Men’s Club: December 2016 News

This month the Men’s Club was treated to superb breakfasts, listened to a speaker who encouraged us to create a vision and reminisced about Gene Autry and the Los Angeles Angels.
Our Nov 1 speaker was Rob Swineford, President of The R.D. Swineford Group, keynote speaker and corporate coach. Rob had an exciting message about vision for today’s
youth (but it is applicable to all). Rob uses the acronym D R E A M as a foundation to this message.
Decide—what you want to do is his first instruction – Decisions are the seed of desire and desire renders obstacles inconsequential.
Respond is the second message. How do you respond to circumstance and failure? He reminds us that circumstances have no claim to our future.
Expand our abilities is his call to improve communication and listening skills. An example of doing this step poorly is the practice of playing with an iPhone during an interview! (Apparently, this frequently happens in today’s interviews!)
Assist others is Rob’s call for teamwork. His first recommendation for becoming a leader is learning to make your teammates better.
Move is Rob’s final reminder. He points out that movement toward success is a powerful ally. He recalled how one cold call to a customer eventually brought his business more than a million dollars in revenue. He points out that successes start by making a move toward a DREAM in the future. To dare is to do, to fear is to fail.
On Nov 15, Jack Sweeney shared memories of the 33 years that he worked for Gene Autry as advertising manager for KMPC radio, and told us the intriguing story of the formation of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.
Jack first recalled that Autry started as a telegraph operator in Oklahoma; however, during slow times at the telegraph office he strummed guitar and sang. A customer, the famous Will Rogers, overheard him and encouraged him to sing professionally.
His music career blossomed first in Chicago, and then he moved to Hollywood as the Singing Cowboy in the 1930s and 1940s. Jack’s vignettes portray Gene Autry as an easy-going good guy who fell into many great opportunities that continued to make him a financial success. For example Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a filler song on a record, but it ended up selling 25 million and was the bestselling record of all time until the 1980s.
In 1959 Jack joined the advertising team for KMPC, one of several radio stations on the west coast owned by Autry. Tension between Autry and Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Dodgers, began when O’Malley’s advertising agency moved the broadcasting rights for Dodgers games from KMPC to KFI radio. This loss caused Autry seek the broadcast rights for a new expansion team in Los Angeles, but when the smoke settled he was the new owner of the Los Angeles Angels. Despite O’Malley’s efforts to prevent another baseball team from entering the Los Angeles area, he, as a National League owner, had little power over the American League. Autry’s team was able to play the first year at Wrigley Field. As part of an agreement with O’Malley, the Angels moved to Dodger Stadium in1962 but suffered from O’Malley’s lack of cooperation.
Autry arranged for the Angels to move to Anaheim in 1966, which doubled attendance and became the home of several Nolan Ryan no-hitters.
—Jerry Allen