Three Musketeers

A simple handshake among friends, and American Laboratory was born.

I grew up in a family business marketing, advertising, and selling sanitary chemicals and insecticides in the United States and throughout Canada and Europe. I also became a real estate investor; thus, entrepreneurship was in my blood.

I had just returned from a one-and-a-half-year consultancy in Vietnam for the U.S. State Department during the Vietnam War. My good friend Bill Wham had worked for Doubleday Publishing Company and then Analytical Chemistry. My closest friend, Steve Morris, was very successful in the restaurant, motel, and nursing home businesses. Bill, Steve, and I were fraternity brothers at Syracuse University. We maintained our post-SU friendship when Bill would stay at my house during his sales trips to Rochester, New York, where he was selling advertising space to Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, and others.

In the fall of 1965, Bill arrived at my home quite dejected. He said he had just lost a very lucrative ad campaign from Bausch & Lomb because Analytical Chemistry had rejected their advertisement. According to Bill, the ad was turned down because it showed Bausch & Lomb’s product being used by a female lab technician wearing a white lab coat that revealed her knees. The Bausch & Lomb ad manager told Bill that if there were a competitive magazine in the same field, he would switch his advertisement to it. However, since there were no competitors, he decided to use the same ad budget to run a direct mail campaign instead.

I jokingly said, “Bill, if you had any guts, you would start your own competitive publication.” He laughed and replied, “If I had the guts to do it, would you have the guts to be my partner?” With a smile on my face, I replied, “Of course!” That brought a good laugh from us both.

Figure 1 - From left to right: Steve Morris, Ken Halaby, and Bill Wham, May 1968.

In January of 1966, I departed to Vietnam on a special State Department assignment, returning in August, a year and a half later. Instead of accepting the full-time foreign service officer’s position that had been offered, I resigned from the State Department and, on New Year’s Eve of 1967, married Linda, my lovely wife of 50 years. At the reception, Bill approached me and asked what I planned on doing now. I told him I had three interesting options. He said with a slight grin, “Why don’t we start that magazine?” He brought Steve Morris over to me and said, “Steve might be interested in financing our venture.” Later that evening, Steve came over to me and said, “I’m in, but only if you are in.” I replied, “Let’s do it! This has been a dream of our friend Bill’s for a long, long time.” A simple handshake among friends, and American Laboratory was born. (See Figure 1.)

Bill started the ball rolling by contacting five laboratory supply houses in five different regions of America. He offered them free advertising on the back inside cover of our prospective magazine in exchange for names of the buying influences their sales force called on in industrial, university, hospital, and government research laboratories. American Laboratory would be the monthly textbook for the industry, highlighting new techniques, developments, and applications of scientific instruments, equipment, and chemicals. Articles would be contributed by scientists and other experts in the field as well as manufacturers who had developed new technology. Our circulation would be strictly the United States and Canada and would be three to four times larger than Analytical Chemistry’s circulation in the United States.

Frugality with quality was our goal. Thus, Linda and I relocated from Rochester, New York, to Greens Farms, Connecticut, and moved into the gorgeous estate overlooking Long Island Sound where Bill and Lynn Wham were housesitting for a nominal monthly rent. The home was right on the prestigious Gold Coast of Westport, Connecticut, diagonally across from the exclusive Greens Farms Academy. Multimillion-dollar homes lined the picturesque road, and we had a spectacular view of Long Island Sound. The downstairs rooms of the house served as our offices and we split the upper floors for our living quarters.

Bill’s wife, Lynn, a very capable and meticulous proofreader, was our managing editor. She worked hard and methodically, editing some very technical manuscripts. Bill busied himself selling ads in the NYC, Long Island, and New England areas. I covered the rest of the country either by car or by plane.

Bill read articles and contacted industry friends on how to lay out a magazine, while my wife Linda became our production manager, circulation manager, receptionist, and cook. Twelve-hour workdays were the norm for all of us. Our goal was to sell 30 pages per issue and publish six times a year. We found a typesetter (hot lead) in Fairfield, Connecticut, and an excellent printer in the midwest. Postage, paper, and printing all had to be paid in advance until we established a credit rating. Steve Morris cheerfully took care of this.

Bill found a talented art director, Larry Lustig, and an outstanding editor, Frederick I. Scott, who provided provocative, thought-provoking editorials and approved articles for publication. To our knowledge, Fred was the first African-American editor in our field. And, yes, perhaps in those days we raised a few eyebrows when we later hired the first female sales executive in the field, Arlene Gardner, who had a scientific background and did an excellent job covering the midwest.

Together with our art director, we decided to use a paper stock that exceeded industry standards, and American Laboratory always featured a four-color cover. Other publications bunched their ads either at the beginning or at the end of the magazine. By contrast, we made sure that every advertisement was strategically placed next to editorial content throughout the publication. This was a more costly layout, but we wanted to project the best-quality image for our advertisers and our publication. Behind the scenes, we lived very frugally, staying at B&Bs and the like. However, if we had a business breakfast, lunch, or dinner, we would look for the finest available venue in order to project a high-quality image.

Amazingly, our first two issues of American Laboratory—October and December of 1968—were profitable. The look of joy and pride on Bill Wham’s face when he paged through the October issue was obvious—his dream had come true. The only time I ever saw Bill happier was when I went with him to the hospital to see his newborn son, Corvie. At that time, Bill had a smile on his face and a tear in his eye. Based on the success of those first two issues, we decided to publish monthly, beginning with the January 1969 issue.

With the expansion of our business came the need for a multitalented person to do correspondence, act as our receptionist, and perform any other task that might be needed. That’s when we hired Edie Blum, our first full-time employee. Edie was a great asset, especially to my pregnant wife, Linda, who would retire in May to give birth to our first child. From time to time, Edie would bring along her two children, Michael and Julie, who, 20 years later, would hold important positions in our company. Julie became a managing editor and was then promoted to editorial director. Michael was an outstanding promotions manager and writer who later became an outstanding sales executive.

Analytical Chemistry was sometimes called “The Bible” of our industry. We always praised it highly, but pointed out that our publication reached three times their United States circulation at a much lower cost. We praised Analytical Chemistry for being the “cookbook” for our industry and claimed that American Laboratory was the “utensil book.” There was room for both, and we filled the void. We were told by many that American Laboratory enjoyed the fastest growth rate of any scientific publication of its kind.

Though it was very costly for a start-up company, we exhibited at most of the scientific trade shows. The major trade show was the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon). At our very first conference in March of 1969, we decided to host a client banquet where we would introduce ourselves and our customers and prospects to one another. This was costly but proved to be effective in terms of client interaction, editorial prospecting, and our own image-building. This routine at various trade shows grew from perhaps 30 customers and prospects at our first meeting to 100–200 dinner guests as we grew.

We reached a high of approximately 130 employees in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Many of our team were like family to us and we tried to reward them accordingly, with a Christmas party and bonuses, good healthcare benefits, and an attractive pension program. Unity and team spirit fostered company pride, caring, and success.

Figure 2 - Welcome Dr. LaTotto

My personal philosophy was to respect your clients, work hard, and take your work but not yourself seriously. Thus, when American Laboratory became international, I decided to take on the fictitious role of Dr. Luis LaTotto, who would occasionally appear at client dinners. Prior to his arrival, we would set the stage by telling the unsuspecting guests, most of whom knew me quite well, that the above-mentioned Italian doctor was a well-credentialed international sales, marketing, and advertising expert. I would cover my bald head with a garish-looking wig, disguise my hefty nose with a large, ugly bandage, and wear a number of impressive-looking, meaningless medals on my lapel. Bill, the MC for the evening, would explain to the unsuspecting guests that our international expert, Dr. LaTotto (me), had been mugged and was on medication that hampered his coordination. In spite of his injury, Dr. LaTotto insisted on showing up because he didn’t want to disappoint our clients. I would always make sure that Dr. LaTotto sat next to a client who knew me very well. As the somewhat impaired Dr. LaTotto would take his seat at the dinner table, he would miss the chair and go sprawling on the floor. This would cause his entire table to rush to his aid. The remainder of the evening would progress with other ridiculous antics. At the end of the evening, my identity would be revealed in a humorous fashion, much to the relief and laughter of our tolerant guests. A vote of approval for this caper sometimes came in the form of a letter from a client who had been duped, inviting the good doctor to be a keynote speaker at his company’s sales meeting (see Figure 2).

Ken Halaby was co-publisher and co-founder of American Laboratory with partner Bill Wham.