Personal Endorsement of Glorie LeFrak

[Lloyd W. Meyer]

Dear List,

I am sort of surprised and yet delighted at the long thread regarding
Glorie which prompts one of my infrequent contributions here.  This message
may come as a surprise to some of you, but I would like to give you a
little insight into Glorie Lefrak.  It was my pleasure to bring Glorie to
Steinway New York when I was President.  I hired her.  In fact she was my
personal secretary.  After an outstanding performance in that position, I
moved her into the parts department which was a shambles at the time.  I
did this for two reasons.  We were in the process of selling the company to
an outside investment group and I wanted to assure her a position there
after I left.  The second reason was I had taken Steinway to their first
PTG convention in Washington D.C. a few years earlier, and also to their
first NAMM Show which clearly showed that they needed to be more responsive
in the parts and technical support areas, but it was not met with a lot of
internal support at the time.

Glorie had precisely the kind of personality, experience, and work ethic we
were looking for to turn this around.  Her husband, now deceased, was a
very talented and highly respected piano technician in New York City and
she genuinely cared about the needs of the piano technician, having lived
with some of their frustrations first hand.  Glorie's even temperament,
sense of humor, and organizational skills were exceptional, and I can tell
you unequivocally that Glorie personally turned that department around
within the first year.  Sales of parts tripled, which was particularly
complicated while the company was up for sale, and the immediate feedback
from dealers and technicians was almost overwhelming.

This is not an easy job and, from everything I have observed, Glorie is
continuing to do everything within her control to do a first class job. 
Remember, she doesn't run the company and she was, and I would expect still
is, a very loyal company employee.  If you are having problems in this
area, I would not lay the responsibility on Glorie.  I've had to turn
around a lot of companies and, without exception, the problems invariable
are the result of higher management.

I haven't seen or spoken to Glorie in probably 10 years, so she would
probably be very surprised if she knew about this endorsement, but I think
she's an exceptional person and know that my sales would probably increase
greatly if she were to leave.

Lloyd Meyer
Renner USA