Diamond jubilee: Nickle marks 60 years with same company

SANDUSKY — Few people work for one company as long as Ron Nickle has. The 78-year-old Sandusky resident has worked for Sandusky Metal Products and its successors for 60 years. Nickle retired Sept. 1 as vice president of sales for Sandusky Lee Corp.'s Sandusky division. The company — which has offices in California, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Sandusky — manufactures cabinets, lockers, office furniture and storage items. The beginning Sixty years ago, as is today, high school graduates had three basic paths to follow: enrolling into a postsecondary school, going into the military or entering the workforce. Nickle said he had no desire to enter the military and did not know what to pursue in college, so he decided to get a job. In September 1961, Nickle heard Sandusky Metal Products was hiring, so he went to the company's plant where he discovered job-seekers filled the lobby, and he had to wait in the parking lot. He wondered if this was just a waste of time until owner Joe Ambus singled him out and asked him some questions. Ambus told him someone from the company would be in touch. Several weeks later, plant manager Charlie Goldfarb called and offered Nickle a job in production. Nickle started in the welding department, but he knew that he wanted to pursue a different path. He spoke with his uncle, a salesman for a box manufacturer, who guided him to enroll in a sales course. After taking the course, he was able to transition from production to sales. He has worked in sales ever since. On the road In the early days, his job involved a lot of driving. Typically, sales managers would drive to any client less than 300 miles from Sandusky. After arriving in town, Nickle said, the first stop was the phone booth to remove the phone book pages dedicated to local furniture stores. He would then devise a plan and approach stores. He found that, many times, competitors would have locations beside each other. For this reason, the company produced multiple product lines so they could keep both clients. The company would produce essentially the same item but change the handles, colors or finish. While Nickle was focused on regional chains and stores, the company also sold to national brands like Sears, Montgomery Ward and JCPenney. In the mid-1960s, the sales team approached the new K-Mart-branded stores. K-Mart would become Sandusky Metal Products' biggest client. The company's products were stocked in K-Mart stores across the country. Today, Sandusky Lee's products can be found at major retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe's and Menards. Though his amount of air travel was consistent throughout his sales career, his position in the company rose steadily. Nickle said he has been to most of the states in the union. In the early morning hours of Jan. 26, 1978, a blizzard started that inundated a vast swath of the Great Lakes region. Nickle left his house to catch a plane in Cleveland. He only made it a half of a mile. Fortunately, he was able to return home. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. airspace was closed to all except for a very few amount of non-military flights. The closure lasted two days. Nickle was in the office on that Tuesday morning. In recent years, many meetings have gone digital with the rise of Skype and Zoom. Nickle adapted to the new technology while most members of his generation lagged behind. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, all of his meetings took place digitally. Changes abound Changes in the marketplace and the emergence of competition forced Sandusky Metal Products to pivot its specialty. Nickle recalled how in the 1980s competitors offering flat-pack cabinets, that consumers would then assemble themselves, emerged in the market. In reaction, the company switched its focus to office furniture and developed relationships with stores like OfficeMax and Staples. Today the trend is toward online retailers, such as Wayfair. Nickle has endured in the company through name changes, mergers and ownership changes. The Ambus family owned the plant until 1990 when it was sold to an investment group that renamed the company to Sandusky Cabinets. After a decade of ownership, the company was sold to Edsal Manufacturing Co. Today, the company operates as Sandusky Lee Corp. After Edsal purchased the company, the decision was made to close the Sandusky plant and move production to Pennsylvania. After being vacant for many years and falling into disrepair, the building was acquired by Sandusky's government and demolished in 2014. The site is still owned by the city and is still vacant. Nickle said he worked out of that building for 29 years. He said it was sad for him to see it go, but it was time for it to be razed. Though the Sandusky manufacturing facility had closed, Nickle remained with the company — one of only two Sandusky employees to keep their jobs. A treasured tenure While Nickle has remained with the same company for six decades, it is more common for people to work for many different companies during their working years. According to a September 2020 news release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure that employees have been with their current employer is 4.1 years. The median tenure for employees 65 years old and older was just 10.3 years. Nickle said it was more common, in the past, for employees to stay with the same company for decades. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2019 that baby boomers, those born between 1957 and 1964, held an average of 12.3 jobs in their lifetimes. A survey by Future Workplace found 91% of millennials expected to work less than three years at each job. When Nickle entered the workforce, many people wanted a job that would provide stable employment and a pension. Younger workers today still seek financial stability but want to work for companies that offer flexibility, such as working from home. That desire for flexibility leads millennials to change jobs more often than previous generations, studies show. Along the way, Nickle has adapted to changes in communication from landline phone calls and snail mail to cellphones and email. When he began in the company's sales department, GPS did not exist. Salespeople used paper maps to find their destinations. When asked why he stayed with the company for so long, Nickle said he does not have hobbies or a lot of interests and having this job gave him a direction every morning when he woke up. Nickle always enjoyed his work, "So why change?" In his tenure, he traveled to nearly every U.S. state. He said meeting new people kept his job interesting. He will, however, miss his clients. "Sales is all about relationships," he said. Nickle has forged hundreds of relationships in his 60 years with the company. Nickle instilled many of the traits that make a good salesman into his children. Son Gavin Nickle said of his dad, "He instilled in us the proper mannerisms to show respect and good morals. Shake hands firmly, eye contact when you talk, yes sir yes ma'am" He continued that his dad taught him to show generosity to those who made your success possible. What the future holds for Nickle is unclear. He said he will have a period of "taking a deep breath." He added that he will be kept busy with his five children and 12 grandchildren.