The Billings Gazette from Billings, Montana • 19

p53 i 1 XT Sunday, June 20, 1971 Morning Edition 19 aft? Silltnga Sazrttf They'll destroy cars to make them safer 3 Gazette photo by Nonn HiU Franchisees learn the business Junction, Mrs. Marjorie Westrom of Mission Viejo, Bayne, Ogden Brewster of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Ed Hagerman of Colorado Springs. Doug Bayne, president of ABC Kiddies Shops of America, center, watches as four new franchisees test out a cash register, part of the training they received at ABC-University last week. From left are Leathea Jean Stassen of Grand By MURRAY OLDERMAN Newspaper Enterprise Association NEW YORK In an aircraft plant out on Long Island and at an engineering laboratory in southern California, four cars are being built that will revolutionize the automobile industry in America. Two are due for Christmas delivery, two a month later.

The cost is exactly $1,946,875 per car. Each is destined for total destruction. But from this crash program, sponsored by the Department of Transportation and financed by you, the taxpayer, will come the car of the near future (1975) which will: Let you walk away from a head-on collision at 50 miles an hour. Give you no repair bills for collisions up to 10 miles an hour. Let you absorb a side impact with minimal risk at 30 miles an hour.

Keep you alive after a rollover at 70 miles an hour. These are not armored tanks. These are practical, stylized automobiles being built by 1) the American Machine and Foundry at its Advanced Systems Laboratory in Santa Barbara and 2) the Fairchild Hiller Corp. at its Republic Aviation plant in Farmingdale, Long Island. THEY ARE designed for Mr.

Consumer to keep him from becoming another number in the highway fatility statistics. (There were 55,300 recorded deaths due to automobiles last year.) Since the National Motor Vehicle Safety Act was passed in 1966, creating what is now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government agency has had the power to tell General Motors and Ford and Chrysler what's good for the country when it comes to building a safer automobile. In April, 1970, the NHTSA entertained bids for the construction of an Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV). Fairchild Hiller was awarded a contract of $4,547,500 to build two. AMF was granted $3,240,000, also to build two.

(A General Motors token bid of $1 also put that company in the program as an automotive industry representative, but it has a later delivery date.) THE AMF-FAIRCHILD HILLER competition to produce the Experimental Safety Vehicle is an industrial race in the classic sense. In their over-all corporate pictures, the money isn't important. At Fairchild Hiller, for instance, the safety car program totaled 1.6 per cent of annual corporate revenue. At AMF, it's a half of one per cent. But engineering prestige is on the line.

To the winner, to be determined after the Department of Transportation tests the safety cars and destroys them in the process, will go a contract to build 12 more cars at an estimated $3 million. From these will come the following pred- icted changes in the American automobile: 1. Hydraulic bumpers which will reduce the crash load of a car. 2. Better door systems to reduce side impacts.

3. Improved, fireproof gas tanks. 4. Better rear vision systems provided by a rooftop periscope. 5.

Better emission control (the safety cars already meet the 1973 emission requirements). 6. Improved braking and steering systems. 7. A passive restraint system, such as an air bag which inflates in case of collision.

"We will show," says Roth, who's in charge of the AMF cars, "that a vehicle can not only be attractive but can be optimized in terms of safety." In other words, you're guaranteed to walk away from it alive. Franchi ike he her store in August, but she and her husband, manager of computer sciences for a major aerospace firm, have been planning a trip to Europe for their 25th wedding anniversary in July. "We're going to be gone the whole month of July and I've got no worries about how things will go while we're gone." "TO CHOOSE a business without really knowing the business is risky," says ex-chemist Brewster. "They (ABC) give you help on short term basis such as with real estate, the initial burst, and long range." "If you don't know what you are doing, you can get in trouble," his wife adds. "The individual wouldn't have a buyer like Vi." (Vi Krueger, ABC's buyer.) "One advantage we have over any independent children's store is the power of mass purchasing," Brewster says.

"I'm still an individual," Mrs. Stassen says, "and it's still MY store but it's OUR company. I feel secure, the security of having a family of stores." "It's a cushion between us and the suppliers," Mrs. Whenery comments. "We didn't know enough about merchandising," Del Thomas says.

"There's help available to get set up and get started. They continually work with you, advise you, counsel you." Steffensen admits that "the bloom will come off the rose" with each franchisee, after a while. He sees three stages. One is when the franchisee is completely dependent on the headquarters. The second is when he begins to go toward complete independence.

And the third is when a businesslike relationship is attained that works to a mutual advantage. Perhaps Carney, the ex-baker, sums up the feelings of the 15 new franchisees as well as anyone. "I think the small businessman is a thing of the past. Under the franchise system, you own your own business but you have the protection of big business." n-titr-nmnwr i ih.1i fiii'l 1 Fairchild-Hiller version of safety car iMijiiMiiiiii'ii i ii mi iii tuinmtmAfl By CHARLES P. RIGHTMIRE Sunday Editor Marvin Carney of Wheaton, is a 60-year-old retired baker and bakery store owner.

Anne Hamlet of Indianapolis is the young mother of two with a doctorate in psychology. Robert Stangier is a former Community Action Program executive director in ton, Ore. Leathea Jean Stamen of Grand Junction, is a bookkeeper and the only woman licensed as an artificial inseminator in Colorado. They have one thing in common. Each has paid from $8,950 to $50,000 or more to establish a franchised ABC Kiddies Shop.

With eleven others they were at national headquarters in Billings this week for a training session prior to opening their stores. For most of them, opening a store is a dream coming true. "I needed a change as far as my life's work is concerned badly," says Ogden Brewster, a former hospital lab chemist from Cincinnati, Ohio. "I had gone as far as I could. There was no advancement unless I went to medical school." "Buying a store is something we've wanted to do for a number of years," says Mrs.

Marjorie Westrom of Mission Viejo, whose store will be on the edge of Riverside, Calif. "MY HUSBAND is tired of making millions of dollars for others, of using his talents to make money for others," says Mrs. Hamlet. Her husband is a computer analyst who will be a silent partner and president of the corporation she has set up with her cousin, 21-year-old Joan Vest, to operate two stores. "We wanted to find something we could do together," Mr.

and Mrs. Del Thomas of Casper, said, "and where it was our responsibility for ourselves, where we could work for ourselves." For some others, such as Mrs. Stassen, buying a franchise was almost an impulse, triggered by spotting an ad in a newspaper. She had been working in a franchised Ramada Inn while she and her husband operated a farm and the artificial insemination business. On seeing the ad they sent for details and plan to open their store in July "hopefully the first," Mrs.

Stassen says, showing business instinct. "The rent starts the first." Mr. and Mrs. Carney had been retired from the baking business since 1967. "We've been retired four years and I kind of liked it," Mrs.

Carney said, "but he had to have something to do." With a smile, she said, "He has to have excitement and he's going to get it." And Nancy Whinery of Reno, is plan- Trust starts at home (town) Starting a national franchise operation in Billings, Mont, is an advantage, believes D.M. Steffensen, general manager of ABC Kiddies Shops of America with headquarters in the Hart-Albin building. "We're a little more trustworthy acting, trustworthy sounding. Franchising has gotten a bad connotation and being from Billings adds a bit of respectability." ABC is Billings' second national franchising operation. The continually expanding Kamp-grounds of America is the first.

Western friendship and trust paid off to several of the new franchisees in Billings for training this week. For Ogden Brewster of Cincinnati, it was the selling point. "We bought the franchise on the basis of the people we met here in Billings." The people sold Robert Strangier of Portland, too. "We came here for a day last month," he says, "and after we met and talked with them we were sold." Mrs. Anne Hamlet of Indianapolis has her lawyers and accountants look into the ABC contract.

"They felt it was one of the most concise franchise contracts they had seen, the cleanest franchise they had found." And she seemed almost a bit puzzled by the pace of western life than the and the trust of western people. Marvin Carney of Wenton, 111., said bluntly that he made his choice of a franchise "because the people out west are more friendly." ning ahead for when her children, a boy 6V2 and a girl 16 months, will be older. "I want something to do with myself when the children are older." Most of them have one other element. They have little or no experience in retailing and particularly in selling clothing. "Most people who have never been in business or are going into a new business don't know what they're doing," says Ed Hagerman of Colorado Springs whose father, a retired Air Force colonel, is buying his second franchise.

"A franchise is a little bit of a crutch," he says and then reconsiders: "A lot of a crutch." MRS. HAMLET puts it even more bluntly. "One has to have guts to go into business for yourself. This requires a little less guts," For their money, franchisees get a variety of help to open and stay open, D. M.

Steffensen, general manager of ABC Kiddies Shops of America, says. For the "basic" $8,950 franchise they get 21 items concerned with site selection, leasing, ordering the initial inventory, architectural plans, training, an operations manual and others. $50,000 will give you a "turnkey" ABC Kiddies Shop," he says, "inventory, fixtures, operating capital everything you need to open." But ABC doesn't stop there. "We provide them with full management assistance accounting, merchandising, personnel handling, Steffensen says, everything it takes to make a store successful." On a continuing basis the headquarters handles buying in bulk, accounts payable, management assistance and administration of cooperative advertising money which manufacturers frequently offer to encourage stores to advertise their products and which can be lost if the store cannot come up with its share. "We take about 6 per cent of the cost of merchandise purchased, Steffensen says.

"If all the goods -are purchased through us it works out to about 3 Vi per cent of sales." The contract, because of government regulations, does not require the franchisee to buy from ABC. But it will generally work out that he does. ABC has established lines to the sources the individual store doesn't have. "If they go direct to the source, he'll generally tell them he has an arrangement with us and they should go through us." And, Steffensen notes, buying through ABC has advantages individual buyers would lose. "If he goes out and buys direct, he misses the group buying power.

We have to go to three or four markets to complete a seasonal buy. It's expensive for a single store." "IT'S A MARRIAGE," Steffensen says. "It requires mutual trust and faith. Part of the excitement of our system is that we must sell our services on a continuing basis. We canpt just open a store and walk away from it.

I feel that we provide as much management backing for any of our stores as the district staff of any of the chain stores." How do the franchisees feel about it? Many chose to go the franchise route because of the very things Steffensen mentioned. "It might be the cheapest $8,900 we ever spent," says former CAP director Strangier. "We really don't think we can do without it." Del and Corinne Thomas looked into several Casper businesses. "We looked into a small hardware store, but I didn't know anything about it," he says. "The finance business is something I know something about, but it takes a lot of money to get started in.

We wanted something where the investment wouldn't be so much and we could still make a comfortable living." "I don't have the experience in the buying and the advertising," says Mrs. Whinery. "It's nice to have someone. When you get into trouble you have someone to call for help." "We didn't feel we were qualified (to set up a store) by ourselves," Mrs. Westrom says.

"For instance where do you go to buy paper bags to put things In?" She is planning to open American Machine Foundry version Three-movie theater coming The new wave in motion picture theaters may splash into Billings by Labor Day. Construction is to start June 28 on Cine' 3, a three-auditorium theater to be built by the owners of the Sage and Mo-tor-Vu Drive In Theaters in a renovated building at 9th Street West and Broadwater Avenue that previously held a Safeway Store and later a Gibson's Store. The new concept is designed to offer a variety of programs at one time to smaller audiences and capitalize on the economics of single concession stands, box office and buildings, says Ted Conley, new manager of the present drive in theaters. The owners hope to capitalize on the variety of films to attract a larger audience, Conley says. Grand opening is planned by Labor Day, Sept.

6. Remodeling of the building will include a new interior as well as exterior. One auditorium will have 457 seats and will be in orange and rust colors; a second will have 309 seats and will be decorated in avacodo and cream; the third will have 196 seats and will be in burgundy. Entrances will be off a common lobby. There will be one box office selling tickets keyed to the predominant colors of each auditorium.

One person will take tickets at a control point where colored carpet will guide the customer into the auditorium of his choice. Opening times for each theater will be staggered, Conley said, so the lobby will not be crowded by patrons of all three theaters at the same time. It will include a 42-foot-long, circular concession stand. A new light source, developed by the federal government for tanks, will be used in creating light for the screen, he says. It creates a whiter, more even light.

Owners of the drive-ins and the new theaters are George and Jerry Carisch who own theaters in four states plus the ones in Billings. Their grandfather started in the theater business in 1918 in St. Paul, Minn. Conley, a former Billings resident, has managed theaters in Billings, Southern California and Butte, before taking over management of the Carisch Theaters here. rr i 1 mm 1 ium Hit mil "w--v i ii vTttw looking Nonbhgasb Old store will become modern three-screen theater.