Their Origin Stories to My Mythology

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.”  

~ Erin Morgenstern, American multimedia artist and fantasy novelist

Grandpa, Dad, and his brothers had several run-ins with organized labor in the mid-60s. Three episodes stand out. They occurred during my impressionable years – around age 10. And my interpretations of their retellings impacted my sense of self and thirst to contribute within the confines of our family business.

Shooting Gallery

A ship owned by Upper Lakes Limited arrived at the river elevator to be loaded with corn. One union represented the seafarers (the on-board crews) on all Upper Lakes' vessels. Another seafarers’ union was aggressively soliciting the Upper Lakes' union, picketing the major ports on the Great Lakes including Toledo. The local stevedores' union (the ship loaders and unloaders) honored the seafarer picket line, keeping the boat from being loaded.

 A thug fired 9 shots into Uncle Don’s house.

The work stoppage continued for two days before we decided to load the boat ourselves. The decision got their dander up.

• They blew up a line of rail tracks;
• They put sand in the switch engine fuel tanks;
• They fired a high-powered rifle into the control room from across the river; and most worrisome of all,
• 9 shots were fired from the road into my Uncle Don's house later that evening.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Law enforcement responded to the violence, disbanded the picketers, the boat got loaded and was on its way. They found the rifle a few days later and traced it to the shooter. He was tried, found guilty, and sent off to jail.

I recall being filled with a mixture of emotion: relief and wonder no one was killed, anger toward the perpetrators, and pride in my predecessors’ courage to stand up to them and back them down. 

Expanded Metal

We were building an extension to our river elevator, using our own crews supplemented with farmers. The local building trades got wind and were up-in-arms. They blocked entry to the site. Prominent leaders of the teamsters, AFL-CIO, and UAW stood by in support of their union brothers. The union demanded we pay our people union wages and hire their tradesmen instead of the farmers.

Grandpa argued total annual earnings were more important than hourly wage; as he promised year-round employment. He didn't budge. He bought an old school bus and sheathed the windows with expanded metal. Our crews would approach the gate, creep through the union crowd, absorb a fair share of rocks, and bulldoze blocking vehicles into the ditch. In one incident, the bus stopped at the gate and Uncle Tom opened the bus door momentarily. A picketer ran at him swinging a steel pipe, narrowly missing his head.

A picketer ran at Uncle Tom swinging a steel pipe, narrowly missing his head.

The goings-on were the headline and lead-off editorial in our newspaper for 3 of 7 days. The publisher was in our corner, "Union action is no less than an arrogant invasion of the private business affairs and policies of a private family."

Eventually, the Police Chief stepped in. The mob was restless. There were guns in the crowd. It was time to resolve the problem. "The Management - Citizens Committee," interceded, brought the warring parties to the table, and helped us hammer out a deal. Our crews would work under our pay program. The skilled trades would work in place of the farmers and at union scale. All would work under Uncle Tom's direction without union work rules.

The noise evaporated. The crews went back to work. The job proceeded without incident. The newspaper heralded Grandpa and the union boss's handling of the uprising, the most contentious in Toledo in a decade, for its sensibility and even-handedness.

My emotions paralleled what I felt in the first anecdote but were acute; perhaps attributable to being a year older, and to the amount of laudable press coverage Grandpa, Dad, and his brothers received.

Gravy

The fertilizer business was running on all cylinders. Fertilizer was one of Dad’s businesses.  He was having the time of his life.

Most U.S. potash originated in Saskatchewan, CN and had traditionally reached the states via rail. That was until Dad negotiated the first rail to water deal - rail from Saskatchewan to Thunder Bay, Ontario, then lake freighter to our Toledo dock. He achieved a landed cost $10/ton less than rail, a lot of money in those days, which meant a lot of potash boats were headed for Toledo.

They unloaded Boat #1 without a hitch, our crane and a rental, our operator and a union operator hired by the rental outfit. The tandem worked non-stop to completion.

Boat #2 was a different story. The stevedores showed up, demanding to handle the job. Dad rebuffed them, and they responded contentiously, picketing en masse at our entry gate. Their rhetoric intensified. They threatened to sink the boat and do harm to the operators manning the rental unit.

The union crane operators, fearing for their lives, understandably left the job. So, Dad called on Uncle Bob and the two of them took turns operating the rental crane on 12-hour back-to-back shifts until the boat was unloaded.

The tight quarters were hot, sticky, filled to capacity with cat-calling union members.

The tension continued until Dad and Grandpa agreed to meet with union leadership to try to resolve the brouhaha. They met at the employee locker room. When Dad and Grandpa entered, the tight quarters were hot, sticky, and filled with cat-calling union members; “hanging from the rafters" and telegraphing their disgruntlement through a variety of sneers. It was a zany negotiation, evidenced by the union leader’s come-back when Dad questioned the number of people he wanted on his crew. His reply? "Hey come-on Dick, we want some of that gravy too!"

Dad eventually gave them a shot with Boat #3, contemplating a future move to self-unloading ships if they didn't meet muster. The difference was glaring. They overmanned the job and took decidedly longer than we did on the first boats. Their poor execution convinced Dad to go the self-unloader route and bypass the hassle once and for all. 

On a lighter note, Dad met a prominent stevedore leader awhile later. They shook hands and the guy laughed, "From what I've heard, Dick, you Andersons are nothin' but a buncha damn stevedores." Dad loved telling the story. And I loved hearing it. 

I was so proud of Grandpa and Dad; my heroes whom I morphed into unapproachable legends. And the stories? I mutated them into remarkable feats of mythical proportions. 

I internalized both, kindling fear I’d never measure up to their accomplishments and stature and contradicting it with an insatiable urge to dwarf their achievements - faster – and with plenty of personal recognition to boot!

That sums up the virus I was carrying the day I hired on 8 years later as a warehouseman on the fertilizer loading dock. It multiplied over time. Whatever I accomplished simply wasn’t enough.

The stories in this collection are excerpts from an upcoming book detailing my recollection of life growing up in our business family. The book is yet to be titled. Here’s a link to the Book’s Preface.

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Chris Anderson began his career with The Andersons, Inc., a Family Limited Partnership, with 60+ family partners; that went public (NASDAQ:ANDE) midway through his tenure. There, he literally began as ‘low man on the totem pole’ as a foreman in a fertilizer operating division, and began accumulating his general management skill-set with roles in diverse units such as Automotive Service, and Market Research.

He later progressed through positions of increasing responsibility to serve as one of three Group Presidents, followed by Executive Vice President in the billion+ revenues family-controlled business, with accomplishments including a breakout diversification strategy. He is acknowledged for mentoring and developing many emerging leaders who now hold senior management posts.