BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL

College Preparatory Curriculum - Graduated in top 10% of Class

Varsity Bowling Team - 3 years (Captain in Senior Year)

PRATT INSTITUTE, Brooklyn NY

Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering

Varsity Baseball Team - 4 Years

Varsity Bowling Team Captain - 2 Years (National Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in 1962 Section 1 First Place Overall)

Developed programs for Analogue Computer on Campus

Married my high school sweetheart after finishing my Junior Year in College

Accepted job at Paulsboro NJ Refinery of Mobil Oil as a Technical Services Engineer

Worked on Refinery Expansion programs for Paulsboro NJ and Torrance CA Refineries

Developed Linear Programming Applications for Paulsboro Refinery

Promoted to NY Headquarters in 1968 as Computer Applications Manager

Started our family with first daughter born in 1964 and the second in 1967

Traveled extensively teaching Engineers at Mobil Refineries throughout the US how to access IBM 360-75 Computer at NY Headquarters.

Requested transfer to California where I wanted to raise my children.

After Mobil Oil refused request, I decided to start a new life in California as a career Entrepreneur

I  built a Rigid Polyurethane Manufacturing Facility and developed the first Drink Cup Holder in a moving vehicle as the Van Conversion Industry took hold in the mid 70's.

Developed a National Sales Force to sell simulated wood products to the RV Industry

Sold to Major Retailers such as Sears Roebuck

The development of the Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) included as standard equipment most of the products we were producing and we moved to the more traditional furniture manufacturing industry.

I developed a "Knock Down" Occasional Table (KD) to reduce cost of shipping and developed a complete line of Rigid Polyurethane Occasional Tables. We opened showroom at the San Francisco Furniture Shows twice a year.

In 1984, the EPA decided to limit the amount of Spray Booths in California to reduce effluents into the atmosphere. To expand, a manufacturer had to purchase the "AIR" rights from another manufacturer. Seeing this as an opportunity I went to Taiwan to start an importing business.

With Taiwanese partners, we opened a Tambour Manufacturing facility in Tai Chung and supplied all Roll Top Desk and Oak Entertainment Center Manufacturers in the US with their Tambour needs.

Business expanded to include a complete line of wood occasional tables that were distributed by US manufacturers.

As the furniture industry moved from Taiwan to mainland China in the late 1980's, the ability for reasonably "smaller"companies like us to succeed diminished and the furniture industry moved to Mexico (Tecate & Tia Juana).

Working conditions in Mexico were less than ideal (Graft & Corruption), I decided to look at other business ventures and as a lover of the game of Golf, decided to develop a Robot Golf Caddy to take the golf clubs around the course while being controlled by the golfer with a hand held controller..

We opened a Factory in Oxnard and became heavily involved in community affairs such as the merger of the Port Hueneme and Oxnard Boys & Girls Clubs.

Together with Chuck Muncie (former NFL great) we formed the Chuck Muncie Youth Foundation and created a jobs program at the Ventura City Golf Courses.

Here is the link to video's that explains the program .click here

By the late 1990's, the golf course operators were clearly against the robots as it took away revenue from golf cart rentals.

Our first website was in 1994 and we did see the possibilities of Al Gore's new Internet and decided to move in that direction

As a member of the Ventura Men's Golf Club we created the first Golf Club Website on the Pk2 Network. We then offered all other golf clubs the opportunity to have their own websites and had 16 clubs active.

We created the equivalent of the first PDF files and offered the Golf Clubs the ability to deliver their monthly newsletters electronically and save the cost of printing and mailing.

After moving to Ventura County, we became viewers of the local news at Kady Television, the only broadcast television station in Ventura County.

As the expansion of the Internet based business was becoming evident, we were "at the right place at the right time" and were able to purchase the domain name KadyTV.com for $10.

We worked closely with Biltmore Broadcasting to start the development of Kady Television on the Internet and here are some of the originals. 

After 9/11, we were informed the station was going to be sold and the call letters would be changed. We ceased operation of the KadyTV.com website but maintained our ownership by renewing each year

With the success built in our golf community, we were approached by the local newspaper, the Ventura County Star to expand our local golf news to their website.

We became part of InsideVCGolf.com and started coverage of all local City Golf Tournaments

With difficult economic times after 9/11, the local golf courses were suffering from lack of play and finding it difficult to pay for advertising. To overcome that problem, we started accepting gift certificates as payment for that advertising. Software was developed that permitted a monthly auction for these certificates that was highly publicized in the Newspaper and continued until the VC Star decided to completely revamp their website in 2003.

As part of our involvement with InsideVCGolf.com, we were introduced to a company in Saticoy that processed 13 million used golf balls a year. Most going to Scandinavian countries where the covers were removed and the cores used to produce new Driving Range Golf Balls.

Since this was the time the "Pro V1" golf balls were introduced to the market ($5 per golf ball versus $5 per dozen), we convinced the owner to separate the expensive golf balls so that we can start to sell them on this new website called "EBAY"..

By 2004 we became one of the top 200 Sellers on eBay and were invited to semi annual summit conferences in San Jose to exchange ideas on how to improve the experience for buyers. We did in excess of $1 million sales in 2004. Although our volume is less today, we are still active sellers of used golf balls  

As most good things come to an end, it became easier for individuals to collect the balls and sell them on eBay, thereby reducing the profitability for us. We looked for new products to sell and found Marilyn Monroe Wines. This is the only category on eBay that requires licenses (which we obtained) and with that, quickly became the largest seller of Marilyn Merlot wines on EBay and started a consignment program for collectors who wanted to sell their wines on ebay but did not have the proper licenses.  Here is an example  

Cross Platform selling became the montra of most eBay sellers and www.TraderHarrys.com was born.