Marvin Caligor
If you worked for Marvin Caligor, every day was a business lesson. And it was a lesson you weren’t likely to forget.
“Marvin’s greatest strength was knowing how to deal with people properly,” says Sam Zambardino, account manager for Henry Schein Medical, who went to work for Caligor in 1980. “I mimic and copy him to this day.”
Caligor – who took over the drugstore and surgical supply house that his father, Sam, had started in 1921 – died in March.
A company built on respect
Marvin learned how to deal with people from Sam, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. Speaking with Repertoire in 2005, Caligor said of his father, “He built his business on people and respect. He always called doctors ‘Doctor,’ and they called him ‘Sam.’” He even treated late-paying customers with respect, Caligor added. Sam Caligor died in 1959.
Originally established as a pharmacy, Caligor expanded into medical sales. That’s not surprising, given that the company was situated within two or three miles of some of the country’s biggest hospitals, such as Lenox Hill, Mount Sinai, the Hospital for Special Surgery, Beth Israel and others. Over time, the company built a strong hospital and physician trade while maintaining a viable walk-in pharmacy.
In 1969, Caligor sold the business to Eckmar Corp. (later renamed Health Chem Corp.), but the sale did relatively little to change the way the company operated. Caligor continued to operate the pharmacy and distributorship much as he always had.
The company rented warehouse space in Long Island City from Health Chem, from which Caligor shipped bulk items to local hospitals. Still, Caligor was shipping more than $2 million of goods annually from the storefront at 83rd and Lexington at the time the company was sold to Micro Bio-Medics in 1982.
After the sale to Micro Bio-Medics, Caligor’s physician office business took off. Whereas just a handful of sales reps personally called on physicians prior to the sale, ultimately, approximately 200 were doing so. What’s more, Caligor finally got its own warehouse – a 40,000-square-foot facility in Mount Vernon. Even after that, however, Marvin Caligor spent most of his time in the store, nurturing his relationships with customers.
Henry Schein acquired Micro Bio-Medics in 1997.
Led by example
In 1980, Zambardino was a college grad, working as a carpenter while trying to land a job as a pharmaceutical rep. Lacking a science background or sales experience, he struck out many times. “One day my dad showed me an ad in the Yellow Pages for Caligor Physicians and Hospital Supply Corp., so I mailed them a resume.” He received a handwritten note inviting him to come in for an interview.
“I walked from the subway at 86th to 83rd, in a three-piece suit,” he recalls. “When I got there, the old canopy was ragged and I thought, ‘This must be their warehouse.’” But when he got inside, he could see that half was a retail pharmacy and half was a medical supply business being run out of 150 square feet or so. “People were on the phones, doctors were buying stuff over the counter,” recalls Zambardino.
Working for a small pharmacy and medical distributor wasn’t what Zambardino had in mind, but Caligor offered him a job. Zambardino stalled a couple of weeks, until Caligor told him he needed an honest answer from the young man. “That was my first lesson from him: You had to tell him the truth. He could see through everything else.” After a couple of months with the small company, Zambardino decided he would never leave.
“I was mesmerized by Marvin as he openly worked to teach me everything he knew about his company,” says Zambardino. “And I soaked it up like a sponge. Marvin immediately made me feel welcome and gave me the utmost impression I had a long career ahead of me if I chose to. Well, here we are in 2018, still at it.
“Marvin taught me how to treat a customer,” he continues. “He led by example, as I would watch him interact with customers on a daily basis. Either on the phone or in the store at 1226 Lexington, Marvin would stop what he was doing and either tell or correct me when I did it wrong.
“But he always did it in such a way that you were always eager to learn more.”
83rd and Lexington and a milk shake
Just as products were often staged on the sidewalk in front of the Caligor pharmacy, so too was the deal that would make Caligor Physicians and Hospital Supply Corp. part of Micro Bio-Medics in 1982.
“I was called by an investment banker, who told me this company was for sale,” recalled Bruce Haber, who was CEO of Micro Bio-Medics, speaking with Repertoire in 2005. At the time, Micro Bio-Medics was a $2 million company focusing on the school health marketplace. “So we went to meet Marvin.
“It was a retail store on Lexington Ave., which wasn’t what I was expecting of a company doing $8 or $9 million of business. There was no place to meet, so we stood on the corner talking. It was winter; we were freezing. Finally, someone got the idea to go to the candy store next door and talk about this over a milk shake. So we started the deal standing on the corner of 83rd and Lexington.”