Continued  The Man Behind the Beard  

While at Harvard, Leo was a member of a boxing club. He shared a nice anecdote with me, recalling a fond memory of a man named Gene Mangin, who operated K&K's polishing machine at the time. Gene was a semi-professional boxer, and every lunch hour, he and Leo would box. Although Gene was semi-pro, Leo was lucky enough, he told me, to never have gotten knocked out.

After graduating from Harvard in 1952, Leo went to work full time in K&K' contract division under his brother David. Meanwhile, his father and his brother Arthur ran the wholesale division. After almost forty years working in contract, Leo became president of the company. When his son Joey (my dad) became president, Leo took on the position of treasurer, which he holds today.

     During his time working at K&K, Leo has not only devoted himself to improving his own company, but to bettering the glass industry. For over thirty years, he has been active in both the Flat Glass Marketing Association (FGMA) and the Glass Association of North America. He served as GANA president in 1996 and 1997. During his term, he realized that GANA did not have anything to offer in the area of contract glazing. To fill this large void, Leo co-developed the Contract Glazing Conference, which later became GANA's Building Envelope Contractors Division (BEC). Additionally, Leo served ten years as president of the Glass Employers Group of Greater Boston, and was involved in negotiations with the Glazier's Union for over thirty years. Leo also dedicated his time to GANA's Labor, Convention, Glazing Manual, and Glazing Industry Code Committees. The Glazing Industry Code Committee recently inducted Leo into its Hall of Recognition--a well-deserved honor.

     Leo says that his favorite part of working at K&K is the process involved in getting new work. He enjoys a challenge and loves getting jobs that "present architectural design challenges and push technology to the limits." Leo's favorite project that he has worked on is the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard. The building was designed by Le Corbusier, whose exhibit Leo once attended while traveling in Paris. The Carpenter Center is the only building in North America designed by the famed French architect.

     Amidst all of his hard work, Leo finds much time for his hobbies and the things he loves. In addition to his affinity toward baseball caps (a vast collection adorns the shelves in his office), his fondness for Kosher hot dogs, and his penchant for the color purple, Leo loves spending time at his beach house in Ogunquit, Maine with his wife Barbara and the rest of his family, including his four children and four grandchildren. He frequents the gym, is active in his community's temple, and still finds time to dedicate himself to charity work. He is truly devoted to the causes that he cares about, as can be seen in one of the more unusual things he has done: Leo participates in the L Street Brownies' "Polar Bear Plunge," in which swimmers brave water and air temperatures in the thirty degree range and plunge into the freezing Atlantic ocean in the middle of winter. The icy waters are no challenge for avid swimmer Leo, who has used the event to raise money for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).

     With so much experience in the glass industry, what advice can Leo offer to the business world? When asked for advice during his GANA interview, Leo offered "you have to be nice to your employees...to your suppliers...you have to just b e nice...you can still disagree with people, but you have to find a way to do it in a nice manner...you also have to be knowledgeable...you have to learn about your business, you have to know what's there now and you have to know what's coming there tomorrow"." Anyone who takes this advice to heart is sure to succeed.