[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12847-S12848]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO ALLEN GARTNER
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Allen Gartner is one of Vermont's real
citizen treasures. He was recently honored by the Rutland Region
Chamber of Commerce on their 100th anniversary. I ask unanimous consent
that a letter I
[[Page S12848]]
wrote and an article about this honor be printed in the Record.
The whole Gartner family represent the best of Vermont and Marcelle
and I value their friendship.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Patrick Leahy,
U.S. Senator,
October 1, 1998.
Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce,
North Main Street,
Rutland, VT
Dear Friends: My mother was wrong.
She always told me that if I wanted something done right, I
should do it myself.
What I learned a little later in life was that if I REALLY
wanted something done right, I needed to ask Allen Gartner to
do it.
Allen personifies Rutland--his love of his family, his
sense of the broader community, his deep spirituality, and
his sense of the broader community of which we are all a
part. Most important for his friends in Rutland and all over
Vermont is an indomitable sense that if you work hard enough,
and if your cause is just, anything is possible.
It is fitting that Allen is honored by a group as respected
as the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce. But Allen, by the
life he leads, the work he does and the joy he brings to
others, honors all of us every single day.
Sincerely,
Pat.
____
[From the Rutland Daily Herald, October 5, 1998]
Allen Gartner, Business Leader With a Sense of Charity
(By Laurie Lynn Strasser)
``Tzedaka'' is the most important word in the Hebrew
language, Mintzer Brothers co-owner Allen S. Gartner said
last Thursday after receiving the 1998 Business Person of the
Year award from the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce.
It means ``charity.''
``I was raised that this is the greatest country in the
world, by a long shot,'' said Gartner. ``It was our
obligation to give back to the community. My parents not only
spoke those words, but they lived by those words.''
In conferring the honor, Rutland Chamber of Commerce
Executive Vice President Tom Donahue rattled off a litany of
boards that Gartner has served on. Donahue added that if he
listed all the extracurriculars and charities Gartner had
helped, ``this luncheon might turn into a dinner meeting.''
In an interview afterward, Gartner said he felt honored by
the award, but that recognition was not the point.
``Whatever I'm doing, I need to do because that's what
people should do,'' he said. ``The bottom line of business is
not what's important. That's not what we're on this planet
for. We're only here a speck anyway. Really, it's just a
blip. What's important is the welfare of the community.'' His
father, the late Walter Gartner, used to say that the best
form of giving is anonymous. His father made it out of Nazi
Germany in the nick of time, but lost the rest of his family
to the Holocaust. After World War II, he married and bought
Mintzer Bros., a fuel oil and grain business that had been
founded in 1926.
Walter Gartner's wife, Margot, gave birth to Edward in 1945
and Allen in 1949.
The younger Gartner still recalls the days when customers
bought berry baskets, syrup cans and laying mash. By the
early 1960's, the emphasis had switched to building supplies.
Gartner worked at the Strongs Avenue store in the summers
between his graduation from Rutland High School in 1967 and
Union College in 1971.
He spent his junior year abroad in France. Just last year,
he returned to Paris for an emotional reunion with his host
family. The people he last saw as teenagers are now in their
40s, he noted.
Gartner earned a bachelor's degree in political science and
modern languages.
``I have a passion for politics,'' he said. ``To me,
politics is conflict and compromise.''
He went on to pursue an advanced degree at New York
University Law School, although he never intended to become a
practicing attorney.
``I spent the first 20 years of my life trying to be a
peace-maker,'' he said. ``The first day of law school, the
professor's asking, ``What would your argument be? It was
always anti-thetical to what I believed, but it was good
education. I refer to my law school education almost every
day of the week.''
It wound up taking him seven years to finish at NYU because
his father had suffered a stroke. Living with relatives on
Manhattan's Upper West Side, he would attend graduate school
then work for one semester each year.
``I'd go down to the pay phone in the basement of the law
school library and make phone calls for the business,'' he
recalled. ``I'd do this every day, buying and selling lumber,
calling customers.''
Gradually, he and his brother, Edward, took the reins from
their father. Walter Gartner died in 1983.
The brothers opened another Mintzer branch in Ludlow in the
early 1980s. Three years ago they expanded again into the
Route 7 south space vacated by Grossman's after it went out
of business.
In the coming year, Mintzer Bros. may face its toughest
challenge in 70 years. Home Depot, the largest hardware chain
in the world, has indicated an interest in opening a large
store in Rutland.
``Big orange is a dose of reality,'' he said referring to
Home Depot's theme color. ``You've got to fight the good
fight, fight it as best as you can. Business today is war.
I'm not sure I'm cut out for war.''
Gartner was instrumental in recruiting area merchants to
form Rutland Region First, a grassroots organization whose
goal is to stop Home Depot from locating in the area.
No matter what happens with the business, it is important
to keep perspective, said Gartner. He has faced worse
hardships, including the loss of his firstborn daughter when
she was six days old and chronic back pain for the past 17
years. Financial challenges are not as important as keeping
his family intact, Gartner said.
Just like when he was growing up, Gartner still plays the
role of peaceseeker, but these days he has taken the quest to
an international level.
Last week, he met Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was
in Washington, DC, to parley with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
``It pains me to see Palestinians mistreated,'' he said.
``I'm a Zionist, but I think we've got to live together.''
Committed to the Middle East peace process for the past
decade, he shaved off his beard when he learned of the
historic 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt. When Yasser
Arafat signed a treaty with the late Isaac Rabin in 1993,
Gartner was there on the south lawn of the White House.
``It was a most emotional moment for me,'' he recalled,
describing weeping Jewish and Arab Americans throwing their
arms around each other.
____________________