SOM Revisited: Roderick Correll

I met Rod Correll in a business class at Yale School of Management (SOM), when he was a teaching assistant for a course on Family Firms. Rod had been through the course the year before and Professor Ivan Lansberg felt he would be a great resource for the class. Rod had had personal experience in the matter of family firms (he had just sold a family tanning and leather products company in Johnstown, NY. He knew the differences among salary employees, management, family and stockholders. Each contingent members have their own desires for and definitions of the purpose of a company. However, what if you are ALL of these constituents? Then the calculus gets much more complicated. And, afterall, many people in these business/family matrices have few choices, when it comes to multi-generational family firms. They know for sure that they have to survive to see another day and pray for guidance along the way. Rod was just such a guide for me. (Read the Hooper Company story for context.)

Roderick Correll

WHAT IF?
By Rod Correll (June, 2020)

I am the son of the son of a German Jew, turned Ethicist, who immigrated to the United States in 1893. He founded a leather import-export business in New York City. Hermann Loewenstein was one of 13 children in a family living in Ellwangen, a small city near Stuttgart, Germany. His father was a lawyer and most of his male siblings were destined to become professionals. Hermann was headed down the academic path, matriculating at Oxford University with plans to become a professor. Illness in early adulthood changed that trajectory; becoming nearly blind, as he began his studies at university, his life changed dramatically. With his dream dismantled, his family sought help. Relatives who owned a tannery in Ulm, between Stuttgart and Munich, Germany, offered him a job and Hermann sailed to America to set up an office in New York to import the tanned leather goods. It turned out to be a good decision; the business flourished, but I often wonder whether my granpere ever had regrets.

My own father’s dream of becoming an architect was also blocked, presumably because his grades in prep school were rather poor, and his father felt that a career in the leather business would suit him better. Once again the decision, made for him but not by him, proved to be the right one. Dad was a great salesman with a keen sense for fashion trends, a combination of skills that gave him pride and made the firm even more profitable during most of his leadership. Once again, however, I wonder whether he felt at peace with this decision and his role as successor of a legendary founder.

And how about my dream to become a teacher after I graduated from Yale? By then imports from Italy and Spain had started to flood into our market threatening the viability of our major customer base, manufacturers of high-grade ladies fashion footwear. There was also a problem on the supply side;
consumption of veal in the U.S. was declining, the supply of calfskins was dropping and their price was rising. The handwriting was on the wall; our salad days were over. Despite these warnings my dad insisted I follow him into the firm. “Teachers are wimps” he told me, and that was that. Succumbing to his will paid
off handsomely financially, but to this day I wonder why he was so insistent, and what might have happened if I had had the guts to say “No,” and went into academia?

There are valuable lessons to be learned from what I experienced, tales I hope I can tell in an engaging way in the memoir I plan to write, while we are here at Avila. I’ve been very lucky! I’m still alive at 84, healthy and eager now to share the lessons I’ve learned, weighing the “whats” and living with the “ifs” my decisions have precipitated.

Rod & Chloe Correll’s Story and Love Affair

Interviewed in 2020 by Murray Block of Avila

Rod and Chloe Anderson Correll are our very friendly and affable new neighbors in Apartment 148L in the Lodge. They were born just one month apart, in different parts of New York City, Rod in Manhattan and Chloe in Queens. They grew up near each other on the north shore of Long Island, Chloe in Manhasset, and Rod in Great Neck. They were destined to meet and, thanks to Rod’s best friend, they did, on a blind date in 1951 when both were sophomores, Chloe at Manhasset High School (Long Island, NY) and Rod at Lawrenceville (Princeton, NJ). They dated off and on during their high school and college years, Rod at Yale, Chloe at Goucher, and finally tied the knot in 1957, a strong bond that has lasted 65+ years.

Directly after graduating from Yale in 1957, Rod joined his father at Hermann Loewenstein, Inc., the leather tanning and merchandising firm founded in NYC by his grandfather in 1893.

When the business’s fortunes started to deteriorate in the mid-1960s, Rod moved its company’s headquarters and his family to Johnstown in upstate New York. The move proved fruitful; the reorganized company and his growing family started to flourish. Besides her primary roles as mother and homemaker, Chloe’s talents as an artist played an important part in the couple’s lives. The paintings on the walls of their apartment here at Avila attest to her skills.

Less obvious is the importance of the part Chloe played as the firm’s fashion director during the nine year stint following its departure from NYC. Her eye for color and her warmth as a presenter of its leathers were major factors in the firm’s resurgence. Equally important was the part she played later as office manager of the Family Firm Institute, a networking organization for family business consultants that Rod helped found and led after he graduated with an MBA from the Yale School of Management in 1985.

The couple has three children, one of whom, Douglas, died unexpectedly in 2016. Their oldest, Catherine, is a nurse/midwife and works locally at St. Peters Hospital. Her husband Frank Yunker is a professor at Fulton-Montgomery Community College. They live in nearby Niskayuna and have three daughters, Alex (25), Rebecca (23) and Emily (19). Their other son, Edward, lives in Long Beach on the south shore of Long Island. Edward is working as a school psychologist and his wife Monica is a grade school teacher. They have two teenage sons, Thomas and Daniel.

Chloe’s current interests are playing bridge, doing crossword puzzles and reading. She keeps herself fit here doing water aerobics. Rod’s exercise routine includes stints in the Lodge’s fitness room on the stationary bike and doing stretching, strengthening and balancing exercises. Rod is an avid Scrabble player, aspiring writer and, together with Chloe, enjoys playing bridge, doing crossword puzzles, attending opera, symphony and ballet performances.

After 42 years in their large Victorian home in Johnstown, Rod and Chloe decided it was time to move on. In 2013, after visiting a friend who lives in a retirement community near Buffalo, they decided this sort of life might suit them. A six year search began, culminating in the selection of Avila in the early months of 2019.

Their decision to come to Avila was affected by several factors. First was their desire to locate near one of their children. Second was the attractiveness of the Avila campus and the apartments being offered to them. Third was recommendations given by friends. And finally, there was the warmth and compassionate nature of Geri Curtin, the first of many Avila staff members and residents who have welcomed them prior to and since they moved here. It’s not surprising that they are a great addition to our campus.

Chloe Correll Obituary

ALBANY – Chloe Louise Anderson Correll passed away peacefully on July 24, 2023, surrounded by her family after a long illness.

She was born on June 29, 1935, to the late Henry Anderson and Margaret Lang Anderson in Flushing, N.Y. She was the beloved wife of Roderick Wessel Correll, whom she married on July 6, 1957. She was a graduate of Goucher College in Baltimore, Md. Chloe taught English prior to becoming a mother and later on, aided her husband as the fashion director of his family’s leather business in Johnstown, N.Y. and as manager of the Family Firm Institute’s office in Johnstown.

Chloe was an active member of the community, particularly in Johnstown, where the family lived for 50 years. She was a member of the Clio Study Club, the Burroughs Nature Study Club, the Aldine Society, and the Kingsborough Garden Club and, for many years, served on the board of the Wells House Nursing Home in Johnstown. She also served for several years as an alumni representative on Goucher College’s Board of Trustees and, for many years, as head of fundraising for her class of 1957. Among her favorite hobbies were painting and gardening. The homes of her children and grandchildren are decorated with her artwork.

She was a devout Roman Catholic all her life. She was always the essence of style, grace and class and loved being a hostess in their beautiful home. Chloe also enjoyed traveling the world with her husband Rod, visiting numerous spots all over the globe. London was a favorite destination and her last trip, to attend her granddaughter Rebecca’s wedding on June 9, was, no doubt, the most meaningful.

In addition to her husband Roderick, Chloe is survived by a daughter, Cathy (Frank) Yunker, born on her 24th birthday; a son, Edward (Monica) Correll; three granddaughters, Alexandra Yunker, Rebecca Yunker (Jack) Wilson and Emily Yunker; two grandsons, Thomas Correll and Daniel Correll; and her sister-in-law, Suzette (David) Tudor. She is also survived by several nieces and a nephew. She was predeceased by her son, Douglas; and her brother, Ronald (Patricia) Anderson.

Rod Correll’s Latest Book

Rod is the author of the remarkable story, Learning to be a Leatherman: a rite of passage.

According to Amazon, this book started out as a coming-of-age story that focused on a voyage the author took “across the pond,” when he was 17 years old. Arranged by his father, this trip was meant to teach him how to tan leather and, by design or inadvertently, how to spread his wings. Over the course of writing it, the author developed a clear, conversational voice. In the process, he also came to terms with his relationship with his father and the world of work that his dad had carved out for him. It’s a bittersweet yet ultimately uplifting memoir, full of warmth and love, for his father, the business his grandfather founded, and everyone in the writer’s family, most of all, his wife, Chloe.

***

Dear Reader,

Before you start leafing through the pages of my book, I’d like to share with you some of the remarks friends of mine made after reading it. I’ve chosen this group of individuals to give me their feedback with a hypothesis that their differing perspectives would generate an interesting array of comments and because I could trust them to be candid. I was not disappointed.

“Learning to be a Leatherman” is a very personal, intimate look into my humanity and what I’ve experienced. My life has been blessed with family, friendships, and relationships that have greatly enriched it. It has also been studded with challenges, some that strengthened me and my resolve, others that weakened and almost defeated me. It is for my family and these friends that I have taken this walk down memory lane, telling some of my life’s more interesting stories. I hope you enjoy hearing them and comparing them with your own.

With best regards,

Rod Correll