So who is this DRCOLLIE guy?

[drcollie]

A lot of folks think the "DR" in DRCOLLIE stands for doctor, but it doesn't - they're just my first and middle name initials (hey, maybe I'm a doctor of furniture?)

Since I own this forum, and have over 2,000 posts to it, moderate it and some of you will purchase from my store, I'll give you a little history and background of who I am and how I got here.

I was born in 1954 in San Antonio, Texas on an Air Force base hospital. Mom and Dad moved to Whiteman AFB in MO when I was 2 years old, where my father was Squadron Commander of the 407th Bomb Wing flying nuclear-equipped B-47's. Today that base is where the B-2 Stealth Bombers call home. In '63 he retired and joined the FAA, which took us to several places including St. Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City and ultimately Washington DC where he became Chief of Airline Safety Standards (those of you that are in the airline industry my father wrote most of FAR's Part 121 and 135).

I went to High School at Kirkwood High, Missouri and graduated there in 1972. My passions were motorcycles and cars, which my wife will tell you continue to this day and likely always will. I worked at motorcycle shops all through my teen years and college, and raced Husqvarna's on the motocross circuit.

Graduated from Florida State University in 1977 with a degree in Political Science and somehow found myself in the Grocery Business where I worked in the Florida Division of Grand Union Supermarkets as a store manager and later in the buying office at division HQ. Gallo Winery hired me away from Grand Union and I worked in Florida as Key Account Rep from Miami to Vero Beach, but that job was a real meatgrinder where you worked far too hard but got a heck of an education in marketing and sales. On the weekends, my wife and I were always out racing or playing on the ocean on our Supercat catamaran off the South Florida Coast.

My Father retired from the FAA and opened an airline consulting business which specialized in doing assessment of various airline operations for a fee, prior to FAA Safety Audits. Turned out he was in high demand for his services (who better to hire than the guy who wrote the rules?) and needed help, so I agreed to move to Washington DC with my new bride and get into that business.

We needed an office, and bought a small office condo in the same space I still am located in. Since we only needed a couple hundred square feet for the airline biz, we walled off the back and let Mom have the front of the store for her dream - a reproduction furnishings store she named 'The Keeping Room'. Thing is, while Mom had a great eye for style and product, she was not a very good business person and had no concept of margins and operating costs, or the hundred other details that running a business requires. I brought those skills to the table to make the little store profitable.

I hated the airline business. We spent most all our time on the road at various airlines an after six months of checking over flight attendant training records for eight hours a day I KNEW that was not for me. Meanwhile Mom's little shop started getting more and more customers and as my background was in retail, sales and merchandising, I fit right in. So we expanded the store (three times!) and that's how I got into the furniture business.

A hallmark of our store has always been to sell quality goods, and moreso in the specialty and handcrafted end of things. Since 1981 we've seen a lot of trends and survived the bad times by going lean (still lean!) and we have never had a business loan or line of credit. We have never even financed a store truck...running conservatively means being able to survive in difficult times and we are still standing when most the Washington area retail furniture stores collapsed in 2007.

Its been a simple formula:

* Sell at a stable, fair price. Never play a shell game with the pricing.

* Don't lie to your customers or expect them to buy something that we wouldn't have in our own home.

* Don't go into debt. Don't expand on wishful thinking.

* Demand suppliers/vendors hold to a standard and take care of issues, and if they don't, find another.

* Learn to do things yourself. (diesel mechanics, long-haul trucking, furniture repair, accounting, desktop publishing, computer repair, etc).

* Sell American made products as much as possible.

* Treat customers the way we like to be treated when we're a customer somewhere else.

* Pay all bills on time and never make excuses to your suppliers/vendors why you can't. They have a family to support, too.

I've been married to the same wonderful woman for 26 years now (she works for Fairfax County Public Schools), have a fashion-plate daughter that goes to James Madison University and a gentle giant of a teenage son who towers above me at 6' 4". I'm in the store six days a week, but you won't catch me there on Sundays. When I can, I steal a few hours from chores on some Sundays and love to go with my pals on the motorcycles and ride out to the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains for the day. Some people get high, and some people drink for a good time. For me, nothing beats the wind in the face of a spirited motorcycle ride on a curvy, hilly road. And if I'm not on my bike, you'll find me in my Porsche convertible - my other passion.

I'm a Stage IV Carcinoid Cancer Survivor. Four and a half years ago I was told to make out my will and prepare to die - and sitting in that office hearing that is something I'd hope no one has to go though. I never give up at things, and fired that surgeon who told me there as no hope - he quit on me before we even got started. That was a rough time, but I was back in the store the day after being released from Johns Hopkins Cancer Center after having a liver and bowel resection. Mom and Dad had made a mess of the computers during my week in the hospital! Though I could not lift any furniture for 10 weeks, I went down for a few hours every day until I got my strength back. Today I am cancer free thanks to the magic hands of Dr. Micheal Choti at JH in Baltimore, one of the best cutters on the planet. I volunteer to help a lot of people across the country with their Carcinoid Cancers today that are scared and confused with their diagnosis and find it very rewarding to do so.

I started this forum to help educate folks on how to buy furniture and what to look for, and its been very active and successful (though I wish more people 'in the trade' would help me answer questions). Its been my observation over the years that the furniture industry does a poor job of educating the retail consumer, and most people are pretty smart. If you give them honest and correct information and knowledge of what to look for, they'll figure out the right product to buy.

That's about it!