to make a Long
12:13
story short, I I had been with Pricewaterhouse with a pier of
12:18
mine, Steve Goldstein and he and another fellow, Mark Gilbert
12:21
wanted to start a business and they called me and they asked my
12:24
advice and so on. And then eventually they asked
12:26
me to, to join them. So the three of us started the
12:29
firm and not having any experience in the staffing firm,
12:33
I said I'll take, I'll take responsibility for the public
12:36
accounting profession. And I immediately joined the New
12:39
York State Society Cpas, got very active with them, got very
12:45
active, went out and met with every client face to face.
12:51
And as it turns out, you know, luck has a lot to do with it
12:55
because there's no such thing as a self-made man.
12:59
My clients were wonderful. And after about a year, I formed
13:04
a, a group of, of human resource professionals at the, all of the
13:10
Big 8 firms in those days and two of the national firms,
13:14
Seidman and Grant Thornton. So I had 10 firms.
13:17
And I said, listen, you guys, you know, you fight for entry
13:20
level students as your employees and your companies fight for
13:25
clients, but other than that, you have all common problems.
13:28
So why don't we get together? And I put together this group
13:32
and there were eleven of us at the top guys at the in the HR
13:35
world of public accounting. And from that I've developed the
13:41
most incredible relationships with the with the firms in those
13:46
days. Turnover was a major problem
13:48
with them and I started it says, OK guys give me all your entry
13:53
level hirings male, female, graduate, undergraduate and and
13:59
got reported back to them. This is the total number and so
14:02
on. And this is your individual
14:03
number. And every year I said again,
14:05
give me your entry level class and who left from the prior
14:08
years. And after about 12-15 years, I
14:11
had to I could tell them how many people they lose to the to
14:14
the head. It was so consistent.
14:17
And the biggest problem was turnover.
14:19
So I said, OK, if this turnover's the problem, let's,
14:23
let's, let's look at that. And I, I started a, a study at
14:27
the State Society of Turnover and Public Accounting did a, a
14:32
survey, got the results of the survey and it basically what it
14:37
said was the students, the, the, the employees, the young
14:41
employees were relatively happy with a lot of the issues, but
14:46
the, the benefit issue was big with them and compensation issue
14:50
was bigger than them because any two year person could go to work
14:53
at JP Morgan Chase and get a big raise.
14:56
I said, but that's not in their best interest.
14:58
And the problem with public accounting is they take a 2223
15:02
year old person and said that the gold is, is partnership.
15:05
But who's going to make partner? You know, you know, 2 out of
15:08
100. So that's not an incentive I
15:10
said, but the real incentive should be we make manager
15:14
because public accounting has gives you great experience and
15:17
leave at the manager level. And if you believe that, that
15:20
you have to find a way to support it.
15:22
And we found a way to support it both in terms of the, the job
15:27
you got when you left it as a two year person versus the Jagab
15:31
you got when as leaving as a six or seven-year person.
15:34
And that thing became the genesis of a, a, a, a program.
15:39
I did, I was, I was invited to call it the, the, the chicken
15:44
and the, the, the hound in the, in the chicken coop.
15:48
I would go in and I would have 101st and 2nd year people at
15:52
Pricewaterhouse and Deloitte. And you know, all the firms who
15:55
I love this thing. And I would tell them, look, and
15:58
I told it to senior partners in the firm.
16:02
I said, you give me 100 kids. There are 30 on the left that
16:05
you can't keep no matter what. And there are 30 on the right
16:08
that you can't lose. I saw I talked to the 60 in the
16:11
middle or 20 on 20. I said, I talked to the ones in
16:15
the middle, the ones that are out looking for a job and
16:17
they're thinking about staying. And it was amazing.
16:20
And then they used to send me people who quit and went in and
16:24
quit and I would turn them around And they love that.
16:27
And all their partners, you know, work with us and they
16:31
would recommend us to their clients.
16:33
And that was a great start for the firm.
16:36
So I want to recap because we just covered a ton of ground
16:39
there. I know, first of all, before we
16:41
get too far, I want to thank you for your service and appreciate
16:44
you talking about some of your friends that didn't come back,
16:48
didn't come back the same way. I know you know that it it's
16:51
clear that that that they're still with you in your heart.
16:55
Also want to give credit to the Marines for building up your
16:57
confidence, right? And I think probably put you in
17:00
a good position to succeed at sales when those opportunities
17:05
eventually opened up. OK.
17:07
So you know, you were approached by some friends, they want to
17:09
start a business. You didn't have any experience
17:12
in the staffing business that they wanted to start here.
17:14
So you're like, hey, I know the public accounting side of things
17:19
and you came up with this idea of, let me go out to these
17:23
competing firms, talk to all their HR folks and form kind of
17:27
a networking support group. Is that like a good way to
17:30
describe it? OK.
17:34
And a big part of what you were able to do is to help them see,
17:38
yes, you guys compete for these resources and those resources,
17:41
but there's a lot that we can share and and learn together.
17:46
And big thing that you wanted to do was to try to reduce the
17:50
turnover that was taking place as well as support all of these
17:56
young new accountants that are coming into the field, right?
18:00
It helped them sort of find the right path forward.
18:03
And how have I done here? What did I miss?
18:06
Now that that's that's a very good summation.
18:09
The, the thing was, the funny part about it is the day after I
18:14
did this, I'd get 20 resumes from, from the audience and they
18:18
were very valuable candidates because all the firms wanted two
18:22
and three-year people out of public accounting.
18:25
And I would get in touch. I would, I would counsel them
18:28
and I'd tell them again, I think the best bet is to, you know,
18:31
stay 6-7 years experience wise and so on and so forth.
18:34
But if you can't, you can't, you know, we just can't do it
18:39
because it's very demanding. Let's see what we can do.
18:42
And that was so we had the candidates and the client, my,
18:46
my CPA firms. I said, I'm not going to charge
18:49
you for these, for these, you know, for the, for the
18:53
presentations, nor for turning a kid around.
18:56
I would turn one out of three kids that quit and had A and
19:02
accepted an offer. I would turn them around and by
19:05
explaining again, you know, this and this and this and I had
19:08
people years later, partners in the CPA firms camp Frank, your
19:12
lecture, you know it it, it changed my, my Vista, my, my, my
19:16
goal became get that six or seven years.
19:18
And by the time I did that, the work got better, the
19:21
responsibility got better. But in the meantime, I would
19:25
meet all the partners in the CPA firms and they would send their
19:28
clients to me. And when I was recommended by
19:31
the partner on the job, I was no longer just a recruiter.
19:34
I was a consultant to them and that's how we develop so many
19:38
clients. And that was a real, a real
19:41
benefit. But the, the, the bottom line is
19:43
you never know where you're going because I didn't know what
19:46
the hell I was doing when I did this.
19:49
OK, I just said this wasn't. Like a well thought out
19:52
strategy? I'm absolutely.
19:53
Not why? It's not necessarily that I I
19:55
think I have good forward thinking, but I didn't know what
19:59
I was doing. OK, and but you throw yourself
20:03
in and I said I knew if we're going to who needed us, we're
20:07
brand new staffing firm, you know when and these clients were
20:11
dealing with all that other firms and so on, the Robert
20:14
Halfs of the world and so on and so forth.
20:17
So I said the only way that I got to meet these people and I
20:19
got to tell, but they said they saw a young kid who was ACPA
20:23
and, and we produced, you know, listen, we worked 10/11/12 hours
20:29
a day, every day of the week in those first two or three years.
20:33
I wonder what listeners could take away from your experience
20:38
in this model, right? A lot of business development
20:41
folks, a lot of folks in sales. What what do you think is sort
20:45
of the repeatable part of this strategy?
20:48
I think people do business with people they like, OK, They all
20:52
have choices. If you're on the insurance
20:54
business, 1000 insurance agencies out there, you know,
20:57
but if you get in front of them and you like them and you could
21:01
bring value to what they're doing.
21:02
Not only in, in the, my case, it was not only, you know, the CPA
21:06
firms, you know, placing people with them and giving them value
21:09
that way because they needed people desperately, but also
21:13
have helping them to retain their staff.
21:16
And in doing so, I got a boatload of candidates.
21:21
Yeah. And I, and I told them, I said
21:23
that's the reason. I said if I, if I travel for you
21:25
or you, I'll charge you. When I traveled all over the
21:27
United States, I had to curtail that because it was taking me
21:29
out of the office too much. But it was a great message for
21:33
them. So I, you know, we got very
21:34
lucky with that. So the bottom line was you got
21:38
to try. You got to go out there.
21:40
You got to knock on doors. You have to be perceived.
21:42
You're going to sell. You got to be persistent.
21:45
And you have to reflect on what value you could give your client
21:49
and what makes you different. I was ACPA, most of my
21:53
competitors weren't Cpas. OK.
21:56
And then once I started doing the lecture series at every we
22:01
have state society conferences and I joined the board.
22:05
They asked me to join the what? At one point they asked to be
22:07
president. I said, well, I can't be, I
22:09
didn't even practice accounting anymore.
22:10
I can't be president of a, a 40,000 person, you know,
22:16
society, but and, and again, joining these organizations, OK,
22:23
nobody does anything in these organizations.
22:25
So all you have to do is stick your hand up and say, I'll do
22:28
and you become a star. So that's another thing I, I
22:32
advise young people, whatever their business businesses, stop
22:36
going home and watching Netflix. OK, find a find a charity, find
22:40
a nonprofit organization where you can, where you see that,
22:45
that, that, that, that, that these are potential clients.
22:48
These are people I want to get to know.
22:50
The most important clients I ever had I found from the
22:54
charitable work I did, whether it was Catholic Charities,
22:56
Brooklyn, Queens, or the Columbus Foundation or the
23:00
Thalassemia Coolisanemia Foundation.
23:03
That's where I met my most critical clients.
23:07
Let's talk a little bit about the philanthropic work that
23:09
you've done. We mentioned in the intro you've
23:12
raised over $20 million through the Columbus Citizens Foundation
23:16
Adopt A Scholar program. How did it's a staggering
23:19
number? How did that initiative start?
23:22
Well, again, it starts on a shoe spring.
23:24
OK, I was, I was on the board of the the Columbus Foundation.
23:27
We had about 400 insane Italian American people, very proud of
23:32
their heritage, very family oriented.
23:35
And as I joined, I, I noticed every year or two they'd send
23:39
out a letter about scholarship giving and so on.
23:41
And so, and, and they, you know, somebody sent a check for 205
23:45
hundred and they collect a few $1000 and parcel a, you know, a
23:51
scholarship effort, you know, and give 3 or 4 scholarships.
23:54
OK, I said this is, you know, so I'm thinking about this and I
23:58
say you need a program. OK, you need something that you
24:01
can sit in front of a person as I did with ACPA firms.
24:06
So I started this, I envisioned this adopt A scholar program
24:09
where we could, where we'd ask a person to donate either a four
24:15
year scholarship or a perpetual scholarship.
24:18
A four year scholarship was $25,000 that they could pay over
24:23
4 years, but we'd rather have the money up front.
24:25
And a perpetual scholarship was $100,000.
24:28
And again, I didn't know if this would work, but I went to the
24:31
president at the time and I said, you know, I want to do
24:34
this we two or three times to convince him.
24:37
And all I needed was to do a, a brochure.
24:40
So I did a brochure and I went back to the board.
24:43
I was on the board of that time. I think it was treasurer of the
24:45
foundation. And I asked them for their input
24:48
on my, they on my things. And they said I had a young
24:51
woman in a, you know, dressed in a cap and gown on the front.
24:54
And the only comment I've got, so she doesn't look Italian.
24:57
So I'll put a mustache on it. She'll look Italian.
25:01
At any rate, The first day I do this, I go to Mario Gabelli and
25:07
Mario says I'm I'm a big supporter of Ford and Prep.
25:10
I said the high schools are important and he and he says
25:13
I'll do $300,000. Then I call up Larry Oriana, who
25:17
I didn't know. I knew Mario.
25:19
He's these are both members. And Larry said, what did Mario
25:23
do? We went to college together.
25:25
I said Mario did 300 and he says, OK, I can hear him.
25:30
I can hear with the, you know, the wheels turn out OK, we'll do
25:33
300. He's I'll do 300.
25:34
That's 600. Mario calls me up later in the
25:37
day and I hardly knew him because I was still a kid.
25:39
You know, he said I want to do 20 scholarships at the at
25:43
Fordham Prep, but that, that, that I said, Matt, that's
25:45
$400,000, OK, we'll do 400. So I said, well, screw it.
25:50
I call Larry up and Larry, I, I'm sorry to do this to you, but
25:54
you asked me and he did 400, he did 400 and I put in 100.
25:59
We had $900,000 on day one. And then I would go with my
26:03
little brochure. We sent a brochure to 400
26:05
members. And every time I saw a member, I
26:08
would, you know, I'd say, hey, well, you know what, we, we got
26:10
the see, you could, you could name the scholarship in the name
26:14
of a loved 1. The Italians are very big in
26:16
that, you know, honoring their parents and grandparents.
26:18
You could pick the school, you could pick the major.
26:21
You just can't pick the student 'cause I know they'd be sending
26:23
their nephews. So, you know, so we had a
26:25
separate committee to, to do the vetting for the students.
26:28
And so I publicize that and it just took off.
26:31
I put a big plaque up in the in the in the foundation right off
26:37
the bar with the names, OK, you're both in the annual and
26:41
the perpetual. And I would tell the 100,000 a
26:44
lot of money, I said, but you're going to, you're in the 50% tax
26:46
brack. It's going to force you $50,000
26:49
and then you're going to give me appreciated stock.
26:51
OK, so the capital gains, you know, that stock might be worth,
26:57
you know, $1000, but if you sell it, you got to pick up to
27:00
$300.00 of capital. Wait.
27:01
Sorry, sorry. Frank, explain what you're
27:03
talking about with the the appreciated stock.
27:05
OK. If you have a if you have a
27:07
shares of stock that you purchased for $500 and now
27:10
they're worth $1000 if you sell it, you have to pick up $500 in
27:16
capital gains. Yeah, your basis, right.
27:18
Your basis is OK. And then the $100, the 100 is
27:22
20%. So that's only worth $900 to you
27:27
to you. But if you give it away it's
27:29
$1000, you get $1000 deduction. So if you, if you, if you have a
27:33
stock that's worth 50,000 that we bought at 50,000, now it's
27:36
100,000 because you guys were, were fairly well off and it's,
27:41
you know, it's, it's serious money.
27:42
So that you give appreciated securities.
27:45
I've used that. So it, it took the bite out of
27:47
it. And once I start to put the
27:49
bulletins, you know, put their name on a, on a plaque, then it,
27:53
it just rolled from there. And I got it up to 10/12, 10:10
27:58
to twelve, $12 million. And we brought in a terrific
28:02
fella, a lifelong friend of mine, Dave Yo Marini as
28:05
executive director. And he, his background was, was
28:08
sales and was not sales. It was giving philanthropy.
28:12
And he was with us about 10 years and did about a million a
28:16
year. So it was by the time we got
28:18
done, I was kind of in the $22 million bracket.
28:21
And the other thing I did was we had Grand Marsh, the Columbus
28:24
Day Parade. I ran the Columbus Day Parade
28:25
for 10 years in New York. I didn't know what the hell I
28:28
was doing. But you know, we, we, we got, we
28:31
got Emmy Awards every year. We ran it.
28:33
I ran it. Emmy nominations never won
28:36
because Macy's Thanksgiving. I didn't realize they gave out
28:41
Emmys for parades. No, they gave out.
28:43
Yeah, no, it, it's local stuff, you know, OK, got it.
28:46
And, you know, but the, the, the Macy's would win every year.
28:51
I mean, they had a probably a 20 million, $30 million budget.
28:55
I, I, I never dime. I had a 75 year old woman
28:59
helping me, one of the employees.
29:02
But we did some, I went to the Broadway theaters.
29:05
We had Columbus Day is always on a Monday, which is dark day.
29:09
And I, I got 3 or 4 Broadway shows every year, OK, to come in
29:15
and do a number during the parade because the parade was,
29:19
it was floats in high school bands and so on and so forth.
29:23
One of the things that the other thing I did was it was
29:26
important. I'll just take a second is
29:27
you're going to have to edit this down.
29:29
I apologize, but let it. Roll.
29:33
OK, but I we had always, we had Frank Sinatra's Grand Marshall,
29:39
Sophia Loren, you know, just that every year.
29:43
But all we got from them was a, a bill from the Waldorf.
29:47
OK, I said, this is nuts. So the first person I went to
29:52
was Ken Langone. And I said, Ken, I want you to
29:56
be, you know, first of all, I want you to be a member and I
29:59
want you to, you know, be Grand Marshall.
30:01
The parade. He was very, very proud of his
30:05
attacking here. He's absolutely frank.
30:07
He said, what do you want? It's $1,000,000.
30:09
He said, OK, well that's pretty, pretty good start.
30:13
And then we always had honorees and I always had been a past
30:16
honoree, but never asked the honoree reason why.
30:17
I said, OK, if you want to be Grand Marshall, that's 1,000,000
30:20
bucks. And if you want to be at
30:23
honoree, it's you got to raise, give or get.
30:25
You can raise it, raise it, whatever you rate, whether you
30:27
raise it, whether you write a check that was 250,000.
30:31
And for eleven years in a row, 12 years in a row, I had Mario
30:35
Gabelli, Bob, Bob Lepenter, both very senior guys, very
30:42
philanthropic. And we raised in some years, I
30:46
had one honoree that raised $800,000 on top of, you know, so
30:50
between a million and a million. So we started the weekend,
30:53
Columbus weekend with a million and a half to $2,000,000.
30:58
Where do those funds go then? I'll excuse me.
31:00
Where do those funds go that you raised?
31:02
That went to the scholarship program.
31:04
Got it. OK, so when?
31:05
I was president. We we got up to 600 kids in the
31:08
scholarship program 600. Now tell us about the Tunnel to
31:13
Towers board. This is another area where you
31:15
raised a lot of money for A cause near and dear to your
31:19
heart. Well, the, what was happening is
31:22
the, we're coming up on our 50th anniversary and I told my son
31:28
Chris, who's then was transferred.
31:30
I was becoming CEO of the company and I was phasing out,
31:34
you know, after 50 some odd years and fortunately he's
31:39
better than me. So it worked out very well.
31:42
OK, so I had no problem for a couple years.
31:45
I, I bring him in every decision that was made he was involved in
31:49
and the last two years before I retired.
31:52
If we disagree, which was rare his you know, his way one, I was
31:57
because you're going to run the company and I told him, you
32:00
know, you're going to they're going to see you don't think
32:02
you're the Prince because you have to win over your employees
32:06
and you have to show them that you've, you know, got what it
32:08
takes. And I'll tell you, he's in the
32:10
office every day And and now there's the only people in our
32:14
office today are are administrative people.
32:16
Everybody's all of the United States working from home.
32:20
All your recruiters, all your sales people.
32:21
All the recruiters and they're salespeople, so you can't force
32:25
them to come in because they can go someplace else.
32:28
Everybody wants them. They all get, you know, try to
32:30
get recruited by other firms. So at any rate, I said, I said
32:37
to Chris, you know something, you know, I don't want to have a
32:41
black tie or a big party or something like I want to do
32:43
good, OK, and do good. And turns out that Sal Cassano,
32:49
who was the deputy chief of the New York Fire Department on
32:54
9/11, OK, got pretty banged up. But, you know, he went down to
33:02
the towers with with five others.
33:04
Chief Gansey was his boss. And all 5 perished.
33:11
Here we go. Sal set up a fire at Gansey's
33:17
command. He set up a command post outside
33:19
trying to direct everything, which is chaos.
33:22
And when the South tower came down, he got hit.
33:25
He wound up in in the hospital getting last rites from the
33:29
cardinal. And he said he got up, dressed
33:34
me, went back to the towers and didn't get home till the night
33:39
of September 12th. He had three broken ribs and
33:45
they refused to leave. We were, we were kids together
33:48
in the old neighborhood. So he was a one of the founders
33:51
with Frank Siller, an amazing individual.
33:54
And you know, I thought about that and I thought about, you
33:57
know, that those guys back in Vietnam and you know, sometimes
34:01
I felt like, you know, why didn't I go kind of thing.
34:05
So I met with Frank and I said with Chris and I said we want to
34:09
do something. I want to raise some money.
34:12
I said maybe I could raise $300,000 / 2 three years.
34:16
He said fine, you know, go out and do it.
34:19
And I started made a list of all my guys at, at that I play golf
34:23
with all the people at the Columbus Club and, you know, and
34:26
everybody else I knew and started calling them one after
34:29
the other. I also called one of my
34:34
contacts, a terrific guy at American Express.
34:37
And at the end of the day over this, we've done this for the
34:40
third year. We just hit the $5.4 million
34:44
mark on that. Wow.
34:47
Yeah, I got American Express, put a couple of million in and.
34:51
How'd you get Amex to pony up so much cash?
34:54
A dear friend of mine's Aceo and but that that you know, he's not
34:59
the type of guy that would, you know, that would do that if it
35:02
wasn't worthwhile. He bucked it to his to their
35:06
philanthropic committee. But Tunnel to Towers makes such
35:10
a compelling argument. And where does the money go?
35:13
I explained that part to us, Frank.
35:15
Well. They have it started with Frank
35:20
Little nothing in Staten Island. OK, it's 911.
35:24
Frank's brother was died in in, in in the towers.
35:27
So they this family got together.
35:30
This guy was, he, he heard about it was on his way to play golf
35:33
that morning and he heard about it.
35:37
He went back to his Firehouse. They had all responded at that
35:40
point. He took 60 lbs of equipment and
35:43
drove back and got to the, to the, the battery tunnel, which
35:47
the the Manhattan side is about maybe half a mile from the
35:51
towers and it was closed. He strapped his equipment on,
35:57
ran through the towers into the into the north tower I believe
36:01
and never came out. So is they so the family.
36:07
So they started this little nothing and they got to Mayor
36:12
Giuliani said we want to do something symbolic.
36:15
And they started a run through the battery tunnel and they
36:18
actually today, every year in September, they closed the
36:23
battery tunnel on a Sunday. And last year they had 40,000
36:27
runners. Wow, it's chaos.
36:33
It's complete. All of lower Manhattan clothes.
36:36
Imagine this. When you come out of the tunnel,
36:39
there's 300 and I think 325 firefighters with pictures of
36:44
everyone that died. Eddie feeds every one of them.
36:50
When you come out of this tunnel, when you finish the
36:52
race, OK, it's a race or a walk, whatever it is.
36:55
He's got food trucks and food stands set up and a concert.
36:59
It's just, it's it's amazing. So in the toward the beginning,
37:04
Hurricane Sandy came. He helped some people from
37:06
Staten Island. He went to there was a Staten
37:10
Island. The first double amputee, the
37:12
quadruple amputee that survived the war was in Walter Reed.
37:18
He went to Visa Staten Island. Guy went to visit.
37:20
Guy had no arms, no legs and and Frank looked at me, he says.
37:24
He says where do you live? He's have an apartment.
37:26
We're going to build your home. So he was the first one.
37:31
And it's a smart home. So there's a, there's a small
37:33
technology in there that. Everything you got, it's just
37:36
unbelievable. Well, to Fast forward, they've
37:40
done what started with catastrophic injured veterans.
37:44
OK. And from there, he he he looked,
37:48
there were two New York City patrolmen that was sitting in a
37:51
car that got murdered, you know, by a radical.
37:56
And, you know, he went to them and he said, OK, we got to help
37:59
you. We're going to we're going to
38:00
give you a home that not a smart home, you know, to the to
38:03
spouses, but a home and then another one and then another
38:08
one. And either he would pay off the
38:10
mortgage if they had a home or build them a home.
38:14
Well, they've gotten over 2000 of these either homes or paid
38:19
off the mortgage. And he's made a pledge to pay
38:22
off the mortgage or build a house for every first responder
38:27
that dies in a line of duty, whether cop, firefighter, EMS,
38:32
plus the catastrophic injured veterans they're called.
38:37
Those are the Gold Star people. In all of New York City.
38:40
In all of the United States, they've done over 2000 of these
38:45
and thankfully, you know, you, there haven't been too many
38:49
catastrophic injured, you know, veterans.
38:52
OK, so he's got these programs running and he, he said, you
38:56
know, veteran homelessness is a, a play.
38:58
There are they, they estimated over 50,000 vets on the streets.
39:04
And I walked past them and, you know, I was walking river to
39:07
river and side to side Manhattan.
39:09
They became invisible. People would see them, you know,
39:12
they'd be there in the winter time would piled with, you know,
39:17
with blankets or whatever. They'd have a shopping cart with
39:20
their worldly possessions next to them.
39:22
And nobody gave them a second look.
39:24
It was like they they, they've melded into the, the woodwork.
39:28
He said, this can't be. He said, we're going to take
39:31
them off the off the streets. And as of this year, he's taken
39:36
17,500 vets off the streets and 8500 children that were living
39:44
on the streets with those vets. Oh my God.
39:47
He's built someone years ago gave him a big piece of property
39:52
in in the Orlando Tampa area. He built a do good village.
39:56
I, I don't know if you've ever seen the ads, but he built a do
40:00
good village. It'll be 100 homes.
40:02
He's got about 40 homes built and at 30 just opened a 30,000
40:06
square foot a reception center. And swimming pools, basketball
40:14
courts, you know, reading rooms and so on.
40:16
However he's taken off the street, he's got, he's got a, a,
40:20
a, a social worker that, an employee that's, that's in touch
40:24
with that break. He just can't take him off the
40:26
street and put him into a home, you know, because they, they
40:30
need psychiatric help. They need he goes to the VA on
40:34
their behalf and gets the VA to contribute and so on.
40:39
So. Frank, how do we find out more
40:42
information people want to participate want to learn more
40:45
want to. Donate T to t.org T to t.org
40:54
Tunnel to Towers foundation. So he started this $11.00 a
40:57
month. He's got about 80,000 people
41:00
paying at least 11. Some thug pay 20, some 25.
41:04
This year Tunnel to Towers will do 500.
41:07
They lift 2025 the gross revenues in $500 million and 93%
41:14
of the money that they raise goes directly to the programs.
41:18
Now you got the the veteran homeless program, the
41:21
catastrophic injured first responders.
41:25
OK, so this is the 25th anniversary of 911 and the 25th
41:31
anniversary naturally the foundation.
41:33
So he, he, he brought 5300 of the families of either
41:41
catastrophic injured veterans or this is just the last week and
41:45
we went up to Orlando, flew them into Orlando, took over
41:51
Universal Studios at the theme park for a day.
41:55
OK. It was open to the public up
41:57
until 7:00 PM. And then from 7 to 10, it was
41:59
exclusively for Tunnel to Towers of all the children.
42:02
I never saw so many wounded veterans.
42:04
It was just unbelievable. He has a a concert the next day
42:09
at a big picnic area, feed feeds our 5300 people and then he
42:14
announces every child who goes to college, he will do a four
42:22
full four year scholarship for every one of these kids.
42:26
Now I'm with and take this guy's name.
42:28
I'm with Ivan Castro. Castro, he's the guy.
42:32
He was the first one that we built the smart home for.
42:38
Now we have two others. I have a, a, a, a veteran in New
42:42
Mexico that's got six kids and I'm waiting for another one.
42:46
So we'll do three homes and we'll do three that that's about
42:53
two and a half million. And the other 3,000,000 right
42:55
now going to veteran homeless. He's building, he's got these,
42:58
he's got two large hotels that he's completely gutted and
43:04
refurbished. It's just amazing.
43:07
They're they're gorgeous and the smart homes are gorgeous.
43:10
You got to see. And Frank, all the funding comes
43:13
from people donating money. Absolutely.
43:16
He's on. He's, he's on.
43:19
They do, you know, what do you call it?
43:21
They do ads all over the place. Anyway, Ivan Castro, he's the
43:25
first one they gave me. He was a sought as a private in
43:29
the army, made first Sergeant, went to office at Canada School,
43:32
got his degree. He's on a rooftop in in Yousefa
43:37
in Afghanistan and he's on a rooftop, which he's a captain at
43:43
this point. He shouldn't be on a rooftop,
43:44
but he's he was a sniper. He was Green Beret.
43:47
This guy was all everything. He gets hit with a mortar shell,
43:52
two of his men die. He's next to death.
43:56
He wakes up in the hospital like 20 days later.
43:59
He's in a coma and he's got strapped on his body from head
44:03
to toe, broken ribs. It's just it's amazing.
44:07
You could see on my Facebook page an interview between he and
44:12
I and they, he's totally blind. OK, We'll never see again.
44:18
One of his, one of his eyes got blown out.
44:20
The other that the ocular nerve, whatever was cut off.
44:23
So they tell him he'll never see again, so that the Army comes
44:27
and says, OK, you know, you're fully disabled, going to be a
44:29
disabled, you know, veteran. He said, no.
44:33
He said, I, I, I want to continue to serve.
44:36
If you can't. We don't have blind officers in
44:39
the, in the Army. But since he was special forces
44:43
and so on and so forth, it bucked it that he bucked his
44:46
request up to an Admiral who runs all the special OPS for the
44:50
Marine Corps and the Army, Navy and so on and so forth.
44:54
And this guy came to the hospital and said, you're not
44:58
going to, we're not going to discharge you.
45:00
You want to serve, We'll serve. He served 14 years as the only
45:05
blind officer in the Army, made major and retired.
45:10
While he's in the hospital and he's fighting them to stay in
45:13
the Army, he hears about the Marine Corps Foundation
45:18
Marathon. He runs the marathon blind.
45:23
He's since run about 80 marathons, couple of double
45:26
marathons. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
45:32
He trekked across from Canada from Mexico to from Canada to
45:37
Mexico on the Pacific Coast Trail blind.
45:41
He ran with the bulls in Pamplona.
45:44
He went to the South Pole with Prince Harry in the Invicta
45:47
Games. He's spoken all and he read.
45:50
I don't have the book here I should have brought in.
45:52
He wrote a book, Fighting Blind. Amazing book, Ivan.
45:56
Castro. And I told him that you gave and
45:59
you know, you, you once you get attached to these, so you can't,
46:01
you can't separate yourself from them.
46:04
So between so we're doing this and I'm getting, I'm getting
46:08
$500, a thousand dollars, $5000 from friends and so on.
46:12
And American Express stepped up into two million.
46:15
And this past year I got the two people, one wannabe anonymous
46:20
gave me $1,000,000 out of nowhere.
46:23
OK, that person is, is will have the person in New Mexico and the
46:28
other person. And by the way, I sat down with
46:31
him, he's an Italian. And we had to say I went to
46:36
Bayonne, NJ to meet his mother and the family.
46:39
And I had a box of cookies with me and I, he said I'm going to
46:43
do $1,000,000. And he said, but I also wanted
46:46
something for education. That's Columbus.
46:48
So we got $200,000 from for the Columbus club.
46:51
I just don't believe I went to meet him for the first time
46:53
because I didn't, I didn't really know him.
46:56
And he gives me an address. I mean, I'm in front of the
46:59
Bayonne Country Club, OK with beautiful golf course, private
47:02
Country Club. And I call myself, I'm in front
47:05
of this Country Club. But he wants to give me the
47:06
wrong address in the, in the, in the book was the wrong address.
47:09
He's no, he says we built that. We own that.
47:12
He says, I'll come get you. I'm 5 minutes away.
47:14
He says they so the guy amazing, amazing.
47:18
What I'm taking away from this is that in spite of all the
47:22
nonsense and the noise and the mess that goes on in the world,
47:25
there are a lot of good people doing really good work, and I
47:31
count you among them. So thank you for all of that.
47:35
This country is the most philanthropic country.
47:38
We have Navy ships, hospital ships all over the third world
47:43
countries. People don't understand that.
47:46
People don't see that the Americans are the most
47:50
philanthropic people on the face of the earth, and all you got to
47:54
do is ask. I love it.
47:57
I want to give some time to talk more about the forum group
48:00
today. Can you tell me who do you guys
48:03
work with? What problems are you solving
48:05
for them? What makes a client a good fit
48:07
for you guys? Well, listen, yeah, it starts
48:10
with hiring good people and keeping them.
48:15
Our most senior employees has been will be 47 years.
48:19
We have probably 6 or 7. Eight people have been will be
48:22
2025, thirty years, OK, a bunch of new people.
48:25
And this is a business with a lot of turnover.
48:27
A lot of people think they can sell.
48:29
They come in and they can't sell and they they wind up leaving
48:32
and so on and so forth. So you have to have a you have
48:35
to be a good leader. And what the Marine Corps taught
48:38
me is you never ask a person to do something that you wouldn't
48:40
do or you haven't done. And you have to be the first
48:43
one, the office and the last one out.
48:46
And you have to take care of them.
48:47
If people, if you treat people well, they'll stay.
48:50
OK. Now a couple leave to maybe two
48:54
or three left to start their own firm.
48:56
We understand that. OK, a lot went to I mean, you
49:00
you look at a a rabbit half they go through people like, you
49:04
know, unbelievable, but. What does it look like for you
49:08
to take care of your people? What are you guys doing
49:10
differently that other staffing firms miss?
49:13
Well, when I, I can't say we're over, we're paying them fairly.
49:16
Number one, we're giving them decent working conditions.
49:19
Well, now that most are working from home, but they know they
49:23
have an anchor with us, OK. We never, I never took a dollar
49:29
out of the, the business that I didn't need to live, OK.
49:32
We have in addition to the permits there between
49:36
temporaries and and payroll ease where we companies come to us
49:41
to, to payroll that temporary employees that they bring on
49:44
themselves. We probably have another 400
49:47
people out there that have to be paid every week.
49:50
OK, So you're also supporting them, OK.
49:56
In other words, when I was getting the the job orders from
49:58
my my public accounting firms and their clients, I would dole
50:03
them out to my people. OK.
50:06
And you know, OK, here's a controller ship, but this
50:08
company is a, you know, a tax manager at that company is this.
50:13
And they appreciated that. So at the end of the year, if
50:15
they produced X number of dollars, I could show them that.
50:19
Well, three or four of those placements came directly from
50:21
your association with foreign the reputation that we have, OK,
50:25
the way we treat people. And I insisted we had a
50:30
guarantee on a person and if it went over the guarantee period,
50:34
OK, reasonably it wasn't. A year later, I write a check
50:39
and it was within the guarantee period.
50:40
You write a check, you you kind of make, you know, try to make
50:45
lemonade, as they say, out of the lemons.
50:46
Person didn't work out. What can I do for you in public
50:49
accounting? I would go bend over backwards
50:53
for them in that, in that regard.
50:54
And it always came back to me, just like the public service
50:57
always comes back to you. You know that.
51:01
I met a dear friend and he's since passed.
51:05
John Farrell was the the head of the human resource head for all
51:10
of JP Morgan Chase. He was on the executive
51:13
committee. He's one of the top five people
51:15
in in JP Morgan Chase. We became dear friends.
51:19
We have Catholic Charities. I sat next to him.
51:22
We became friends and so on. I had the run of JP Morgan Chase
51:26
for 10-15 years, OK? He would always say take care of
51:30
my boys, OK? Meaning me and a couple other
51:33
vendors that he had. And we had a producer and we did
51:35
producer Jamie Dimon came in and he wiped everybody out.
51:39
Start all over again, You know, So it's been a, it's been a
51:44
terrific run. And I, I sometimes I pinch
51:47
myself as I, I can't believe I've been this fortunate, this
51:50
lucky in life. It's just amazing, but you got
51:55
to attack things. You got to try and we failed at
51:58
a lot of things. OK, And the other thing is that
52:01
some people think that, you know, wow, look at me.
52:04
I I'm I'm worth X number of dollars.
52:06
I got a business. Hey pal, you better thank God
52:10
because you were lucky, OK, I worked hard, but I was
52:14
fortunate. I was the right place, the right
52:16
time, OK, I had two partners. One got a divorce and he just
52:22
lost it. And the other, Steve Goldstein,
52:26
good friend of mine, was still good friends.
52:28
He lost a son in a boating accident and he wanted to
52:31
retire. That was 20 years ago.
52:33
And he had enough, you know, accumulated to retire.
52:36
He's been hitting golf balls in Delray, Florida, for the last 20
52:40
years. And, you know, and it, but it
52:43
was never the money. It was always it, it was the, in
52:46
my case, it wasn't the quest for success.
52:49
It was a fear of failure. When you grow up like I grow up,
52:53
grew up, you, you know, I still can't.
52:57
I, I always say I I'll give it away, but I won't pee it away.
53:02
In other words, we're going to my wife thinks I'm crazy.
53:08
OK, We're going to take a, a, a river cruise in June with dear
53:13
friends of ours. They're going to fly.
53:19
My wife flies business class, I fly coach, which is the
53:22
stupidest thing in the world. But I said, hey, it's a it's an
53:26
8 hour trip. What am I going to pay an extra
53:28
to? But I but I give 10 * 100 times
53:32
that away. The charities that but that's
53:35
just me. I'm nuts.
53:37
OK, people say you. I said look, I got what?
53:40
What do I get? I got a reclining seat in first
53:42
class, business class big deal. I said I'll sit in the back.
53:45
Leave me alone. And I laughed so hard there
53:48
because I, I think there's something in the, the old school
53:51
Italian mentality. I I listen, I hear you tell
53:54
those stories. My mother never bought anything
53:57
that wasn't on sale. Wasn't 30% off.
54:02
We'd go to I'd the, the, the pastries we had were always from
54:05
the the day old, the two day old cake store.
54:08
OK, all my clothes are bought. They were all off the Piers.
54:13
OK, the vegetable store across the street, that guy sold two
54:17
apples a year. But everybody in the
54:20
neighborhood wore the same raincoat, the same hat, the same
54:23
whatever they stole from the Piers was what people wore.
54:28
Frank, what is the future of the forum group look like?
54:31
Where's it going? Well, my son is doing a great
54:35
job with it. We now have offices in
54:37
Connecticut, like major office in Connecticut with New York and
54:42
we have small offices in Portland and Boston, New Jersey.
54:47
And we're building it that way. We're finding good people and
54:53
from other firms who are proven producers and I'll go to them
54:58
and I'll say, listen, we'll put you in business.
55:02
I'm not asking for a dime of capital.
55:04
You'll get an equity position on day one, OK.
55:08
We'll give you fair compensation for your production.
55:11
We'll give you fair compensation override for the people that
55:15
that you hire. We'll encourage you to hire and
55:18
we'll take care of everything and you'll be charged direct
55:22
expenses. In other words, your payroll,
55:24
your advertising, that that's it, our, your accounting,
55:29
everything else will come from forum and we won't take a
55:32
nickel. And then, you know, we'll share
55:35
the, the, the profits at the end.
55:37
And that formula's got us some great people, OK, Because
55:41
they're people that, you know, they've got 10/15/20 years in
55:45
the business now, they've got mortgages and children and so
55:48
on. So they're kind of in that trap
55:52
and we take him out of the trap. Wow, it's a generous.
55:55
And we guarantee him their their first year's comp.
55:58
And the first guy we did this who runs our Connecticut office,
56:01
Jason Woody, the terrific guy. He's we did this, he's there six
56:06
months and COVID hits. Yeah, that was COVID.
56:11
And we said, well, don't worry about the the one year comp,
56:16
we'll take care of you beyond that.
56:17
We didn't have to. He was such a great producer.
56:20
So that form has worked pretty nicely and building the New York
56:24
office and so on. So it's sweat equity, you know,
56:29
don't think any anything. I mean, you got to commit, OK?
56:33
You have to commit to being successful.
56:36
I didn't realize this. I didn't realize anything.
56:38
I didn't realize I could run a parade when the answer in the
56:41
Columbus Day parade. I didn't know what the hell I
56:42
was doing, you know, but I knew we had strong members who had
56:48
contacts. I went to Charlie Gargano was
56:52
running New York State Development.
56:54
I I went to Disney and they laughed in my face.
56:57
Do do an ethnic parade. You're crazy.
56:59
I went to CC was negotiating the New Amsterdam Theater and the
57:03
Disney Store, and Disney was thinking about getting the hotel
57:06
business in New York. He was the money guy in New
57:08
York, NY State Development. He called them.
57:11
They called me. What can we do for you, Frank?
57:14
And for about 10 years they were sent 3 truckloads of we had
57:17
Cinderella and the all the characters and this that what a
57:21
pain in the ass that was. But that's what got us the Emmy
57:24
nominations. I went to I went to the
57:28
Rockettes and they let they told me you're crazy.
57:31
We'll never do anything like this.
57:33
He says, do you know I said that?
57:35
Well, you know how much you know, why could I?
57:40
I can't pay you. I told I don't have a budget.
57:42
What you do crazy and I call a fellow John Tatter was the one
57:46
of the founders of Cablevision, a member.
57:49
I said, John, help me out 'cause Cablevision on Madison Square
57:52
Garden, which owns Rockefeller Center, which owns the
57:54
Rockettes. Same woman calls me up an hour
57:57
later says Frank, what can we do for you?
57:59
How can I help you? So we we had the Rockettes.
58:04
So I go back to NBC, was that that they had the Rockettes when
58:08
they did the tree lighting in Christmas and the general
58:12
manager of the New York operation.
58:13
Frank, how much are you paying them?
58:15
I said we were paying them. I don't pay you.
58:17
They were paying them $50,000 a year to do to do the the
58:20
Christmas tree opening. We got them for nothing.
58:24
You've got some good relationships with some good
58:26
people. Well.
58:26
Let's you see what it's just tapping into a network, just
58:30
like we did for the tunnels of towers and and and I'm just
58:34
blown away by this organization. Yeah, Frank, I've just got one
58:38
more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to
58:40
do 3 quick things for the audience.
58:42
First of all, if you want to get in touch with Frank Fusaro, his
58:45
e-mail address is f.f.usaro@forumgroup.com and
58:51
we'll have a link to that in the show notes.
58:53
Also, the Tunnels to Tower website that he mentioned
58:57
before, T the #2t.org, T2 t.org, that'll be in the show notes as
59:05
well. And if you're enjoying our show
59:07
today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you're
59:10
listening. It sends a signal that helps
59:12
others discover our podcast. So thank you for taking a quick
59:15
moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can get
59:18
your staffing employees access to therapists, doctors and
59:22
prescription meds. That is paradoxical as it seems
59:25
actually increases your company's net profits, real
59:28
gains that can change how business is valued.
59:30
Contact us today at adbackbenefits.com.
59:33
So last question for you, Frank. A year from now, what is 1 very
59:36
specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
59:40
Well, besides my 80th birthday, I just, I just want to see the,
59:45
the, the, the business continue to grow.
59:48
I mean, I've seen births, house purchases, I've seen people go
59:53
on to be very, very successful. It's just, I mean, you start a
59:57
business to make a living and we did.
59:59
We had a fabulous living on that but.
1:00:02
Beyond that, you look at the people and you look at what what
1:00:06
you've created and that gives me a tremendous feeling as it does
1:00:09
to to see what tunnels to towers has done with the Columbus.
1:00:14
How many kids are we educated? 4-5 hundred now.
1:00:16
It's about 500 a year in our program.
1:00:21
So you know, it's it's a it's a blessing.
1:00:26
And so that's a, that's, that's what motivates me.
1:00:29
And I say I only wish I could do it all over again.
1:00:33
You've had so much fun, you just want to hit repeat.
1:00:36
Yeah, like I said, I've been married for 53 years.
1:00:39
You know, Italians don't divorce.
1:00:40
I don't know. Well, our friends are still
1:00:43
married. Long term marriages, My wife,
1:00:45
Carol. Frank, go ahead, Frank last
1:00:48
thought. There last I'll give a shout out
1:00:50
to my 7 grandchildren, Isabella, Gianna, Sophia, Frankie,
1:00:56
Francesca and Alex and Michael and Annabella.
1:01:01
I'm blessed. I've, you know, say I've been
1:01:04
working with the Thalassemia Foundation too, you know, and
1:01:07
I've been running an event for them for 2025 years.
1:01:10
Kind of backing off now because I won't spending a lot of time
1:01:13
with tunnels this hours. But I, I was honored by them 25
1:01:18
to 30 years ago and they put a little baby in my arms and they
1:01:22
told me she's a life expectancies.
1:01:24
Maybe she'll be 10 years old and you know, she passes and she
1:01:27
needed transfusions every every month.
1:01:30
They'd go for a full body, you know, half their transfusion or
1:01:34
half their body. And that was, I was especially
1:01:40
one and done. I had not done nothing for this
1:01:42
foundation. They knew me.
1:01:44
I had two friends and members of Columbus Foundation that were
1:01:47
affected by this. One lost two daughters and the
1:01:49
other lost a brother and I. So I said, OK, we 2 honorary, 3
1:01:57
honorary. As a matter of fact, Rudy
1:01:58
Giuliani was one and and another friend of mine from the Columbus
1:02:02
Foundation. And our job was to fill the
1:02:05
Plaza. Thank you.
1:02:05
It's only 400 people in the Plaza.
1:02:08
We did it and it was over. But they put that kid in my
1:02:10
arms. She's now a nurse deal.
1:02:15
It's, and you see this and she's got two children and but yet we
1:02:23
had a, a planning meeting a couple years ago with a
1:02:26
beautiful little baby. Parents came in, they had the
1:02:29
baby with that full blown thalassemia.
1:02:32
And it's, it's big in the Italian community, but you know
1:02:34
how they had big families years ago when, you know, three died,
1:02:38
it was thalassemia, which is a blood disorder in the, in the
1:02:42
sickle cell anemia family. At any rate, you know, 3.
1:02:51
So we had this little baby and the family had the baby because
1:02:58
now they can test in vitro. So they knew ahead of time, they
1:03:02
came to the foundation, small foundation.
1:03:04
It's a kind of a, it's a orphan disease now.
1:03:07
It's not that many people have, it's big in, in, in China,
1:03:11
believe it or not. And that's what a lot of Chinese
1:03:14
babies that are adopted, they don't want to handle them.
1:03:16
They have, they have the style scene.
1:03:18
So make a Long story short, they, they this baby, beautiful
1:03:23
baby, she came to our event that year and two months later she
1:03:27
passed. So what do you do?
1:03:34
How do you walk away from that? How do you walk away from that?
1:03:39
And, you know, so that, you know, and then we've been, you
1:03:42
know, raising money for them for you.
1:03:44
I, I, all I do now is one event a year start at the Columbus
1:03:49
Club, then went to the Grand Havana Room.
1:03:53
But that 11 honoree decided to bring his wife.
1:03:56
And that was the end that we had to get out of the Grand Havana
1:03:58
Room because they couldn't stand the smoke.
1:04:02
And so we had to move it over to Pier 17.
1:04:05
And I called my good friend Sal Cassando.
1:04:07
I said I want your fire boat to send the fire boat.
1:04:10
You know, they did the whole 9 yards because it was Pier 17 in
1:04:13
Manhattan. And we had the fire boat was
1:04:16
nice. We all look.
1:04:19
So many good stories. Frank Cassaro from the forum
1:04:22
group. I want to be the first to thank
1:04:23
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:04:26
I. Really.
1:04:26
And I want to apologize for telling all these stories.
1:04:30
I won't accept that apology, folks.
1:04:32
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:04:35
Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
1:04:39
that into action today.