FIRED, UNFAZED.

AuthorMildenberg, David
PositionUP FRONT

A MANUFACTURER'S REP. 82. WONT LET AN UNEXPECTED DISMISSAL BLUNT HIS ENTHUSIASM FOR MAKING THE NEXT SALE.

Andy Leeds is a street-smart furniture salesman who knows the highs and lows of business life. Still, he says nothing ever hurt as much as getting fired in April, prompting him to call me to tell his story. His purpose, he says, is to give hope to others facing a similar fate.

Dismissals carry no shame, particularly in our right-to-work state where one can get canned for any reason at any time. Journalists often get calls from aggrieved workers anxious to fire back at their former employers. My response is usually, sorry, can't help.

Andy doesn't need my assistance. He has a remarkable life story, having spent the last 59 years in his industry. And he's going to have several more after a German maker of stylish furniture hired him promptly after his April dismissal from a Norwegian rival.

Andy is 82, with the spirit of a recent college grad. He has zero interest in stepping out of the game. "I'm not an old crotchety guy ready to wobble down the street," he says.

The son of Belgian Jews who fled Europe in 1941 to avoid the Nazis, Andy started as a store salesman in East Lansing, Mich., after graduating from Michigan State University. The work intrigued him, so in 1959 he took a sales job with Broyhill Furniture, owned by the well-known Lenoir-based family.

Since then, Andy has represented some of the industry's best-known manufacturers: Caldwell, Thomasville, Craft Associates and Lane. He's attended more than 110 High Point markets.

In 1986, he moved to North Carolina and joined Newtonbased Sherrill Furniture Co. and helped build its Precedent division over more than 20 years, including a dozen as CEO. "You can believe anything that Andy tells you," says Woody Williams, who succeeded him as Precedent's leader.

"Furniture has had one of the greatest changes of any industry in the last 50 years," Andy says. "North Carolina...

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