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
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