He knew the business, he knew the people, and he loved it all
DeWight Titus built his family’s company in Southern California – F.D. Titus & Son – into a model for hundreds of other local and regional distributors in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The company set a standard for growth, profitability, sales and service excellence, and manufacturer/distributor relationships, and led the country’s suppliers in responding to a changing physician market in a managed care era. A pharmacist by training, Titus sold the company to General Medical (now McKesson Medical-Surgical) in 1994. He died at his home in the Lemon Heights area of Santa Ana, California, on May 3.
“DeWight never stopped anyone from doing whatever they wanted to do to reach their potential,” said Cindy Juhas, chief strategy officer for CME, who served as vice president of marketing for Titus from 1982 to 1993.
Throughout his career, Titus freely shared his knowledge with friends and competitors alike. He served as HIDA chairman in 1983 and was two-time chairman of the HIDA Educational Foundation. He was largely responsible for rejuvenating the HIDA Educational Foundation and creating the HIDA Executive Conference. He also received HIDA’s Industry Award of Distinction and was inducted into the Repertoire/HIDA Medical Distribution Hall of Fame in 2001.
A pharmacist
The family business was founded in 1935 by Titus’ grandfather, a professional pharmacist. After his death, his son, Frank, took over the business. It was Frank’s idea to expand beyond pharmacy into the surgical supply business. DeWight joined the company in 1958.
“The lines were slow in coming, but over time, medical supplies became a major part of the company,” DeWight Titus told Repertoire in a 1999 interview. “The focus on physicians was in part because of demand by physicians coming to us for supplies, then equipment. It was an evolution rather than a planned strategy.” At the time of its sale in 1994, F.D. Titus & Son was a $170 million firm with coverage in California, Nevada, Arizona and southern Oregon.
DeWight Titus built the company on:
- Sophisticated operating systems.
- High service levels.
- Well-thought-out planning, with help from company CFO Jerry Neal.
- A generous compensation policy.
- Strategic acquisitions.
- Respect for manufacturers.
- An open management style.
Eye to eye with manufacturers
“Years and years ago, [retired Indiana University professor and medical distribution consultant] Ron Stephenson said at one meeting that we should look at the manufacturer as a customer,” recalled Titus in 1999. “That stuck in my mind.
“We treated manufacturers just like we did our customers, with respect and friendliness. We didn’t grind them for the last penny, but we set up incentives if both of us were successful.” The approach brought the company more off-invoice sales support than it would have through hard-nosed negotiating, he said.
“We found that there was an enormous amount of manufacturer support that was not price-related. There’s a myriad of things that a manufacturer can do – introduce you to key customers, provide field support, all kinds of things – if you have the right relationship. I remember one HIDA meeting where 40 or 50 of our reps attended thanks to a contest offered by one manufacturer. A lot of our growth and success came with customers whom the manufacturers helped bring us.”
The Titus culture
A family culture permeated F.D. Titus & Son, Titus told Repertoire. “There are some things you don’t realize when you’re in it, but you can see in hindsight. People felt they were part of the family. I think they felt they were treated fairly, from the standpoint of compensation and work environment.”
The mood was light at the company. “We had certain objectives, and we were going to make them. But we were going to make them having a good time,” he said.
Very little was kept secret at F.D. Titus & Son. “In any company that’s growing rapidly or has a lot of aggressive young people, there’s always an opportunity for misinformation to flow back and forth. So we had a policy that nothing was a secret. We told our reps what the sales were, what the margins were, the profits. If you wanted to know what an item cost, you could go and find out. Or if there was a question of how we priced a product, we were totally upfront about it. It took away a lot of grumbling.
A good place for sales reps
“We had extremely low turnover in the sales force,” he said. “Our people had the opportunity to make a lot of money. The high service levels and support they got from management, marketing and operations – in addition to their own efforts – enabled them to be very successful.
“We were always clear about our expectations and what we were trying to achieve. But the people who worked for us were given broad latitude on how to get there. They knew the financial resources they had. They knew the performance targets. But they also knew we wouldn’t second-guess what they were doing on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis.
“In addition, managers felt empowered to make decisions. Often times, there would be decisions with which I didn’t totally agree. But I felt it was important that they were supported so that they could become more confident.”
Support staff were empowered as well. “We wanted everyone to get involved and support that customer,” he said. “I would tell the salespeople, ‘You are only as good as the people in the warehouse pulling orders.’ We encouraged them to go back and thank those people. I don’t think there was ever a ‘them and us’ attitude between operations and salespeople.”
Seizing a growing market
F.D. Titus & Son seized upon the needs of emerging IDNs and physician practice management companies in the 1980s, helping them navigate the new rules of Southern California’s growing managed care market.
“We were fortunate to be where we were,” he told Repertoire. “We were in the strongest physician market in the U.S. We understood how the physician thought, how he bought, what his structure was, until the advent of managed care and integrated systems. At that time, we realized that a change was occurring.” Some were becoming part of practice management companies, others were merging, and others were becoming part of hospital-controlled IDNs. So, Titus put together a team of people who understood what was happening and developed strategies accordingly.
“At one point in time, in all of California, there wasn’t a major IDN group that we didn’t have as a customer,” he said. “We were relentless in how we went about it. We almost treated them as a submarket.” The company did such things as reduce customers’ inventory days by taking product into individual clinics, then individual departments, and by offering reports that customers had never seen before. “We even had people onsite for some of the larger groups.”
Cared about people
“If DeWight saw that someone had a talent, he wanted that person to fulfill it,” says Cindy Juhas, who started working for Titus in 1978 as a shared rep, with half her salary coming from Titus, the other half from the Clay Adams division of Becton Dickinson. She later ran operations and sales for the company’s branch in Phoenix.
“When I wanted to come back to California, DeWight wanted me to take over marketing for the company, because he thought I had a knack for it. I resisted at first, but he insisted. So I put together the terms and he gave me everything I needed.
“He was very open to new ideas and looked to innovate all the time. He never said ‘no’ to anything. He would vet things out, but if it was a better way to do things, he would get behind it, even if it meant an investment.
“He was blind to gender when it came to promotions. He was very supportive of talented people and would help them move up the ladder. In a sea of men in the industry at the time, he had several women senior managers.
“When you talked to DeWight, whether by phone or in person, his attention was all on you,” she continues. “You were the most important thing to him at that moment. He really cared about the person he talked to, asking them questions about all areas of their lives. I think that is one of the reasons people were so loyal to him.
“Even as Titus grew, DeWight would walk through the warehouse or any other department in the building and knew everyone’s name and would talk to them and ask how they were. Again, adding to the loyalty people felt towards him. And he was very loyal to his people; when Titus got bought, he made sure everyone had a home.
“And he had an incredible sense of humor. He made me laugh every time I spoke to him. A true visionary.”
‘He owned me’
“If I were on the front lines of battle, DeWight is the person I’d want supplying me with ammunition,” Don Kitzmiller, former vice president of Midmark (now retired) told Repertoire in 2001, when Titus was inducted into the Medical Distribution Hall of Fame. “He keeps promises and knows how to get things done.”
Kitzmiller met Titus in 1973 while working for IE Industries (now Midmark), and the two spoke weekly by phone and shared family outings until Titus’ death. “He was the pioneer in getting manufacturer reps to work on their dealers’ behalf,” he says. Kitzmiller recalls an incident when Midmark experimented with shipping its tables to the West Coast via railroad. “An entire carload got damaged, and DeWight offered to see if he could sell them at a reduced price in Mexico. From that point on, he owned me.”
Titus managed rapid growth in a difficult market – the West Coast in the “boom years,” Kitzmiller says. “He did it by getting very active in the industry. He gained knowledge and expertise from others through his involvement, and so did the industry. When managed care spread to other parts of the country, he was unselfish and offered help to others.”
In fact, Kitzmiller recalls saying to Titus almost 50 years ago, “DeWight, in the short period of time we’ve known each other, you’re very, very open about everything; you may want to consider not being so exposed about what you want to do and accomplish.” Titus responded, “Don, what everybody knows is not as important as what they are able to achieve and accomplish based on what they know.”
Industry contributor
“DeWight was the catalyst for several of HIDA’s most important programs that are still successful today,” says HIDA Senior Vice President Elizabeth Hilla. “The Executive Conference is 35 years strong and he’s the one who suggested it to start with. We had about 50 people the first year, 400 this year!” In the mid-1980s, Titus and Bob Barnes of Durr-Fillauer identified the need for a new industry sales training program and recruited John Sasen of BD and Physician Sales and Service (now McKesson Medical-Surgical) as the volunteer to lead the effort to develop it. Initially called ADVANCE, the program is now referred to as AMS Sales Training.
“DeWight was an amazing role model and visionary for the industry,” Hilla says. “He promoted women leaders before it was common. He moved the industry ahead, not just his own company. He’d stand up at an event and talk about a strategy his company was trying and didn’t worry about folks stealing his ideas. His company served the physician market but saw the value in marketing directly to IDNs and managed care organizations as the markets consolidated. He understood that trend long before others did.”
Best man
“DeWight and I came on at about the same time in the industry, and he and I hit it off,” says Jim Stover, second-generation leader of the William T. Stover Company, president of HIDA from 1987 to 1993, and former president of NDC. In fact, Titus was Stover’s best man at the latter’s wedding. The two have stayed in touch ever since. “We had a deal with each other,” he says. “Everybody needs someone to unload to, so whatever we talked about, it stayed with us.
“I never saw DeWight lose his temper or even change his voice,” says Stover. “He had a tremendous sense of humor. You could put in any situation and he would just fit, no matter the situation. He would participate and never try to make his point over anybody. He was always out to help people. He would help anybody.”
Class act
John Moran, former vice president of sales for Welch Allyn and now retired, calls Titus a tremendous role model. “When you called on him as a sales rep or vendor, you overprepared for the meeting, not just because Titus was such a big account, but because at the end of a meeting with DeWight, you didn’t want him disappointed. He made people better, because you didn’t want him to think less of you.
“I believe that today, people realize that the medical supply industry is a great one for salespeople to be in,” Moran says. “There are a few giants who helped mold what the industry is today, and DeWight is right at the top of the list. Not only did he run perhaps the finest distribution company in the country, he also gave tirelessly to the industry. There was no better ambassador than DeWight. His leadership skills were exceptional, and he was the definition of a class act.”