Swartz Glass: A Family Business

Ari L. Noonan

Special to the Mirror

   Well past the retirement age for persons who don't own their own businesses, Ray Swartz was recalling the other day how he rather primitively promoted his new company back in the 1940s, long before the era of slick, modern marketing. 

   The secret then and now, said the founder of the Swartz Glass Company, pushing back the burgundy corduroy baseball cap that he wears for all occasions, is that you have to perspire. 

   In those early days when there was a lull between customers, young Mr. Swartz, a war veteran who went to school on the G.I. Bill, would jump onto his three-wheeled motorbike and head for Santa Monica Boulevard to promote his business. 

   Apparently, Swartz has always had a knack for capitalizing on his lively personality. Turning east, he would stop at every store of significance on the south side of the street , between the ocean and Westwood Boulevard. "I would talk to anybody who had a buck in his pocket," he says. 
   Business card in hand, he would introduce himself to the owner, explaining that he and his father, Max, had just opened a little glass business on 4th Street. Please telephone us the next time you have a need, he would urge, as he stepped briskly toward the door and his next call. 
   At Westwood Boulevard, he would motor north to Wilshire, turn toward the ocean and repeat his rapid, friendly pitch at every business on the north side of the street until he reached home.
   "That was how you built business in those days," says Swartz, now a swinging bachelor of 75 who pursues the night lights in his ivory-colored convertible while his sons Mike and Mark do the perspiring for the two-store legacy of the Swartz Glass Co. "It took years, but my persistence paid off."
   Conversations inevitably veer in the direction of his family. Even though his five children are long since grown and he has become a grandfather, he remains a passionate family man. His passion and perpetual motion seem to have spilled over into the chatty, intimate way he has always run Swartz Glass. 
   Ray Swartz still opens up every weekday morning. He takes telephone calls, oversees the daily agenda and plays less golf than he'd like to, so married is he to the business. Without any encouragement, though, he usually begins by talking about his children, their latest achievements or how he and his (still friendly) former wife raised them on togetherness. Every summer, they would climb into the family motor home and set out for adventure across the country. 
   If the details aren't vital, the style is. From the telling of his family's story, it is clear just how Swartz built a prosperous business -- being genial and genuinely candid with every customer he faces. In a large corporation, the formula may get buried. It's a proven strategy , though, for growing a family business into three generations. 
   Students of the present generation aspire to be lawyers, doctors or astronauts. Hardly anyone plans a career in glass, which is just fine with the Swartz men, who live in a world where every customer can come by and see himself or herself, a boast few businesses can make.
   Imaginatively shaped mirrors line the walls of their showroom on Colorado Avenue, site of the old Railway Express headquarters and its railroad tracks, where the Swartz Glass Co., has been an anchor business since 1980.
   When Swartz the elder recounts the story of his company's evolution, it almost sounds easy. From struggling father and son without a business plan to a 15,000-square foot plant, brimming with experts and inventory, 18 bright red trucks and 15 employees serve multi-levels of the Westside's sophisticated residential and commercial needs. To guard against earthquake interruptions, sheets of glass are firmly encased in wood crates that are protected on both sides by rows of piping. 
   He believes he is one of those rare lucky entrepreneurs. "We are in the unique position," he says. "People need what we sell, whether it's glass or mirrors." 
   On the Westside, "lots of guys are in the glass business, but I have no competition," he says. What Swartz means is that, having built a trust with the community and a reputation for honesty, what the competition does is of little or no interest to him. 
Craftsmen also have been a backbone of the business. 
   "People come around all the time looking for jobs," says Mr. Swartz. "But when I ask how much experience they have, and they say none, I have to turn them down." Carving and handling large, heavy sheets of glass are an art, he says, perhaps, an underappreciated craft. 
   In search of an environment that was more agreeable for an asthma sufferer, Max and Ida Swartz of Toronto moved their brood to Santa Monica back in the 1930s, just in time for Ray's ninth birthday. The climate performed a miracle on his mother's asthma. She lived to be 94 years old. His father opened a tiny glass business in downtown Los Angeles. By the time Ray was casting about for a post-war career, Max Swartz was complaining about driving into the glaring sun every morning and every afternoon.
   The obvious solution was for father and son to team up and serve the Westside in a unique industry where his father - "an uneducated but bright man" - already was expert. 
   "We didn't have a business plan or big ambitions," says Ray Swartz. "We just wanted to make a living." 
Seven years after opening Swartz Glass, Max Swartz passed away. Briefly, Ray's brother Fred joined him in the business. But the success of Swartz Glass has been primarily a Ray Swartz production. Identifying reasons the company has flourished, "we are people-oriented," he says. "Integrity and service come before anything else. They never go out of style." 
   Once they had five stores, including Las Vegas. Swartz envisioned a chain of ten. But he soon deduced that absentee ownership becomes a liability. Honest, reliable service can't offset it. With "the boys," as he calls his sons, in charge of the main store, at 1726 Colorado, and a second at 4477 Beverly Blvd., in midtown Los Angeles, Grandpa Swartz reserves time every afternoon for a nap, confident that he is leaving the business in reliable family hands for the new century. 
   Swartz Glass Co., at two locations, 1726 Colorado, Santa Monica (310/829-3625), and 4477 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles (323/666-8422), is a family-owned, 52-year-old business open Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 5 p.m.