I passed along the e-mail about Tony Koester and RMC to Tony, and he was kind
enough to reply and to also give his permission to pass this along. He did
suggest that anyone wanting to contact him to e-mail Kalmbach and they will
forward any messages to him.
Mark Plank
----- Begin forwarded message -----
"As RMC's editor, I instigated and edited a survey published in the
April 1981 issue of RMC that was crafted to determine what models
readers wanted most. Many respondents said that the Alco RS3 was at
the top of their lists, and three different RS3 models (Atlas,
Stewart, and MDC [now Athearn]) resulted from this survey. I quickly
re-read the survey's comments section, and it seems to me that we
printed pros and cons about every major diesel manufacturer, but Irv
apparently didn't care for the remarks about his hood widths being
too wide to accommodate his old motors.
"I guess I naively assumed Uncle Irv would take the hint about
'quality control,' but he went ballistic. I have since learned that
his wife was in the hospital, and he had problems with immigration
and his work force, so he wasn't in the mood to play nice. He called
Hal to complain, as they had a good business relationship dating back
to before my time at RMC. I had also been pushing Hal hard on a
number of fronts to do things that he wasn't comfortable with, and it
was, after all, his company, not mine. I was indeed fired the next
day, but I believe the Athearn incident was more of a last straw than
an advertiser demanding 'his way or the highway.'
"The story has a very happy ending: I joined Bell Labs two months
later and in 2001 took early retirement from a 20-year career at
Telcordia Technologies, a successor company. Had it not been for Hal
giving me a chance to hone my skills at RMC, I would not have been
hired by Bell Labs, and I would probably not be editing MRP, working
for MR as a contributing editor, or writing books for Kalmbach. Hal
and Phyllis are good friends, and Judy and I go to dinner with them
now and then. Hal and I chat about our kids and various hobby matters
by e-mail, and he is aware of my gratitude to him for my 12-year
stint at RMC."
--
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