The Post-Crescent from Appleton, Wisconsin • 43

November 30, 1 986 Sunday Appleton-Neenoh-Menasha, Wis, Restaurateur Van Asten. emphasis FVTI was giving the sales program and on what their intent was for the Computer Analysis Center. Goode said the dealers association specifically wanted to avoid having the center make referrals to specific Your career Direction Continued from page 1 "I have attributed, almost totally any success I would ever have to what I learned from both my parents Mike Van Asten said. "I would never have survived without that background." He started working at Gordy's also at age 4. He was general manager when he left his parents' company in 1980 to open the first Sandwich Factory in Kimberly.

He didn't go far, just to the other end of the Sunset Plaza shopping center. Van Asten and his father keep their Companies independent, financially and corporately, but they see each other daily and trade advice and inspiration. "I think we motivate each other and I think we're immensely proud of each other," Mike said. He went on enthusiastically to describe what a feat it has been for his father to survive for 25 years in the grocery business when no one else has in the Fox Cities. His father agreed that they feed on each other's motivation, and expressed an equal amount of pride in his son.

He might prefer that they were working together for Gordy's Food Fair, but he saw he had no choice in his only son he also has three daughters going off on his own. "Yes, I would rather have seen him stay in the grocery business," Gordy said. "But a person has got to do what he wants to do or he is not going to be successful." Mike knew his father's preference. "Every true entrepreneur needs to do it on their own, even if there is no logical reason whatsoever for doing so," Mike said. "There is no logical reason to walk out of a multimillion-dollar operation and start waitering in a restaurant." Some might say a small business taking on two major restaurant projects at the same time is also illogical.

Van Asten sees them as sure things. The banquet hall in Kimberly, called Liberty Hall, seeks to tap a market Van Asten has seen through his catering business, Incredible Edibles. Hecaters regularly for more than 400 corporate clients, including Kimberly-Clark Guardian Life Insurance the Fox River Mall and Shopko, "These companies were crying back for meeting space," he said. Liberty Hall will have a main hall seating groups up to 600, and smaller meeting rooms and a cocktail lounge for 300. It will live mainly on corporate meetings and seminars, but will also take weddings and other gatherings, such as bowling banquets.

Van Asten intends it to be about the classiest setting the Fox Cities have to offer for a gang in bowling shirts. "Because it is meant for corporate business, the design is very much meant to compete with places like the Paper Valley and the Radisson," he said. The main hall will feature six 10-by-10-foot crystal and glass chandeliers and an oak buffet with a slate top. Van Asten has commissioned a New York sculptor to make an 11-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty and has purchased a collection of stamps and coins from other countries honoring "the Lady." Van Asten said he is more than 50 booked for next year and has a number of bookings extending into 1988. Liberty Hall will operate as a restaurant on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Wednesdays the menu will be regional American with Cajun, Creole, Tex-Mex and other cuisines. Friday will feature seafood and Sunday traditional family meals such as ham and roast chicken. That approach of combining regional and traditional American food will also be used at "The Grand American Cafe" in The Avenue. "The single unquestionably highest concept in the country today is treating regional American food as ethnic food and that is what the Grand American Cafe is all about," he said. On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Van Asten found it had 28 Ethiopian restaurants with a line of people waiting outside each one.

The Fox Cities may not be ready for Ethiopian food, he acknowledges, but they are ready for Cajun blackened redfish, a true Philadelphia steak sandwich, salmon salad with fish flown in fresh from Washington state, or Tex-Mex stuffed burritos. The other "regional" food will be the stuff Midwestern moms used to make every Sunday scalloped potatoes and ham, roast chicken and fluffy dumplings, bacon wrapped in round steak (pigs in a blanket at my house). "I go home to my mom when I want this kind of food. Mom is a great cook. Everyone's mom is a great cook, but I don't think everyone's wife is a good cook." With wives and husbands both working, many people do not have time to make that kind of meal, he said.

"I don't think we've lost our taste for these kinds of things, but I don't D-7 dealers, something it appeared might happen. "We want them to help people learn how to evaluate the dealers and prod- ucts," Goode said, "not to make sales referrals." career DIRECTED programs for Adult Learners (414) 684-5955 Continued from page 1 Ken Penniston, director of operations for the Koehn Institute at the UWO, said the school had a "fair amount of pressure" internally to participate, as well as pressure from IBM. This is the first year that UWO is in the program, and Penniston said it has had no complaints from local computer dealers there. "We actually haven't had any contact with any local venders," he said. "We're not trying to compete and actually it involves a fair amount of work for us." Jim Monahan of IBM's New York office denied the company was putting its dealers at a price disadvantage by selling to schools.

"IBM has no control over the final sales price from the university to its customers," he said. He said it was common place in the industry for "universities to supply school-oriented material to students." At the same time, he said that "certainly we hope that through the use of our product (in the schools), users will find them productive and helpful, and want to purchase our product in the future." Kathleen Dixon, program manager for education at Apple Computers, said her firm has used universities as both a marketing and development program since they got into it in 1984. She said she started with 32 universities to find out the hardware and software needs in that area. "Part of that program enabled them to resell Apple Computers on campus," she said. At present, she said, they have agreements with 255 universities and have cut it off at that point.

"We wanted to foster integration computers into the curriculum and we needed to gain a foothold and bring out an awareness of what Apple is doing. And we have been very successful," Dixon said. What led to a confrontation between Fox Cities area computer dealers and FVTI was the role of the planned Computer Analysis Center at the Bordini Center. The Computer Analysis Center is proposed to serve as a walk-in point where people can be exposed to different brands of computers and types of software without being under any sales pressure. Terry Goode of Best Software and Systems Menasha, said he sees the center as a place where people can to learn how to evaluate a computer or piece of software when they go to a dealer to purchase.

Goode is president of the Fox Valley Computer Dealers Association which takes in an area from Green Bay to Oshkosh. The association has been asked to participate in the center and has set up a four-person advisory committee to work with FVTI in developing ground rules. But the sales issue and disagreement over how the center should be structured have kept the two sides from reaching a close working relationship. Prior to the time the sales agreement had been signed between FVTI and IBM, Ross had assured the dealers that the school was not going to be pushing sales of the computers. But then came an 11-page promotional bulletin offering special prices on five different IBM PC packages between Oct.

23 and Christmas. It even included no-money-down loans through a local credit union and a bank. This prompted a new round of complaints from the dealers about the WRITE A BEST P-C CLASSIFIEDS A Personal Computer? bj mil it i OMLlLEdiiiE ri CAREER DIRECTED PROGRAMS FOR ADULT LEARNERS OFFERS A TWO-YEAR PROGRAM OF STUDY FOR A Bachelor's of Science Degree Associate of Science Degree or Certificate in MANAGEMENT Locations and Times Convenient to Your Needs Just Social Security To strengthen your financial protection, tie life insurance in with Social Security. Complete your Bachelor's Degree: Transfer your Associate Degree and other credits from any accredited technical institute, college or university to complete your Bachelor's Degree. Complete your Associate Degree: Both Liberal Arts and Management courses offered.

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The Grand American Cafe will be decorated with Van Asten's collection of autographed pictures of famous movie stars, politicians and sports figures. The pictures, valued at thousands of dollars each, are now stored in a bank vault and will be protected by a security system, he said. Sure, it's risky to open a fine restaurant in a shopping mall. Sure, it's risky to build a restaurant on foods from other areas. But Van Asten said it was also risky to build a Chicago-style sandwich restaurant in Kimberly, and then to build another one in a discount mall such as the Northland Mall.

Both have worked. it has also worked in defiance of an industry average for a restaurant's full staff to turn over in a year. He has not had to replace a single employee at the Northland Mall restaurant in its three years of operation. "We have virtually no turnover. A caring, dedicated, loyal, motivated staff that's what fuels the success behind this restaurant." He keeps them with good wages, benefits such as retirement and dental insurance not offered at most restaurants and, he said, a family atmosphere.

Van Asten said he does not have to sacrifice his own profits to have a well-paid staff because their enthusiasm makes the business run more efficiently. Maintaining that enthusiasm also requires that the business grow, he said, to offer the employees new opportunities. He can build two big, new restaurants at the same time, he said, because he has a good staff he can trust. "Your most creative, motivated people are turned on by growth," he said. When Van Asten talks about business, he makes it unmistakable that he believes intensely in the American dream.

"I am a big believer that there are more opportunities here today than there ever were," he said. "I've had the opportunity to travel extensively. Only in America, really, can things like this happen." Stock prices close mixed By John Crudele (c) New York Times news service NEW YORK Stock prices closed narrowly mixed Friday on Wall Street, where volume sagged badly as many traders stretched out their holiday by taking off the day after Thanksgiving. On the broad list of New York Stock Exchange issues, there were slightly more gainers than losers. But there were enough losses among the 30 blue-chip stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average to send that indicator down 2.53 points, to 1,914.23.

For the week, the Dow gained 25.67 points. The Dow had fallen below 1,909 during Friday's session, but it trimmed its losses in the last minutes. That kept alive, but just barely, the Dow's 20-year tradition of posting a gain on its combined performances from the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. Thanks to Wednesday's 4.64-point rise, the streak was saved, with a modest combined gain of 2.11 points. However, Friday's drop in the Dow damaged its otherwise shining post-Thanksgiving performance.

Over the last two decades, the index has now fallen four times on the Friday after the holiday and risen 16. Traders said it would be an understatement to say that Friday's stock market was unexciting. "There, is really not a lot to say," said Peter VandenBerg, a trader with Shearson Lehman Brothers. Just 93.5 million shares changed hands, compared with Wednesday's 152 million. The gap was even wider than it appeared, considering that more than 13.7 million shares of Friday's volume came in one stock, Ohio Edison.

That utility issue, which goes ex-dividend on Monday, fell 4, to 20. Investors, especially corporations that pay only partial tax on dividends, often trade utility stocks in the session before the next dividend payment is locked in. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 0.24, to 142.57, the Standard Poor's 500-stock index gained 0.45, to 249.22, and the average share on the Big Board rose 7 cents. There were 806 issues that rose in price, compared with 639 that dropped. The second most heavily traded issue Friday was Chesebrough-Pond's, which rose 4, to 65'2, on volume of 3.1 million shares.

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