Q&A: Coleman is a true jack of all trades

Q&A: Coleman is a true jack of all trades

Most Vermont innkeepers come from radically different past lives. Jack Coleman, who just turned Chester's Inn at Long Last over to new operators (who have renamed the inn), is no exception. Before he was an innkeeper, he was an economics professor, President of Haverford College, television performer, labor arbitrator, writer, bank director, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia from 1973-1979. He also was director of a large charitable foundation.

Coleman is a believer in the rejuvenative power of change. In his own published words, "Except for being a child, which I've now done for 75 plus years, I have never done anything for longer than 11 years.

In addition, Coleman promotes sabbaticals into entirely different lives. For years he rook annual leaves incognito, in which he became a ditch digger, restaurant worker, garbage collector, and more. He has been a volunteer policeman in New York City and has spent several stints as an inmate while investigating prison conditions.

Although his sense of innkeeping as theater saved him from burnout, the occupational hazard of innkeepers, Coleman felt the need of something new after a decade. A little more than a year ago he and two other investors bought The Black River Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Ludlow. Although he claims to know no more about newspapering than he initially did about innkeeping or many of his other occupations -- which is nothing -- Coleman hopes to make the paper a vital part of the communities it serves, while at least breaking even.

Richard Andrews interviewed Jack Coleman for Vermont Business Magazine at his apartment on The Green in Chester.

VBM: You just finished a decade running the Inn at Long Last, How was it?

COLEMAN: Harder even than I imagined -- and more satisfying.

The hard part is that you always see so much you'd like to do better. You let bad moods come through when you shouldn't.

The satisfying part is, I had no idea how well I'd come to know guests who returned for the third or fourth visit and became very close friends. And there was enormous satisfaction and great joy in working with my staff. Some remarkable people worked with me, and gave me more than I had any right to ask of them.

VBM: How else did reality differ from expectation?

COLEMAN: Well, I'd hoped to come a little closer to breaking even. I never entertained the idea of making money. I've never had money in my life, and I've never been interested in it particularly. I know that's odd, but it's true. I suffered losses each of the years, but fortunately I had a pension which let me carry on.

I know the inn can be profitable, but it requires somebody to get out and sell the place hard. That's just not my style. I bought a lifestyle, not a market style.

VBM: A lot of people who buy inns do.

COLEMAN: Correct.

VBM: As you probably know, John Kenneth Galbraith facetiously wrote that the Vermont economy is kept afloat by the flow of cash from outsiders buying inns and going broke, I saw innkeeping backstage years ago when I guided cross-country ski tours between country inns, It's a tough business, and many people burn out in three years, How did you avoid that?

COLEMAN: Satisfaction from the people I came to know. And I have an enormous ego. I love being on stage. And here was a chance to be on stage all the time, and to share my love of the past, of good music, of good books. The inn has a remarkable library and a very impressive collection of music. So I could make the inn a kind of theater.

VBM: Do you think Vermont's economy is overly dependent on the tourist industry?

COLEMAN: No. I don't see the alternatives. The natural beauties we have, and the pastoral past we can celebrate, are the greatest strengths in our economy. This is what sets us Japan from other places.

I often quote the 1930s American historian Alan Nevins: "Vermont is every American's second state." There's a lot of wisdom there. This is the America people want to believe in, even as they pursue a different life in their home towns, a frantic kind of stepping to the tune of the day. This is what Vermont has to celebrate.

Sure, it presents problems at times -- people who don't want to change. But that problem is also a strength -- preserving these things. I'd think the inn represented one way of preserving part of that past. And that's the state's biggest selling point.

Of course, it doesn't mean jobs that pay very well. But it gives satisfaction that not only brings the tourist here, but holds a lot of Vermonters here, when young people might well go somewhere else and do better economically.

VBM: You've changed careers about once a decade.

COLEMAN: Correct.

VBM: Why?

COLEMAN: Having said earlier that I didn't burn out, I find that after eight, 10 years, I'm getting stale. I'm going over the same paths again. I'm not coming up with new ideas that excite me. And I have gotten an enormous satisfaction out of finding out new things about myself when I change strides completely.

What did I know about innkeeping before I went into it? Honestly, nothing. What did I know about being a college president before I became one? Nothing!

For my last seven years in New York City, I was a volunteer policeman. I wore a police uniform, drove a police cruiser, walked a beat on the Upper West Side two nights a week. What did I know about that? Absolutely nothing. But I learned new things about myself. I learned how to use my eyes and ears in ways I'd never done before.

Each occupation excites me and makes me want to go on and try something else. I make the same point now as a newspaper publisher. What do I know about that? Nothing. I was a columnist once, and that's the closest I came to it. But I'm learning.

VBM: What were your other occupations?

COLEMAN: Most of my paid ones have been in education. I taught at Carnegie Tech. now Carnegie Mellon; I taught at MIT; I was both a professor of economics and the president at Haverford (College). I worked as a consultant full-time in india for over a year. I took a year to teach an early morning course on television over 240 CBS and Public Television stations. I was president of a very large charitable foundation whose mission was trying to help people who weren't being helped by any other institution. Man! I got paid for doing something as exciting and as rewarding as that.

But part of the variety I've had is stepping out of those roles, disappearing from the world for a while, and trying something completely different. Usually very menial jobs, because I'm an absolute klutz with my hands. I literally do not know how to operate the VCR.

VBM: What have you stepped into?

COLEMAN: The real story began in 1973, when I took a sabbatical from the Haverford presidency with the understanding that I would not be in touch with anybody for four to five months. I would only call my oldest son every Wednesday night and tell him I was well, but not where I was or anything else.

I wanted to put aside the trappings of a college presidency -- the prestige, the bowing down. In those days, people did bow to presidents. And to see if I could make my living with my back and my arms rather than with brain and contacts.

I worked a variety of unskilled jobs. Each lasted only a month, because I had been elected chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia just before I left on the sabbatical. I felt I couldn't ask for a leave, because I had just been elected. So I would drop the blue collar job, change my clothes somewhere on the highway, and appear in the board room.

People would say, "My, you look well. You must be in Acapulco having a good time." I'd smile a bit, and go on with my business.

I was a ditch digger first. Then I was a short-order cook, sandwich and salad man in what is probably the oldest restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House in Boston. And I worked as a garbage man.

Then I thought, OK, I've got that out of my system. But I found I hadn't. I wanted to do it again and again, partly for the sheer satisfaction of physical labor and seeing accomplishment. The street was cleaner because you picked up the garbage, people had enjoyed good meals at the Union Oyster House.

But partly also the tremendous satisfaction from working with the good friends I made. I was unable to keep some friendships up afterward, because I was in disguise. I never told them any other part of my life. But a fair number have been my Friends ever since.

I did that every year for quite a while.

VBM: Did any of those people ever come to the inn?

COLEMAN: Yes. Several regularly. One job was not in disguise. The New York Times asked me to write a piece for the magazine section on the New York Sanitation Department. I said I would, but only if I could work as a sanitation man. I was not in disguise, but I did work in uniform on the back of the trucks, on the broom crew, and so on.

There's a winding flagstone walk from the inn across the lawns to the tennis courts built by two sanitation men who gave their vacation to do it out of friendship -- two wonderfully charming, generous, fun Irishmen. Others have also come, but that's probably the most touching example of what their friendship has meant to me.

VBM: You were chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia.

COLEMAN: Yes. Each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks has a board of nine people with three public representatives. I was one of the three, became chairman, and in that capacity met with the chairman of the other 11 banks across the country and with the Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington. It was a fascinating job.

VBM: I'll bet. How long did you do that?

COLEMAN: I was chairman for four years. You're only allowed to have a six-year term in total on the board, and I was chairman my last four years.

VBM: Do you feel the Fed is too powerful?

COLEMAN: No. I wish more people perhaps would stand up to them on occasion, but we've had some remarkable men in the Federal Reserve System. The contribution to the economy of a man like Paul Volcker, who was chairman a long time, is just great. And Alan Greenspan -- though more conservative, perhaps, than I wish he would be -- has been really remarkable. Our record on inflation is truly admirable in the world today.

VBM: Isn't it risky to depend on the presence of such extraordinary individuals?

COLEMAN: I don't think so. There are enough checks there. The Fed people have got to keep their ear pretty close to the ground. They've got to watch the economy pretty carefully, and if their values are different from mine, that's fine. No, I'm not worried about the power of the Fed.

VBM: Your degree was in economics.

COLEMAN: Yes.

VBM: Have you worked as an economist?

COLEMAN: I taught it a long time. And my year in television was teaching basic economics, particularly trying to reach social studies teachers to make them more at ease in teaching economics. Many people say economics is the dullest thing imaginable. We were trying to show that it really is an interesting topic, it can be taught so students will come alive.

I have been on the boards of a couple of banks. Also, my specialty was labor-management relations, and I did work for quite a few years as a labor arbitrator. Arbitrators resolve disputes between unions and management, not on what the contract will be, but how it's to be interpreted in specific cases. I arbitrated a fair number of cases for the United States Steel Corporation and the United Steelworkers.

VBM: You came to the United States from Canada more than 50 years ago, Why did you come here?

COLEMAN: I had a terrible undergraduate record, because I had so many other things going on. In my final year, for example, I didn't attend a single class in my major courses -- not a one -- and had the arrogance to go in and write the final exams anyway.

But one subject -- labor economics -- had really excited me. When I came out of the Canadian Navy at the end of World War II, I wanted to do graduate work in that field, but the degree was not available in Canada. Canada allowed veterans to take their benefits to the United States if they could show that the degree was not available.

How did I overcome that bad academic record? Well, I applied at the University of Chicago, which has one of the strongest academic departments in the country, and they admitted me. Why?

I asked that after they admitted me, and they said, well, we never ask any questions about references from the University of Toronto, because people there have the reputation of saying it exactly the way it is. And they told us, this man didn't do any work in our field, but he's bright. So I had to learn undergraduate economics at the same time I was learning graduate work.

I intended to go back to Canada, but just as there were no such degrees in Canada then, so, too, there were no jobs. I got some very attractive offers to teach general economics, but not my specialty. Meanwhile, the field was exploding in the United States. I had one child, two; I had three, four, five. My roots were getting deeper and deeper. Next thing I knew, I was applying for citizenship.

Part of my heart is still in Canada, but I'm an American.

VBM: What do you like most about the US, and what would you prefer to see

COLEMAN: What I like most is the opportunities -- the freedom to be what you want to be. I don't know anybody who's been blessed with more good luck than I have. This country has let me do things that simply couldn't be done in Canada. I love Canada, but I find things about it that are dull compared with the United States.

What would I change most here? (He pauses.) Like many another American, I am often very, very worried about the twin issues of education and race. But I still remain optimistic.

VBM: America has something of an anti-intellectual streak, which I think can get in our way.

COLEMAN: I don't know of any place that doesn't have that.

VBM: You now publish the Black River Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Ludlow. What appeals to you about that?

COLEMAN: First, it's a new avenue for me.

Second, it gives me a chance to get what I write published without somebody else having to say it's OK.

Third, I had an idol in mind when I became publisher. William Allen White is in danger of being forgotten, but he published the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette very early in this century.

White threw a challenge out to the small weekly newspaper of giving the local news, covering it in depth, showing the soul, the life, the good, the bad of its community, and believing in that community all the time. To hold a mirror to the community, but also to show it some of the other things going on in the world and how they affect the community. In his case, a small Kansas town; in our case, our towns in Vermont.

My dream is that the paper will become one more aspect of what somebody long ago called civilization of the dialogue -- covering our news in depth, in honesty. Being a mirror, but also prodding people into discussing things. Allen got into some problems in his town because he said some critical things. His response basically was, get mad at us, criticize us, but God damn it, read us.

If I've had one disappointment in publishing, it's that we haven't yet got people talking back to us, challenging us. Is that because they're not reading us? I don't know. People tell me they're reading and they disagree with some things, but they don't put it in writing.

VBM: Well, it's hard to get people to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

COLEMAN: Yes. But I want to believe we can get more people to write, and tell us how they would like to see our communities move.

VBM: In the Tribune you criticized the national press for failing to pressure Clinton and Dole to answer hard questions. Should local papers hold local officials' feet to the fire?

COLEMAN: Absolutely. I think we're too slow in moving toward that, but that's certainly where I want to go.

VBM: Can you do that without having them feel you're hostile?

COLEMAN: It's difficult. No doubt we will run into some problems. I hope that by the time we get to that kind of very honest writing, we will have established a record for integrity and for civility that will induce people to read us and be inspired by what we're saying. Inspired is a strong word, but I hope our record will inspire them. If we don't have those things going for us, there's no point in having the paper.

We'll make some enemies in the process. I'd like to think we'll also make some friends, even if some of them are grudging friends.

VBM: Is your concern for civility and integrity the reason you insist editorials be signed?

COLEMAN: Yes. I want people to know whose views these are. Also, I am trying to establish the point that three people own that paper. I'm the principal owner, but Leo Graham and Kim Nichols are co-owners. I am disappointed they have not written more editorials. I think that will come in time.

VBM: My experience running a weekly paper is that you tend to put off editorials until you've got other things off your mind. In the first year of running a paper, that seldom happens.

COLEMAN: I think that's a wise comment. I clearly have had the time to do it, whereas they have not. They've been busy filling the other pages in the paper.

VBM: The diversity of the Vermont press is remarkable. Industry norms say Burlington is the only town large enough to support a weekly paper, but we have seven dailies and a couple dozen weeklies. Have you thought about what accounts for that?

COLEMAN: No. I have heard that despite all the talk of people not reading these days, country papers are doing well across the country. Surely one reason is the genuine concern about schools, for example.

How else can you find out about your school if not through a local paper? There's no room for it on the television and precious little, apparently, in the daily papers.

VBM: Can a small town weekly be financially viable?

COLEMAN: I have to think it can be. We believe that we're on that road, but it will take a couple of years. Again, I didn't buy the paper to make money. I hope desperately, though, that I can make it at least break even.

VBM: You've been active in Chester town affairs as a library trustee, justice of the peace and advocate for education. Was it hard for a newcomer to become accepted in those roles?

COLEMAN: No. I am not aware that I have been accused of being where I don't belong. I like to think I've taken my time, that I haven't come in with answers from a different background. I have been made very. very welcome in this town. Chester people have given me an opportunity to live a life that I enjoy so much that there are no conditions other than death under which I would leave the town.

VBM: What do you think the Legislature ought to do to comply with the Vermont Supreme Court decision on school funding?

COLEMAN: I had an editorial on this before the decision, and I see no reason to change my opinion now. I think part of the answer has to lie in the no-no words of "income tax." The income tax is the fairest way to assume our joint responsibility.

The position I start from, and in which I believe very, very deeply, is these are not other people's children we are educating. These are our children. Every one of us benefits from their education, and every one of us suffers from the child who is turned out of the school unprepared to deal with the world. So I don't buy the idea that the burden should fall on, for example, the parents. It's all of us.

VBM: You are a reader, and you write a Tribune column on books. Have you read any good or bad books lately?

COLEMAN: I haven't read any bad ones.

VBM: You don't waste your time that way.

COLEMAN: No, I don't. I make a judgment very quickly. I've read some recently that I love. I've become very addicted to a short story writer whose name I scarcely knew before: Raymond Carver. His short stories are incredibly good.

My hero among short story writers has been Frank O'Connor. The Irish have a mastery of the short story form nobody else has. And Raymond Carver is certainly in the league with that.

Misty Valley Bookstore has brought 12 new authors to Chester every January the last three years now to read from their work. A couple of them are absolutely first-rate. One is an Irishman named Colum McCann. His gift will make him one of the major writers, I feel, of our time.

But since I'm desperately trying to get into the 20th century, I'm still very much with a number of 19th century writers. I love re-reading Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. We just have not matched them.

VBM: What are you planning to write?

COLEMAN: The immediate thing is an autobiography -- a book of reflections on some of the experiences I've learned from. I want to inspire more people to add variety to their lives, to step out of their roles when free to do it. I admit I've had more luck than other people, but I think each of us has more freedom to sample other lives, to walk in other shoes for a while, than we take advantage of.

Does it require courage? I don't think so. I think it requires a fair amount of luck and willingness to grasp whatever comes along, and to say, I can do that!

When I first walked into the inn, it was a terribly depressing place. It had been abandoned nine months, sitting in darkness, bankruptcy. I immediately lied to myself. I said, I know what to do with this place. That's an absolute lie! I had no idea what to do with it. But I really believe if you're going to make a difference you need to lie like that. Otherwise. you're not going to do it.

VBM: Thank you very much.

Vermont Business Magazine Apr 01, 1997