After half a century, Groban hangs it up
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, June 20, 2005
Port St. Lucie, Fla. — After 52 years in furniture and 255 High Point markets, one of the industry's most colorful and best-known characters is retiring.
Super salesman Jackie Groban is hanging it up because of health reasons, which he won't discuss other than to say, "I beat cancer two times already."
Groban's friends — probably half the industry — no longer will be greeted by the flamboyant, 74-year-old, self-proclaimed Super Jew as they come off the escalator in High Point's Furniture Plaza. He's manned a booth there for the past five years as vice president of sales for Guardian Products.
"I just enjoyed what I did," he said from his home here, where he lives with wife Karen, whom he married in — where else? — a furniture market showroom.
Groban has a boatload of stories and anecdotes from his career as a sales rep and executive for a number of companies, mostly in upholstery.
In the half-century that began in his father-in-law's furniture store in Cincinnati, right after service in the Korean War, Groban has had some interesting experiences — none, he says, more memorable than his wedding 23 years ago to Karen.
That was in the Montclair Furniture showroom in Hickory, N.C., on opening day of the October 1981 market. The guests were 251 customers, who watched the bride and groom come down an aisle surrounded by sofas and chairs.
Ever the salesman, "I stood in line with my order pad and took orders," Groban said, reminiscing about the nearly six-hour ceremony and reception. "Our dog, Tush, was the ring bearer," he said.
At one point, the couple had four Great Danes, four standard poodles and two cats. "That's why I was working," quipped Groban, "just to buy puppy chow."
He also has two sons, Gary, 48, an electrician in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Jeff, 47, the owner of a roller rink in Abilene, Texas, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Groban thinks the industry has gone downhill "as far as the respect there is for salesmen on the road. It used to be that you were devoted to whom you worked for. I was always devoted. But you look around now at some of these salespeople . . . I talk to them at market . . . they're not devoted like most of them used to be."
That may be because many companies don't give their reps a lot of respect — "They're a body," he said. That's one of the biggest changes he's seen "because the furniture industry still has $399 sofas retail. Now they're bringing back the jackknife, the sofa that you jackknife and make into a bed."
Groban worked for a number of companies, including Paramount & Sturgis, Fineline, Shaw, and 20 years at Howard Parlor, never losing his sense of humor. He recalled that at Montclair, one of the sofas in the showroom on the day he got married was the Peedy Bird, designed by Jim Peed. The fabric was dark blue with white splotches.
At Continental Mattress, a conservative New York bedding producer, Groban introduced the Sex-O-Pedic, with black ticking. "I caused more problems," he said.
Always the salesman and self-promoter, Groban swears that when he and his wife moved to Houlka, Miss., "The mayor came riding up in this big, old truck, in the gravel and stuff, dust going all over the front yard. He said, 'I'm the welcoming committee to Houlka. We ain't never had no Jew before.' I said, Mr. Mayor, you've got the Super Jew, and I'm going to run for mayor. Just watch out.
"I did run, but I didn't make it. I was asked what I would do if I were mayor. The first thing, I said, would be to get cable TV; we have electricity. Then get rid of all the outhouses; we have water. And then we'll send guns to Israel. They threw me right out," he said, laughing.
Groban also tells of the time his landlord put him up for membership in the Tupelo Country Club. "They brought me up and they asked me, 'If you ever become a member of the Tupelo Country Club and the board of directors, what would you do?' I stood up, fixed my tie and said, 'I'd subdivide.' I knew I couldn't get in there."
He'll miss all the fun he's had in the business.
"I loved it. I love being with people. I enjoyed going out to the stores, holding meetings and revving up the sales force. I made a lot of retail customers a lot of money. I kept my promise to them."
