Stanley Dashew
Mr. Stanley Dashew - iTech PressJanuary 2, 2012 EXCLUSIVE: The Entrepreneur’s Top Five Resolutions For The New Year
At 95 years-old, entrepreneur Stan Dashew is a bona fide “sage for ages.” Who better, then, to seek advice on where do we go from here than an entrepreneur who has seen it all? Mr. Dashew earned that sobriquet by establishing a score companies responsible for more than 40 patents in industries diverse as off-shore navigation technology, medical equipment and mass transit. He is probably best known for the numerous patents he holds for the machinery that made possible the first bank credit card system – BankAmericard. Mr. Dashew began his professional career at the height of the Great Depression (yes, that one!) in 1936. Lessons for business, and life, leap from his still very agile mind. MC sat down with inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and avid sailor (more on this later) Stanley Dashew to share his Top Five Time-Tested Resolutions For Entrepreneurs:
Mr. Stanley Dashew - LA BJDecember 26, 2011 At 95, Stanley Dashew still finds clear sailing in business
Dashew and his late wife, Rita, were world travelers who supported efforts to strengthen international ties and promote peace. He helped fund and build the Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars at UCLA. Early start: Dashew was born in 1916 in Harlem and at age 15 started a business bottling and selling root beer. His parents owned a farm and resort cottages in rural New York, where he learned to operate and repair machines. Perseverance counts: Dashew hit his stride financially as a business machine salesman during the Depression. Surviving those lean years gave him a sense of calm. "For those who fear the economy will be unable to right itself fiscally, I say fear not, everything goes in cycles," he said. "The country is resilient."
Mr. Stanley Dashew - Practical SailorDecember 1, 2011 Looking Back on the Sailing Life
This year has been a particularly good year for sailing books. Thanks to e-books and the Internet, some old favorites are getting second lives and industrious individuals are now able to cast their stories out onto a larger audience to see where they will land. As we were putting the January issue together, we had trouble cramming them all into the magazine, and several interesting reads landed in our inbox past deadline. Here are a couple that are worth sharing. Steve “Skip” Dashew is a familiar name to many PS readers, as is his emphatic allegiance to big, fast, complex boats, including those of his own Deerfoot design. Dashew has published several books on equipping cruising boats and runs the popular cruising websitewww.setsail.com. The Dashews are currently tooling—quite comfortably, I imagine—around in their 83-foot motoryacht Wind Horse. What readers might not know is the genetic source of his technical and financial prowess. Dashew’s father, Stanley Dashew, now 95, along with friend Josef S. Klus, recounts his life as a sailor, inventor, and businessman in "You Can Do It!," a hybrid memoire/business-advice book. Dashew, who accumulated much of his fortune with a patented embossing machine that led to the modern credit card, dedicates a chapter of his book to the family’s adventure aboard their 76-foot fully-crewed schooner Constellation. A feature-length movie that dramatized the adventure turned out to be a flop (the trailer offers some hint as to why). Dashew tells how it helped him land a lucrative business contract and save his companyDashew Business Machines. The moral, writes Dashew: “Some ‘failures’ open doors to other valuable opportunities.”
Mr. Stanley Dashew - LA Business JournalNovember 30, 2011
Occupy a CareerOPED: Wall Street protesters are developing organizational and networking skills that would help in the business world.
By STANLEY A. DASHEW Monday, November 28, 2011 I have nothing but admiration for the pluck shown by the young men and women at Occupy Wall Street in Los Angeles and their counterparts throughout the country. Looking back, they accomplished at least one of their goals by calling attention to the income inequality that is running rampant in our society. The ratio 99-1 has taken on a whole new meaning. Now, it’s time for them to come in from the cold and get on with their lives no matter how daunting the task might seem during these dire economic times. I understand their trepidations. No, I really do. Seventy-five years ago when I left college to find my first job in New York, we had the mother of all recessions called the Great Depression. Even back then, we understood this particular economic downturn was something extraordinary. Yet, when I was finally offered my first job after two months of searching, I planned to turn it down because it was in sales. Stupid, right? No, just young and idealistic. I was bound and determined to be a writer, and the only corporate position I was prepared to take was in the company’s advertising department. Sales not only didn’t interest me, but I considered it beneath someone of my talents. On my way to what would have been my final meeting for the job, I was walking toward Fifth Avenue when I heard a loud noise. I looked across the street to the Empire State Building where I saw the body of a nicely dressed young man – about my age – on the sidewalk. He had just jumped from the world’s tallest building.
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With 2012 upon on us and the third year of the Great Recession behind us, it’s time for entrepreneurs – and those who would like to be – to look to a brighter New Year.
The gig: A 95-year-old sailor, inventor and entrepreneur, Stanley A. Dashew is probably best known for his invention of credit card embossing and imprinting machines in the 1950s that helped give birth to the plastic credit card industry. He has also invented other devices in such fields as shipping, mining and marine recreation. He personally holds 14 U.S. patents.