The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 25

TV log C2 Classified ads C3-16 Honolulu Advertiser Monday, June 2, 1980 3: -f iVti III tltr Vi I s-W. Doing big business with one little dog Advtrtiur pnoto Fred Scroggin: "If they go, we go." The Klingborg sisters June Dutton (left) and Connie Boucher both divorced, both bleached blondes, and both making a mint off Snoopy. By BEVERLY CREAMER Advertiser People Editor is cap "Doesn't Snoopy have a sister?" wrote so many children that the two decided maybe they'd better come out with a doll of the sister that has appeared sporadically in the comic strip. So a plush "Belle" was born. Connie, president and co-founder with graphic designer Jim Young, says the sisters control 70 percent of the international rights to Snoopy and all other Peanuts cartoon-strip characters created by Charles Schultz.

They're licensed by United Feature Syndicate Inc. to merchandise almost everything they can think of, and then some. the wildlife ring By RONN RONCK Advertiier Staff Writer ins TVs just grown along the way," explair Connie in her staccato voice. She's gc a got Ranger Ricks Pledge I give my pledge as a member of Ranger Rick's XaturejClub To use my eyes to seethe beauty of all outdoors. To train my mind to learn the importance of nature.

To use my hands to help protect our soil, wafer, woods and wildlife. And, by my good example, to show others how to respect, properly use and enjoy our natural resources. charity too," says Connie. "And we'd always admired Charles Schultz. He worked out of Santa Rosa, so I called him and said we loved Snoopy and the strip and he writes what we all think about but don't know how to say." And she told him they'd like to follow up their Pooh portfolio with some Snoopy things.

Schulz knew about and liked her first meri chandising efforts and her candor apparently won his heart. He sent her off to talk to the United Feature syndicate that handled his work. "And they said, fine, let's do it," says Connie. She and Jim were in business, a business that has grown naturally and has set the tone for future graphics ideas throughout the retail gift industry. Today, they have a con tract with the syndicate for the next 10 years, pay it a percentage and make a nice profit themselves.

1 But ask them how much profit and they just The products, the success, the expansion have snowballed down a long endless hill and on many occasions brought absolute delight to the sisters. "It sounds too sweet," says June, "but you go to any airport in the world and there's a kid dragging a Snoopy." i "Look, Connie, look," June will whisper and a feeling of sharing a secret will wash over them. i For the first few years, the products were just for adults. A calendar (now in its 20th edition), date-books, T-shirts and sweatshirts with renowned Schultz sayings, such as "I love mankind, it's people I can't stand" or "I think I'm allergic to morning" or the book "Happiness is a Warm Puppy." They began branching into the children's' market. "We've added things as we thought they were valid what we would like to buy.

We produce the kind of things we'd buy for our" children and grandchildren," says Connie. "It's developed very naturally." i Puts in June: "People liked it and wanted more, so you just do more." Charlie Schultz can thank his lucky stars the Klingborg sisters have taste. But then, if they didn't have taste, they wouldn't be doing business with him. He still has final say-so over everything and manages to exert his influence in small ways: tapering the nose of the new Belle doll ori straightening the embroidered eyes of a white plush Snoopy. June joined the company about seven years into the business and a couple of years before her divorce.

The kids joined as they came of age and showed both interest and talent. Mom, at 78, walks to work, handles all the direct mail and feels she is the sole determinant of how hard the rest of the crew should work, Presently Connie's son manages the compa- ny in the United States; June's son manages it in the Orient; and one of June's daughters is in the art department helping dream up new; ideas for toiletries. "There's no one," says Connie, "who doesn't like Snoopy." Particularly, she might add, if your name! started out as Klingborg. i One of them is worth upwards of a million bucks and that's probably conservative and doesn't include her octagonal Victorian San Francisco home, one of two in the city declared historical landmarks. The other wears thick, but understated gold on her arms, designer silk clothes, cracks jokes with dry humor and calls home a brown-shingled Sausalito hillside house overlooking the bay.

When she's there. They have an apartment in Paris, factories throughout Asia, distributors and sales representatives around the world, hot new lines in Japan and Italy, and dozens no, hundreds of products pouring into the stores as fast as they can They travel eight months a year, sometimes with mom, sometimes with each other, sometimes with half the artistic staff, checking in and out of hotels as fast as their smart little designer pumps will carry them. They're such familiar faces at their regular hotels that they leave extra luggage or product samples behind 'til next time. They were born 11 months apart, have rarely disagreed on anything and adore each other's kids, each other and each other's friends. For a good many years of their adult lives they monopolized an entire block in San Mateo, living in houses next door to each other and to mom.

was really nauseating for a lot of people," admits one.) They're the Klingborg sisters Connie Boucher and June Dutton both divorced, both bleached blondes (of varying hues) and, with a little help from mom, the kids, and some good friends, they've built a business empire on what may well be the world's favorite comic-strip character. Snoopy. Yup. The biggest chunk of it is theirs. The Snoopy dolls (like a "doggie Barbie doll," explains a sales rep), the Snoopy furniture, the mugs, the books, the Snoopy clothes (for babies, children and adults), the soap, the the sheets, the calendars, the glassware, the games.

The list is endless, but doesn't include cards (Hallmark has that) or totes, hats and bags (Butterfly Inc. has that) or luggage and jewelry (Aviva has that) or mechanical toys (Hasbro has that). They have massaged it all into a fortune in business for their company Determined Productions was all we had to start with, determination," says Connie) and managed to employ most of the family into the bargain. Ask them how many Snoopy dolls are in circulation and they shrug. There's no way, they say, to count.

Their own mailing list has grown to 60,000 satisfied customers, many of whom write year after year. "They love to write and tell you all about their Snoopy," says June. Many of those letters, says Connie, have resulted in new so much energy, says her sister, that when they travel together she's often up in the middle of the night calling halfway around the world to make new business deals as June lies in bed awake wishing Connie 'd just quiet down, for gawd sakes, and go to sleep. Connie and June passed through Honolulu the other day, heading home from a swing through the Orient to check out the factories and the latest products and to worry, as they find themselves doing often these days, about quality. They are always scouting new places for factories (they added China to their list this trip) where they can hit that magic balance between quality and price.

They were quite happy to talk about how it all began, where it's all going, and how they're getting there. Today, says Connie, stabbing a finger in the air, a woman has a chance to succeed like she never has before. "Is it still possible to make a million dollars?" Merv Griffin asked her just a couple of weeks ago on his TV show. "The frontier, it's out there, more than ever," she says. "Don't think it's too foolish to try.

Try. So you may fail. So what? That's always been Connie's philosophy and 20 years ago when this whole wonderful, crazy business began, it stood her in good stead. She was working at Magnin's and she and coworker graphic designer Jim Young (they decorated windows together) liked to do charity balls on the side. One year they got the idea of hauling a barge down from Santa Rosa and populating it with animated animals designed by Jim.

It was such a smash with the kids that the two put out a coloring book of Jim's animals. And that was such a hit they started casting around for something else to use for a second coloring book. "June and I had been raised on Winnie the Pooh," says Connie. And she thought: Why not Pooh? So she got the rights to put out a Winnie the Pooh coloring book, using all the original drawings. It was a hit too, a bestseller.

"We were teaching children about the classics, they were coloring really good art and we were introducing them to literature," says Connie. Just about the time they really started seeing the potential of such things and after they came out with their Pooh puppets and stationery Walt Disney bought up all the rights to Pooh and suddenly they didn't have a product. Then Connie got another bright idea. "We were looking for other projects, for Earth its current anti-nuclear stand. The National Wildlife Federation is interested in just about everything and can sometimes act as an umbrella group for all the others to stand under." Although Scroggin keeps office in Dry Ridge, the Federation's main headquarters is in Washington, D.C.

where the paid staff there are 400 salaried employees nationwide is headed by Thomas Kimball, the executive vice-president. Each of the 50 states and the U.S. territories have their own chapters. In Hawaii the local affiliate is the Conservation Council for Hawaii which linked itself with the Federation in 1972. It holds public forums on environmental issues, provides expert testimony at public hearings, publicizes threats to the state's endangered species and coordinates Hawaii's contribution to the annual National Wildlife Week.

A current educational aim involves the Conservation Council's fight to end what it calls "mismanagement" of public lands where introduced animals are reducing the forests on Mauna Kea. This is the living area of the endangered Palila bird. The word "conservation" wasn't used much in 1936 when a small coterie of hunting and fishing enthusiasts banded together to start the National Wildlife Federation. For many years it remained exclusively an arm of sporting clubs but broke out of that mold in the late 1960s and 70s as the country caught environmental fever. One key word today is "habitat." Supporters of the Federation's policies believe that if the planet is made safe for deer and bass it will also be safe for human beings as well.

"Once you have an environment where wildlife can't exist it won't be too long before we disappear too. We're not that far up the biological ladder. If they go, we go." The other key word is "education." According to Scroggin, the Federation spends 65 percent of its yearly budget on education. This includes the publishing of two slick, full-color magazines for adults, "National Wildlife" and "International Wildlife" and another for youngsters called "Ranger Rick's Nature Magazine." Ranger Rick is a "curious racoon" explains Scroggin and the magazine is a membership benefit for those kids who belong to "Ranger Rick's Nature Club." "The main concern of the National Wildlife Federation," he says, "is to hold onto what we gained in the past decade. I like to refer to the 1970s as the 'Golden Age of A lot was accomplished then that we are now in danger of losing because of the oil shortage.

The energy crunch is likely to embarrass the environment considerably before its over." Scroggin says that all of the major conservation groups supported Jimmy Carter for the nation's highest office and that, with a few exceptions, he's been a good environmental president. The National Wildlife Federation gave Carter it's top award last year. "He's certainly not perfect, though. While he may be an environmentalist, he's also a politician who wants to get reelected. The environment will likely suffer a little bit due to his ambition to stay in office." Dr.

Fred Scroggin, a "good old boy" from the farmtown of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, answers his hotel room phone with a drawl that doesn't seem at all out of place these days in Waikilri. The voice is open and friendly. "You standing in the lobby?" he asks. "Well, wait right there and I'll be down in a minute. I'll be the guy with glasses, wearing a National Wildlife Federation ball cap." Sure enough, the cap's easy to spot.

His handshake-is strong and joined by a pat on the shoulder. His smile is warm and as wide as they go. Yes, sir. This is clearly a man not embarrassed to belong to Ranger Rick's Nature Club. Later, sitting on a patio couch facing the beach.

Scroggin talks about himself, the environment today and of his job as three-term president of the non-profit Federation, the largest private conservation organization in the world. "It's the case of a country boy who grew up on a farm and decided to be a doctor," says Scroggin as he lays his cap on the table. "After going to medical school I went to New York to be a surgeon and didn't like it. There was no time to hunt and go fishing. "When World War II came up I joined the Eighth Air Force as a flight surgeon but then returned to Kentucky to go into general practice.

I live in a rural area now and there are two other doctors who help out with my patients when I'm away on my trips." Scroggin says he's away from his office over a hundred days each year, making speeches and talking to government officials on behalf of the Federation's nearly 5 million members and contributors. No other group of environmentalists has that kind of clout. Best known to the general public through its extensive mailings of yearly Wildlife Conservation Stamps the 1980 theme is "Save a Place for Wildlife" the National Wildlife Federation is currently aiming its big guns at dozens of natural heritage projects. It's involved in battles to protect migratory waterfowl, whales, bald eagles and even endangered caterpillars. The group has purchased thousands of acres for refuge lands and this year will award research fellowships totaling $100,000.

Needless to say, there is no lack of applications. "Most conservation organizations have primary purposes. The National Audubon Society has its birds, the Sierra Club its wilderness camping and Friends of the They broke all the rules and came out winners s-: 1 A By BETH ANN KRIER Lot Aogelet Timet Service LOS ANGELES As businesswomen, the two housewives made all the classic They went into business with relatives (they're sisters). They read the "Women's Dress for Success Book" and bought briefcases to strike a corporate image. But when they showed up at the bank and one of them opened her briefcase, she'd forgotten to remove her daughter's Barbie doll clothes from it.

They decided to keep the Barbie clothes but get rid of the briefcases. They hired people based on their qualities, not their qualifications (they sent a smart, honest friend to study with an accountant so she could be their business They went into business with' no money and laughed all the way to the bank, even when they were overdrawn. They vowed not to do business unless it was mixed with don't do any business unless! it's fun. At monthly employee meetingss they asked their staff of 40, "Is! there anything you're doing in your jobs you don't like to do?" If soj they found ways to change the jobs to please the employees. When employees asked what? their titles were, they asked thej workers to create the titles them-j selves.

I They insisted that attorneysj bankers and other professionals talk to them "like normal people." Continued on Page C-2 Chrlttltfl Sconce Monitor ptore Peggy Jones and Pam Brace: more sisters who made it. 'iff..