Does any body know if lionels ceo has a train layout?

The latest CEO is from the NASCAR diecast division so maybe he has slot cars.

Not that I've ever heard of...He's not a train guy - real or model.

How can he understand us then? If he is just seeing it from the business end profit and loss statements. Is he a marketing guy?

Gee, I've been in this hobby longer than most here have been alive, and I still don't fully understand us.  

A fresh, outside perspective is sometimes just what's needed to breathe new life into a business.  Give the man a chance! 

But to answer the original question:  No, I don't believe Howard has a layout yet.  But that certainly may change.

Few corporate CEO's do understand, thats why  theres a TV show on this subject.

The important thing is Mike Reagan Director of Customer Service has also been given the title of Director of Production as well....and he likes trains

Jerry Calabrese wasn't a train guy and I'd say he did a pretty good job. Sometimes its who you surround yourself with.

Man I want some of what you be smokin'.

I could be totally off base here, but I would think he could care less about trains he is CEO to run the business side of things. His job is to turn a profit weather it be trains or plastic cups. Weather he has a world class layout or no trains at all I don't see how it would affect the company.

A product knowledgeable CEO can be an asset - think Steve Jobs.

Don't know for sure but I think Steve Jobs had a computer

Brent

You can be knowledgeable and insightful without having a personal passion for using the product.  Examples include Joshua Lionel Cowen and A.C. Gilbert .  I doubt the person who invented and marketed the bandaid went out of his or her way to use the product more than absolutely essential.

In Major League Baseball--most general managers are not former players like they used to be in the old days.  They are business trained with college degrees.  Baseball has never been as prosperous in its 100+ year history as it is now.  I think Lionel will go down the same road.

Steve Jobs was a very unusual CEO in that all product design went through him and a small team he kept close to him.  Most CEO's can't/shouldn't try this.

Joshua Lionel Cowen and A.C. Gilbert weren't train guys, either.

Rusty

Bob Weaver has a huge layout and a tiny company.  Mike Wolf has no layout and a much more successful, larger company.  Go figure .

The CEO doesn't need to be a train guy.  He does however need to insure he does have people around him who do know the train business.  But more importantly he/ she needs to be intelligent enough to ensure that the people who do know the train business are involved with him/her in all key decisions.   Some CEOs don't ever get that and employ the "my way or the highway" style of management.  They rarely succeed.

Ed

If I owned Lionel, MTH, Atlas I wouldn't own a train layout.  It's all about sales!!!!

Hey I was just wondering like I said before.Now take what happened to me as a kid.In school I had a teacher that had a little talk about me.Liking trains to my mother who became little.Well lets just say i think my mother went overboard.Taking the teacher advise which in time.I thought she didn,t like trains.Fast forward the polar express movie.While visting my mother she was watching the polar express movie.I was just shocked blown away.So I said to her"Mother I thought you didn,t like trains."She looked at me and said"I never said I didn,t like trains!"She went back to watching the movie.While I just stood there feeling like.I had some how steped into the outerlimits.long story short.Just when you think you know somone.They still can suprise you.

Where is the tipping point between having experience with the product, not having experience and then being clueless?

I recall reading Gary Moreau, previous Lionel CEO, did not know what a "truck" was. He did what he did at Oneida silverware and tried to create different "flavors" of Lionel: emphasizing purple and trying a new logo. None of this worked.

Richard Kughn was big in real estate and liked trains. That helped, but it was not necessary. He saved Lionel.

Jerry Calabrese was big in comic books and marketing. He added new dimensions in hard times in 2008 (CC trains, e.g.).

I believe any CEO needs luck and some ideas that are meaningful to the industry (toy trains). That person also needs to be surrounded by those with ideas. Remember the guy from Kalmbach, Jim Bunte, who ran Lionel and came out with the cartoon stuff? When the sales results came in, he went out. If the cartoon stuff worked, he would have been a hero.

Then there is Neil Young, musician, who while not a CEO, was definitely a corporate leader. His motivation was his family, in particular, his son.

What does this tell us? A CEO has to have his ear to the ground, an eye for what works and, again, luck.

I have a question, if he/or she did have a layout what do you think would be different.

Remember that line from Scarface when they were teaching Tony Montana the business:

" Rule number 2 - Don't get high on your own supply".

Maybe the CEO should get an MTH starter set instead!

Well only a man who can sing, play harmonica, and guitar at the same time could make a digital recordings of chuff, whistle, and bell sound so seamless and real.

When Howard and I chatted back in July he mentioned that he has two kids that are right in the demographic that Lionel is working to reach. While I don't get the impression that he has a full blown layout at home, he mentioned that he does take sets home for his kids to play with. He says it's good test marketing. If you want to hear my whole conversation with Howard, go to www.notch6.com his interview is the third one down the page. 

A lot of businesses have been ruined when management was dominated by legal and finance types who did not know much about the product, didn't have much interest in the product, and were primarily focused on the next quarter's bottom line, not two years or five years out. General Motors in the 70's and 80's is an example, and there are plenty more. You have to know how to manage people and money to be a CEO, but it sure helps if you understand your product and your customer. I have no idea if this will happen to Lionel or not, but top management in ANY business needs to listen to the product guys if they want those quarterly numbers to be in the black. 

I'm not trying to speak for Lionel here but let's look at the facts for a second:

Mike Reagan - New head of production and head of service - Train Guy

Jon Z. - (please don't make me spell it) Chief Tech guy - Train Guy

Tom Nuzzo- Events Manager - Train guy

J Don Reece who has been with Lionel since the Kughn era- Train guy

The ratio to train guys to non train guys is pretty even. The bottom line is you have a guy who knows how to manage a business with a bunch of train guys around him and they are a team. I understand that if the person at the top isn't a train guy then everyone assumes that the rest of the company isn't, but that simply isn't true.

Where have you been?

He has been out of the business for years now.

Jerry Calabrese is still CEO and used to bead of Marvel Comics.  Howard Hitchcock is from Nascar Diecast.  Whether either or neither plays with trains is of much interest or concern to me.  

BTW none of these companies makes TRAINS, they make TOYS that are based on trains.  I would think their abilities at making TOYS would be more important than their knowledge/experience of TRAINS.

Mike Wolf does have a layout. It is in the MTH building in Columbia, Maryland. He helped build it as we'll. Mike Wolf is beyond any doubt a train guy!

Its all about the bottom line, and the folks at Guggenheim Capital Management decides who will be running the show at Lionel. Seems very strange that the execs at Guggenheim would bring in Hitchcock to take over the train division if he had not proved himself in the Nascar diecast side of the business.

In the case of A. C. Gilbert, this notion is not really correct. A. C. had a personal copy of the Car Builders' Cyclopedia, which he copiously marked and annotated for the purpose of picking prototypes for future manufacture. Hence, the origin of Gilbert AF trains usually being scale models of distinct (and distinctive) prototypes. Al, Jr. did bring train sets home for his children to play with.

Bob

Here's a thought:

Creativity, intelligence, tenacity, effort and flexibility are a heck of a lot more important

to a leader in any model railroad business than whether you love using the product personally,  and cover yourself in plaster dust and LaBelle lubricants every week .

As I understand it, A.C. was more into magic and things mechanical.  As I recall, the magic and Erector sets preceeded the trains.  (Although, I'll admit to being a little behind on Gilbert history right now.)

The fact that he had a Car Builders Cyc only proves he had a passion for getting things right and not a "train guy" as such.

Rusty

The new team just joined the TCA so I would say they have not really been involved with Lionel trains to any great extent, business or otherwise.  Yes, I know being in the TCA is not the be all end all for determining ones involvement.  But according to the most recent TCA HQ news they are all recent additions.  BigRail

It would be pretty obvious that the reason said team joined the TCA is so that they can attend York in order to make themselves available and promote the products during the meet.