In 1987, John sold the business.
In 1979, John received a telegram from the White House inviting him as one of 150 young businessmen and women from New England to meet Jimmy Carter and his Cabinet members. Another great experience.
He formed “WeatherNet” with the idea that there ought to be weather all over the country to be seen on TV. He made a proposal to a company in Ohio and they said, “That’s never going to happen.” A month later, they became “The Weather Channel.” Wonder where they got the idea to do this…Humm mm.
Another product was Jonah Enterprises – Xray – open the cassette in the darkroom and change the film, would get dust. This company would make black lights to chow the dust. Sold a bunch of those around the country.
Xray Techniques Inc.: APD, Mt. Ascutney, Newport bought in – calibrating their machines to figure best techniques for all body parts. It was a great business until the x-ray companies developed machines that automatically figured out the technique.
Did lots of consulting around the country with billing companies. Spent a year commuting to Westbury, NY to a disposable enema bag manufacturer. They asked him to develop a product for mammography so the contact would be tight enough to improve images. Came out with a pump that made it better and stayed there one year.
John also developed an ultrasound product for the abdomen. In those days, they used an oily substance for good contact, but wiping it off required a hospital towel (to clean), adding to cost and it never quite removed all the oily stuff. John spent a week at Nicepak figuring out the fragrance for new stuff he called “SoundOff”. Within 2 weeks, the ultrasound folks came out with a water-based material, making the oily-based stuff obsolete. Oh well.
Next, John approached Steve Whitman: “I want to try selling printing.” He spent 6 months selling to colleges and hospitals.
Then came a call from the administrator of Springfield Hospital – “John. This is XXX, sounding like the Godfather said, “Be in my office, 10 o’clock tomorrow.” John went there to see 8-9 folks. “We have lots of docs here, need billing to make a for-profit operation.” JPY was hired on to help set up their billing operations.
A week later, John was told, “We need you to be the practice manager up in VT where they want us to do the billing for them.” Was there for 6 months.
Mt. Ascutney, APD, and another hospital formed “Health Focus” to manage a traveling ultrasound machine. JPY was administrator of that for 12 years.
One day, Bob Mesropian (former APD CEO and Lebanon Rotarian, now deceased) called John. John had been an APD Trustee. Bob said, “We want to hire you as VP of Administrative Services. His job was to oversee doc practices, billing telephone collections. John shared with Mespopian that he just took a new job at MHMH. John thought about the offert for a weekend, then left MHMH where he had shared it had been hard to get things done “because everything required consensus”. This was not the case at APD. John was there for 2 years and did 32 projects – Kept within 2% of a $1 million budget. Re-wrote personnel policies, secured physician contracts with MHMH, set a fee schedule for providers, monthly meetings with providers, corrected all violations the hospital had, and other accomplishments.
Then APD downsized – John was one of the first to be let go.
Within the billing company John had formed another company. Roland Zerega from Pitney Bowes (PB) came in to fix John’s machine; he complained about PB. So, John started a new buisness with Roland after John called up the distributor of a competing company and obtained exclusive rights to serve VT and NH – they were in business within 2 weeks. The computerized billing business got too busy, so Roland split off with his own company: Northeast Mailing.
At some point, Bill Babineau began working for Roland. John knew Roland was looking to sell the business and retire; he suggested that Bill purchase the company, which he did. Then John went to work for Bill for the next 20 years as regional sales manager, retiring in March 2020.
John reflected on his Community Service activities. He believes it is important to be a part of one’s community. This has included
- Running for city council
- Serving on the City’s personnel advisory committee for years
- Serving as a Trustee of Montshire Museum
- Serving on the board of directors of the regional Red Cross
- Serving on the board of United Developmental Services
- Being a member in the United Way of the Upper Valley Board; leading one campaign
- Serving on the Lebanon Health Council
- Serving on the board of Landmark bank where Paul Tierney was CEO
- Today, serving as Plainfield’s representative on Upper Valley-Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission
- Volunteering as a member on the KUA/Town study committee – meet 4x/year re: how KUA and the town relate.
Expanding on the Native American experience – Herman Agoyo was the executive director of the 8 pueblos. Herman had attended Manhattan College before returning to help his people. Herman was featured s in TIME magazine as one of the most influential Native Americans in the USA. He was a great guy to work with and passed away just a couple of years ago.
Rotary: John been a member of the Lebanon Club for 44 years; is a past president, served on week as treasurer when the club needed someone to step in, worked on lots of projects. “We put in a fence at David’s House in Hanover at the original location.” Howard Logan sponsored John’s entry into Rotary.
Garlan Hoskins asked: You were a master entrepreneur with many opportunities. Did you ever get scared about surviving?club
John: No, only my wife did. I consider everything to have been an experience. I was Bill Cioffredi’s administrator when he moved his operations into the River Valley club.
One of John’s hobbies is weather. In 1979, he noticed WNNE was starting an NBC affiliate in the Upper Valley. Knew the meteorologist, Bill Hovey and called him – ‘You send me by fax the map and the forecast, and tell Bill Loftus, WNNE general manager, that you have a presenter.” From that conversation, Barry Clark (operations manager and now a caterer) called and asked John to come in and talk.
“We need a weather person AND a reporter,” said Barry. John replied, “I do only the weather – you won’t ever have to think about it,” said John. During the week, before the station went on the air, John went to Bill Hovey and learned how to do the weather. We had to draw on the plastic – he told me it had to be 3/8” thick because ¼” will buckle. He told me other secrets, too. I came into Barry with a big map, put it up on the wall, stood in front of it, told him “3/8” plastic!” and this and that as if he knew what he was talking about. So, they hired him to do the 6 and 11 weather for $25 a day. He did the weather for two years before his other businesses got too busy for him to continue.
John tried to put amusement into his forecasts. For instance, on one night he wrote two words in giant capital letters on the plastic map: MOUSE and CAT. They meant, “moisture over Utah sliding eastward,” and “Canadian Air Tomorrow.” He’d advise his viewers: “It will be cold tonight -- #3 on your electric blanket.
Paul Tierney: How did you end up with Sue (John’s wife)?
John: Sue had 2 daughters, I had 2 sons. Today, Kristy McBain has now worked 25 years at the hospital – in charge of physician education. Cindy Taylor, Skidmore, graduate, is VP at West Lebanon Supply in charge of HR and business development. Michael, born in 1962, is currently doing photography; his wife recently became the Dean of Dartmouth College. Alan (1966), is director of computers at the NY Times – Alan’s first job was with Whitman Press.
