Robert "Bob" Mahoney

Bob Mahoney 2018

Robert "Bob" Mahoney
Georgetown, IL
Email Click Here

Note from Jim Kincer: Bob was a sales representative in Lexington for K. David Robertson in the early 1970's during the same time  I worked there, along with Skip Winfree, Jim McCubbin, Ed Tuggle, George Hodgson, Bob Black, Ray Kemp, Glenn Baugh and Dick Rudzik.

Here is what Bob had to say when I first contacted him:

"OMG!  You can't imagine how often I think of Lexington, Xerox and the people I had the opportunity to work with. My success was the experience of being exposed to men and women who were very skilled, intelligent and it certainly helped me....I used all that I ever learned from those people in my future endeavors". 

"All news about Xerox people is interesting to read.  My memory is still very strong and I can think back to many things which happened while at Xerox.....It was a good experience and I had a great opportunity to work with great people such as you and the other Lexington ASO people"!  

"I learned more from my Xerox days than anywhere else I worked.  PSS (Professional Selling Skills) is still engrained in my mind!!  I have used these skills many times since I left Xerox in sales and non-sales positions". 

"My greatest memory of you is when we (the team) created the movie (16MM!!), "The Day in the Life of a Xerox Salesman".  As I think about it now, for its time it was rather "edgy".  I am surprised we were allowed to even show it at the annual Regional Meeting".

"My Ft. Lauderdale training and association with the quality people at Xerox gave me the tools to spend twenty successful years with the Quaker Oats Company in Danville, Illinois".  

"I finished my working career at The Quaker Oats Company cereal manufacturing plant in Danville, Illinois as a production supervisor.  It was mostly a great place to work!!!  I retired soon after it was sold PepsiCo"!  

"The sale of Quaker brand to PepsiCo was fortuitous for me as I had been purchasing Quaker stock through the 401-K program for twenty years and the sale reaped a really nice escalation of stock values which continued to improve until my retirement!  Work became history...I thought.  I have been retired for over 14 years now and as much as I thought retirement might be slow and boring, I find it to be anything but".  

"Soon after I left Quaker, I secured a teaching certificate to be a substitute teacher, to keep me busy.  I spent twelve years doing just that and, for the most part, loved every minute of it.  Many times I rued the initial direction of my college education toward business, when in fact, my real success could possibly have been as a teacher.  I enjoyed it immensely...even the less than happy parts when discipline was necessary".   
  

"So, all in all, I have no real regrets with where life has taken us. Sandi and I have lived a good life and do the things that we want to do!  We live in Georgetown, IL, celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary this year, have four fantastic grandchildren and a two-year-old great-granddaughter.  We both have good health and I will take good health over anything else just about any day of the week"!

"Xerox was a fantastic company and the experience with them resulted in many extended excellent careers".   Bob Mahoney

9/29/21 EMAIL RECEIVED FROM BOB:

Time to move out of the city and into the country where you can harvest timber and provide for heating and cooking, drill water wells and tell the city water co. to shove it up their "you know whats'".  I am not so young that I don't remember when many people in my town were still using water wells rather than hooking up to the "expensive" city water.  I remember that I was told the my grandpa actually dug the ditch for the city water line to be run down the dead end street they lived on, so they could hook up to city water.  They needed that to put an indoor toilet in the house and get rid of the stinky old spider and wasp infested outhouse at the end of the "wash-house".  Oh, yeah....no electric washers then either....this was 1950.  Still washed in the outdoor washhouse...I remember grandma putting "bluing" into the wash water tub turning the water blue.  I asked her why.  I don't remember her answer.  The old scrub board was still used and clotheslines were at every house.

They did upgrade their ice box to an electric Kelvinator with a thing on the top that looked like a big fan.  Grandma was proud of that thing.  So, by the time I was ten, they had city water, an electric wringer/washer and a refrigerator.  The last thing added was the gas range which replaced the old electric range which replaced the old wood cookstove in the kitchen....which, unbelievably, I REMEMBER!!  When I was pre school, I would stay with grandma and grandpa overnite a lot.  In the morning she would  be cooking oatmeal for grandpa on the wood stove.  I could smell it.  The house actually didn't smell like smoke, as you might think with a wood burning kitchen stove and a coal burning pot bellied stove in the living room.  Life became much easier for them in the early 50' when natural gas became available.  Uncle Bob dug a basement out from under their house and they put the gas furnace (as big as a boat!) down there.  Nothing like getting rid of coal.  Grandpa was a coal miner, but retired by the time I was spending any time with them.  I wish I had asked him more about life then.  He wouldn't talk about the coal mines.  When I told him I was going to work at the Newman mine, he looked at me quizzically and asked:  "what the hell for??!!"  My mine was a lot safer than his old mine.

Got to go.  Almost lunch.  Little restaurant in Chrisman has chicken noodles today...and I love them!!  

Mahoney