Interview with Philip Nachman

Interview with Philip Nachman

Nachman, Philip ; Gashurov, Irene

Harpur College – Seventies alumni; Harpur College – Alumni working in the medical industry; Harpur College – Alumni CEOs; Harpur College – Alumni from Upstate New York; Harpur College – Alumni living in Boston

Philip is owner of his Watertown, Mass.-based business, Nachman BioMedical, Medical Industry Exec Search, a recruiting firm for selling medical devices. At Harpur College, Philip created his own major in American studies, which included a class in Jewish-American literature.

2018-04-04

In Copyright

Phil Nachman.mp3

2018-04-18

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

62:50 minutes

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Philip Nachman
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 4 April 2018
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(Start of Interview)

PN: 00:04
My name is Philip Nachman. We are having this interview in my home in Watertown, Massachusetts.

IG: 00:09
When did you go to-

PN: 00:12
I was a student in Binghamton from the fall of (19)70 through the spring of (19)73.

IG: 00:18
Okay, and how old are you?

PN: 00:21
How old was I at the time?

IG: 00:22
No-no.

PN: 00:22
Yeah, I am 67 years old.

IG: 00:24
Okay, all right, so, Philip, where did you grow up?

PN: 00:28
I grew up in Troy, New York.

IG: 00:31
Oh, in Troy. And who were your parents? What did they do? Where were they from?

PN: 00:36
Sure-sure. Well, my father, Burton Nachman, grew up in Schenectady, a town next to Troy, and married my mother, who was from Troy, which is like 15 miles away, and he married into a family business of my mother's family, which was men's clothing store that had been there since like 1905 that her father and uncles started at that era. So, from your from- both of them have gone to college. So, I am not the first generation in college. I have an older brother, four years older, also went to college, went to Ithaca College. So very much rooted in upstate New York. Very much rooted historically in upstate New York. Yeah.

IG: 01:19
So, they expect- what was the expectation of you that you would go on to college or,

PN: 01:26
Oh yeah, yes [laughs]

IG: 01:28
Yes. Okay, so education was valued in your family, absolutely.

PN: 01:33
Yeah. It was throughout, yeah.

IG: 01:36
So, what were your reasons for going to Harpur?

PN: 01:39
Well, I had spent my first two years at another school at Hofstra University on Long Island, and I did not like it, basically, so I wanted to transfer. And was casting about as to where to transfer to. I frankly, do not remember why I knew of Binghamton, but accepted me, so I went. So, I transferred in as a junior.

IG: 02:00
Right. But it must have had some reputation, a good reputation-

PN: 02:05
I am sure it did, yeah, uh-

IG: 02:07
-inclined to transfer there rather than some other school.

PN: 02:11
I honestly do not recall where else I may have applied just; I am not sure. I do not know that it necessarily was I needed financially to go to a public university, although I am sure it helped. So, I probably wanted a liberal arts school. I was not focused on engineering or the hard sciences in Binghamton, while they had had and have that also was really known as a liberal arts school. And from a practical standpoint, at that era, the school was attempting to increase its upper-upper division students, meaning juniors and seniors. Therefore, they were making it attractive for people to go there in terms of admissions, not that there was housing for these students. There was not. So, I probably knew someone who had gone there something like that, but I do not, I do not recall exactly.

IG: 03:05
Right. And housing, you said so, but-

PN: 03:09
There were not enough dorms.

IG: 03:11
There were not enough dorms.

PN: 03:12
So-

IG: 03:12
Where did you end up?

PN: 03:14
Well, I had a cousin, who actually cousin a year older, who was going to Binghamton. Maybe that is why I knew about the place, and I crashed in his room, I think, on his floor, while I looked for an apartment. And in those days, there was no Craigslist, there was a bulletin board. So, I went to the student housing office, looked at the bulletin board. Someone standing next to me was looking at the bulletin board. They were looking for a place. So, we apparently, yeah, we found a place together. Did not know the person from Adam worked out fine, some apartment in Vestal. And uh-

IG: 03:47
You found a place in Vestal?

PN: 03:48
Yeah, I think, I think the first place I lived was-was in Vestal, on Reno Boulevard.

IG: 03:55
Did you have a car? Or did you [inaudible]

PN: 03:58
I think, I think, yeah, I believe I did have a car. Yeah, I did.

IG: 04:03
So, what was your first experience of Harpur College? What did it seem like to you after Hofstra?

PN: 04:14
Very different in terms of the geography. Hofstra was built on a former airstrip, ugly ascent [crosstalk] you know the place. All right, 14 story concrete towers were from the era of concrete is great. Let us use more of it. Kind of ugly. So, I in terms of the geography, let us say literally, and sort of the socio-economic world. Because of having grown up in an old, sort of semi run down industrial town, I sort of got it right away, as opposed to Long Island, which was really one big suburb of New York. And even though I grew up in upstate New York, I was not that familiar necessarily with New York. City or its environs. So, I sort of understood, literally and figuratively, the landscape, the sort of social landscape of the town, not so much the school, but of the town. So, I liked that. I think there was probably a lot of construction and a lot of mud. Everyone wore, all the students were sort of hiking boots, or construction boots and flannel shirts. That was the that was the uniform in those days. Part of it is that was the fashion. But it turned out to be worthwhile because it was a big mud pit. There was a lot of construction.

IG: 05:43
It still is.

PN: 05:44
It still is a lot of construction, yeah, I see from the alumni news magazine and all of that. So, plenty of long-haired hippies, plenty of drug, sex and rock and roll, which is probably true of almost everywhere other than maybe West Point. Yeah. So yeah, it was sort of a, yeah, a normal liberal state university anywhere in the northeast, frankly, or elsewhere.

IG: 06:07
But did you find it to be stronger what we were strong, not stronger, but strong in the in the humanities and the liberal arts?

IG: 06:17
So, who did you read?

PN: 06:17
Yeah. I mean, I gravitated toward, American history, sociology, anthropology, those areas, and at that time at least, you could petition some academic board to create your own major. You would need to get an academic advisor. So, I created a major in American Studies, which was not a major at that time. It may be now, and other schools have it, but it was not a particularly well-known thing in those days. But that way, I could mix my interests, and there were plenty of courses for me to take, which I enjoyed, and I actually one professor who I believe is still alive in his 90s. Taught, among other things, Jewish American literature, which I Sheldon Grebstein, he later became a president, I think of SUNY, SUNY, New Paltz, I think, or something like that. And that really had an effect on me. That was interesting to me.

PN: 06:37
Saul Bellow, Roth, those authors that were current at the time, Jewish American authors, right, (19)50s and (19)60s, basically.

PN: 07:26
You read Herzog.

IG: 07:28
Herzog. Yep.

IG: 07:29
What did you read of-

PN: 07:31
Which-

IG: 07:32
-of Roth.

PN: 07:33
Roth.

PN: 07:34
Well, there were two Roths. Call it Sleep, Henry Roth.

IG: 07:34
Yes.

IG: 07:38
Right-right.

PN: 07:39
Not a lot of people, necessarily [crosstalk]

IG: 07:41
I have not read it, but I know.

PN: 07:43
Yeah, all right, yeah. So, whatever his Roth has since gone on to write many, many other books, but Bernard Malamud probably had more made more of an impression on me. The Empty Barrel [The Magic Barrel], or something like that the whole bunch of them. So, they were very interesting to me in terms of my own Jewish American identity, and in an odd way, that is I was more comfortable in Binghamton than on Long Island. I did not know. I sort of did not know what to do as almost the majority, I grew up in this town that was certainly like Binghamton. And I was much more comfortable in upstate New York, where the Jews were a minority. I sort of understood the social structure. I did not know about poor Jews, rich Jews, and everyone in between, which you would have in metropolitan New York, bazillion papers [crosstalk] I did not know about that. So, I just felt more comfortable somehow. And so those back to the courses. So, some American history courses. Just, I think there was a civil war course, just, I probably could find my transcript in the attic.

IG: 09:04
I am curious about the-the- was it only American, Jewish writers, or were there-

PN: 09:10
In that particular class was happens to be that subject. As far as other literature classes, I suspect I took one or two others. I do not remember, it did not, they did not have as much.

IG: 09:26
I am very interested in how that shaped your identity. That that, you know, a course like that could have helped, you know, build, yeah, well, the person that you are.

PN: 09:39
It certainly did. I mean, it was very ethnocentric, obviously, but in a strange, in an odd way, it was very American. It was the American experience of these characters. And it did not make me religious. I am not. But it certainly informed more my identity, I guess. And I am not-not digging as deeply as you would like, because I am not sure exactly how to tell you think about it, um, just, well some-some of those books had characters that were living through poverty and, you know, in the Lower East Side, let us say, and discrimination that I may not have directly felt.

IG: 10:34
For example, which, which of the books do you remember?

PN: 10:36
Well, certainly call it, call it sleep. A lot of poverty, grinding poverty, and abusive or maybe alcoholic father who left, and all these things I did not know from that stuff. So that was sort of interesting, because it gave me a range of types. And the Roth books, which, again, had, I do not remember as well.

PN: 11:03
Philip Roth.

PN: 11:04
Yeah-yeah. Philip Roth, sorry, yeah. We talked about Henry. Now, as far as Saul Bellow, his characters were sort of bigger than life. Augie March, I think, and not him bolt, something like that. This guy who was in Africa. He was got of his mind this bigger than life character.

PN: 11:25
Was it Herzog?

IG: 11:25
Herzog, well, I mean, he was also a bigger than life a long time ago. But is not he from, you know, I do not think that he was born in America? He might be an immigrant from Eastern Europe,

PN: 11:39
Possibly.

IG: 11:40
You know it, but I know that it, it, it is just kind of a deeply felt novel-

IG: 11:50
-of the academic experience, you know, and the Jewish American-

PN: 11:50
Yeah.

PN: 11:56
Yeah, I do not know about well this guy, I am trying to maybe confuse him with another character, but he was a little bit off his rocker, and he was just this roaring presence. Maybe [inaudible] I do not remember, you know, when did I read it, 45 years ago. [laughs]

IG: 12:14
You know, they obviously-

PN: 12:16
Stuck. Yeah. So, yeah so all of that sort of informed what I knew of the Jewish American experience was, which was in the people I knew. And this might be true of Binghamton, if you were Jewish and you had gone to college, or even if not, you were either a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor or you owned a retail store that describes my family exactly, my father's cousins, my mother's siblings, where we had a store that was downtown, as in Binghamton. A lot of the retail stores were Jews whose parents were born in Europe, as my grandparents all were. And which brings me back to that is why I just sort of got Binghamton. Even if I did not go shopping, I did not need to sort of go shopping. But uh, so that is what I knew. I did not know about Jewish taxi drivers, Jewish cops, Jewish firemen. I later, in Boston, many years later, went out with someone whose father who was Jewish. Her father was a captain in the New York Fire Department. I did not know; I did not know there was a such thing. I mean, it was totally, really, well, and then the others who were not maybe as well off as my parents in the milieu I just described, were clerks in retail stores, or they were teachers. Not a lot of ditch diggers that I knew about. They may have been there, but I did not know about them, but they probably were not. I mean, that is just-

IG: 13:49
And writers. I mean, you were reading the writers?

PN: 13:51
Yes, right-right, yeah. And it turns out there are colleges in Troy, RBI and Russell Sage and in the next town Union, so it is sort of a college environment, some of those professors were Jewish, and I knew their kids because I went to elementary and high school with them and all of that. So that is just kind of the that is what I knew the Jewish world to be. Yes, although an uncle of mine was a milkman, somehow that did not compute, yeah, but, and then later, owned a trucking company, but he married my aunt, who was a lawyer, very, really rare. There were two people in our law school class, I mean, 1920 or something. So, all of that broadened my understanding of the Jewish community in America. Let us put it that way. Did not mean I pursued anything or ever, you know, religiously, right? But somehow it just informed my being.

IG: 14:46
Right.

PN: 14:52
Now the other courses, let me think about that. I mean, I was interested in the American history courses, whatever they were, you know, I just thing- I am thinking about too. One was the Civil War class written taught by a very interesting young radical who later committed suicide. It was the strangest thing. Robert Starobin, you may know the name. He was this radical leftist historian of slavery, and I had him as a teacher, interesting young guy, and he later, well, I was not in his class anymore, but I was still at the university. He later killed himself. It was shocking and remarkable, and I did, actually, I have done a little bit of-

IG: 15:38
It happened in your time?

PN: 15:40
Yeah, it happened in my time. It was probably in 1971 possibly (19)72 and his father was a pretty well-known leftist academic right and even collaborated on.

IG: 15:51
How did it impact you or your probably was the first encounter with suicide?

PN: 15:56
Oh, yeah, [crosstalk] I knew it was baffling. I thought it was terrible loss. I thought it was because I may have borrowed someone's paper and cheated or something. I do not think it mattered that much to

IG: 16:13
Yeah, but you personalize it.

PN: 16:15
Yeah, I personalized it, you know, completely wrong. He had other, a lot other-other issues having nothing to do with me. But there was a funny scene with him, sort of fun. He grew up, I think, in Queens or something, so a city kid, and I think a friend of mine had locked his keys in his card, left them in the ignition, and I must have been so in the class, and I mentioned it to Starobin, and he said, "All right, here, let us see what we can do." He got a coat hanger. He went outside, he put the coat hanger, got the coat hanger in the car, like going sort of around, and threw the rubber gasket around the window, actually hooked the key that was in the ignition and pulled it out.

IG: 16:56
Wow. Pretty slick.

PN: 16:58
Pretty slick. That was very cool.

IG: 17:02
You only knew how to pick locks as well.

PN: 17:05
I do not know.

IG: 17:06
That is very impressive.

PN: 17:08
It was very impressive, right-right. And this professor who taught the Jewish American literature course described himself, and this is Sheldon Grebstein. There was a graduate. There was a TI in the class. He described himself. He was very self-aware as a middle brow intellectual. It was so interesting versus, I mean, basically the guy was sort of saying, I am not going to win the Nobel Prize. I am not teaching at Harvard. I did not go there. I know who I am. I am happy where I am teaching, etc., etc., and it was just so interesting to see someone that this is who I am. He was a very interesting and a good teacher. Was a great teacher. And he and I think his thesis was on some other American literature having nothing to do with Jewish I mean, basically that was an interest of his, among others. And I Googled him recently, and I to see if he was still alive. He might be. I had called him about two years ago to thank him for an interesting course 45 years. I left a message. I never got a call back, and I Googled him the other day. If he is alive, he is 92 so.

IG: 18:18
92 he can be still quite active. I knew, I know.

PN: 18:21
He could be, yeah.

IG: 18:21
Yeah, he could be.

PN: 18:24
So, I so getting back to the school have any effect, yeah. I mean, I am remembering these things with fondness. And academically, I was no academic star. I was not trying to get into law school. I was not killing myself. I was sort of a lost liberal arts graduate. I do not know what the hell I was doing. Many people did not,

IG: 18:52
Yeah, many people did not.

PN: 18:55
Yeah. I mean, you know, people who knew they wanted to be an engineer, in a way, it was easier. First of all, the curriculum is quite set. Secondly, they were really focused on it. It was really quite concrete. You either got it you got the problem, right or wrong. [laughs]

IG: 19:14
Yeah, itis a different, very different. It is a very different career trajectory. When you know from the outset.

IG: 19:21
Well, that is a trajectory.

PN: 19:23
I did not have a trajectory.

IG: 19:25
You know- so how did you fall into the career that you have now? What-what exactly do you do?

PN: 19:33
Well, I am- I have my own business as a recruiter, headhunter, executive search consultant specifically for the medical device business and some pharmaceutical--Boston happens to be a center for that. I got into that because probably not so much when I was an undergraduate. But later on, I decided I wanted to save the world. So modest-modest role.

IG: 20:00
Yeah [laughs] yeah.

PN: 20:00
So, I wound up studying public health, because if you save the world, want to do it have a big impact.

IG: 20:09
Yeah.

PN: 20:09
Wholesale.

IG: 20:10
Where did you study public health?

PN: 20:12
The University of Florida, public health and health education, and, more specifically, gerontology. A number of years after I got out of undergrad. So, to me, that was a way to save the bigger swath. So, I wound up, I pursued that and worked at a hospital having to do with public health and training of hospital staff and issues of Geriatric mental health. I did that for number of years, maybe four or five, and then wound up getting a job for a medical device company that had a product that had to do with, specifically with the elderly, to enable them to stay home longer and not go to a nursing home, if, if they were-

IG: 20:56
What is a product?

PN: 20:57
It is called lifeline. It was like a beeper system for- get people help. The point of that was for me, having studied gerontology and having worked in a community health center where I was going out to nursing homes to do training of staff, there are people in nursing homes, or at least there were then, who are not there for skilled care. They are there almost for it is just a safer environment, and they give up a lot of autonomy, but they are afraid they or their children, are afraid they are going to be home alone and fall and they will be discovered a week later by the mailman. So, this was an F this machine, which was invented by a psychologist, gerontologist in Boston was-was to enable people like that or did not need skilled care to stay at home with some security, that if they had a problem, they could get help. And there was even a timer, if they did not reset it every day, it would automatically get them help. Very clever product. So, I said, “Wow,” that is for me. I was not interested in capitalism. I was not interested in machines, but I thought this thing was great. So, I wound up getting a job at that company. Took me some lobbying and sometime right as a field service engineer, which is kind of funny, because I am no engineer, but a big part of it was training.

PN: 22:18
What does a field service [crosstalk]

PN: 22:20
Field service engineer is someone who fixes hospital equipment, either in a hospital or in a field, as the title might sort of imply, and does some training on how to use it. Well, I was the training director at a hospital, I know, and I was that was something I was good at and liked the stage, you know. So, it was a relatively simple device, and I could be trained to install it and to fix it and to teach people how to install it and all that. And I was great at it. But a bigger part of it, and probably a bigger part of my success in that, was understanding sort of the milieu in which it would go, and liking the training part and being comfortable in and around hospitals, because I had worked in one, so I-I wanted to do something at that company, and frankly, I did not care what that was the job that was open. So, he hired me, and it was great, great experience. And then I was promoted, and I became a salesperson for that company and trained a field service engineer under me. This goes back to 1984, (19)81. God, (19)81 and I am still in touch with people I worked with. Startups are like that. There is a cause, you know, spread, of course, especially if you think the product has real value, you know, social value. So-

IG: 23:42
What do you think that you know this belief in the product lent to your contributed to your success in sales?

PN: 23:53
Oh, sure, I could not have just sold anything. I would not have cared about just anything. So, it-it related to the Gerontology stuff. It related to saving the world, even if it was only an elderly piece of it, uh-

IG: 24:06
Which is a huge piece nowadays.

PN: 24:08
Oh, yeah. So that worked out well. And then that later, to answer your earlier question, how did I get to do what I do now for a living?

IG: 24:17
Yes.

PN: 24:17
So, I worked for that company for three and a half, four years, quite successful at it, but I got bored with it. Single Product, same story every time. If there were technical problems, the same technical problems, right? At that point, I had already moved from Boston to Florida because of a promotion within the company. And I kind of missed living here, excuse me, so I happened to see an ad in the Boston paper when I was living in Florida, I was here for a meeting looking for a medical sales person, and I went for an interview at a recruiting place. And it turned out the actually the job was there. It was sort of false advertising. They wanted to expand the recruit efforts in the medical area. And they wanted someone who had been doing medical sales. So, I interviewed at this place, and then the guy came clean and said, actually, the job is here. I said, “What do you mean?” And it was almost like a Costello act or something, l

IG: 25:17
A little bit false advertising.

PN: 25:18
Yeah. I mean, in terms, in a way, it was medical sales. At any rate, I wound up working there. It was great. I moved back here. I had a wonderful mentor, a very generous guy who knew a lot about medical devices and medical stuff. He had gone to medical school for a year and had an MBA and decided I want to be a doctor. And wound up in that business, and great guy and I wound up working at this other company for three, four years, maybe five, and then I went off on my own doing the same thing. And that is 30 years ago. So, I have been doing this a long time, but it all. None of it was planned, believe me, however, these steps relate to one another. Even if there was no map, there certainly was no map. It had nothing to do with SUNY Binghamton. I can guarantee you, it probably had more to do with graduate school, where I was studying health related,

IG: 26:13
Right, of course, of course.

PN: 26:17
So that is how I got to do what I do. And I am not retired. I still do it, and that is-

IG: 26:25
How did you trust your instincts? You know you said that you kind of none of it was planned, but everything was related. So how did you trust that your decision making in your career-

PN: 26:42
Blind?

IG: 26:43
-blind trust, or just you have a certain comfort for taking risks.

PN: 26:48
Yeah, at that time, I certainly left a very good job at this lifeline system with base salary and bonuses and a company car, and took a job where I had to pay for myself to move with no salary, no benefits, no nothing. I do not know if it was out of my mind, but I could afford to do it. I was single. I could take a risk. I may not have even realized the risk. It worked out. It worked out fine. Not everyone can do that. A lot of people need to know that they have a weekly paycheck, I am just willing to live with it.

IG: 27:26
Well, you know, for-for a somebody who is considering becoming an entrepreneur, as you, you have been for the last 30 years, what are some of the important qualities and things that you need to consider? You know, from your experience, that are most valuable for this. You said that you know you have to be comfortable without you know, having you know, an expected paycheck, or regular paycheck, regular benefits. I mean, what are some of the but what are some of the personal qualities that you think well, are needed?

PN: 28:12
You have to be- have some self confidence that you can do it. So, if you are an electrical engineer, you have to be pretty sure that you are a creative electrical engineer. If you are your standard electrical engineer, you are not going to become a salesman, and vice versa. So, it has to be in a milieu in which you have already had some success. So, in the training milieu, when I was working at that hospital, and then in the sales milieu, when I worked for lifeline, and earlier in the field service and customer training milieu, I was successful. Having grown up in a retail business, which I mentioned earlier, starting in high school, I would work like summer or Christmas season or something, selling clothing, so the personal aspects of relating to people and presenting a product or a service, and explaining it, selling it, looking at why it might be valuable, it might not for someone, and if some and I will probably part of why I am successful at what I do is what I currently do. If the job is not right for someone, I will say, "You know what, this may not be the best thing for you." And taking a longer view of what-what works for people, and hopefully that honesty comes back to help you and not haunt you.

IG: 29:34
How do you recruit people? Do you look on LinkedIn, or do people come to you? Or what happens.

PN: 29:40
Keep going, all of the above.

IG: 29:42
All of the above. A recruiter,

PN: 29:45
Social media-

IG: 29:46
Social media. Connections.

PN: 29:47
[crosstalk] Forever, yeah, a lot, a lot of connections. In fact, I am going to a meeting this evening of a medical devices group, which is mostly engineers, and there will be a speaker talk. Talking about the latest whiz bang technology and why it works, why it does not discover about it. So being out and about and staying interested in current in the industry in which I am.

IG: 30:11
I understood.

PN: 30:11
So, if you are back to an entrepreneur, I am not sure in the world, because I have not started a company, I am the sole employee. I did not need to go to bankers to get investment money or venture capitalism, none of that. But, you know, not everyone could do it as I forget and you just reminded me, part of it is make sure if you have a good year, you do not spend like you had a good year, because if you have a bad year, you may need a nest egg and do not spend like a drunken sailor.

IG: 30:48
Yeah, that is good advice [laughs] for anyone. So-so you know this is your career path, and you mentioned that you have a daughter, and tell us, you know, a little bit about your family.

PN: 31:09
I got married late in my late to mid-40s, first time, and my wife and I, within a year, had a kid, which was almost surprising. We are both old, biological standpoint, my daughter's 19. She is a sophomore, and following the family tradition, she also transferred schools. She started out at Bryn Mawr, spent a year for a variety of reasons. It was not a great fit, took a semester off, and now is quite local at Brandeis, and is studying public health. Was so interesting to me things that were interesting to me in college. And she is interested in Planned Parenthood and women's sociology, women's health care, that kind of thing. And it happens to be really the right place for it. It is a very strong program. There is social policy, health policy and all that. So, I have got this 19-year-old daughter, my wife also had transferred from one college, to another [Irene laughs] and they are the two of them are right now in New York, going to Broadway shows. [crosstalk] Yeah.

IG: 32:25
Do you- what are some of your- have you kept up with your interest in literature? Have you-

PN: 32:31
Yeah-yeah to [crosstalk] some degree

IG: 32:33
[inaudible] hobbies-

PN: 32:35
As far as reading--I am a bigger newspaper reader than the book reader. Although I am in actually right now, for the first time, I am in two book clubs. My wife and I are in a book club together, and then the local library has a quote guys book club, and that is been great. I love it. [inaudible] I know, yeah, we might be 15, 10, to 15 people.

IG: 32:59
That is quite a number.

PN: 33:01
Maybe, yeah. And depending on the book, more people come and the librarian is a guy, which is also somewhat rare, I think.

IG: 33:08
Yeah.

PN: 33:10
It is a neighboring town, Errington, and it is great. I do not know these people outside of the group, but we all really enjoy it. There is a man do not have a lot of these outlets. I am not a sports guy. I do not go to a bar and watch a football game. I pay not to, in fact. So that is a social outlet. I do not care about this bonding about sports. So, this is great. That is a variety of books. There are librarians who find it interesting.

IG: 33:41
Yes, what are some of the books that you have [crosstalk]

PN: 33:44
It is a range. Some of them are we just read the memoir of South African comedian-

IG: 33:56
Coitzi. Coitzi?

PN: 33:58
No, he is on American TV. Oh, I love the guy. It will come back to me. I forgot.

IG: 34:04
Yeah.

PN: 34:05
Scary. [laughs]

IG: 34:08
It will not come back in five minutes.

PN: 34:09
Trevor Noah.

IG: 34:10
Oh, I see that is right. Oh, yes, really, course.

PN: 34:13
You have not read it.

IG: 34:13
Yeah.

PN: 34:14
Listen to it on books on tape.

IG: 34:15
I have seen him on TV.

PN: 34:16
It is wonderful to listen to.

IG: 34:18
Yeah.

PN: 34:18
More than even read because he is- does the reading.

IG: 34:21
He does the reading as well. I actually, I love books on tape.

PN: 34:24
This is, this is a great one so that we have occasional military history, although that is not a focus. Novels, just a range of things, one-one book. One of the best books was a book called The Boys in the Boat. Which Have you heard of that huge bestseller about the sport of rowing crew, but it is historical, because it talks about the 1936 Olympics in Germany?

IG: 34:54
Yes, of course.

PN: 34:55
So that was very interesting book. Terrific book. And I suggested a book. It was sort of my turn to suggest a book, I think, for July, called the Fish that Ate the Whale, about the- this immigrant who started pedaling bananas, and that was enabled because of telegraph its whole story wound up from buying essentially damaged goods bananas that were discounted because they were about to be too ripe, wound up as the president of United Fruit Company, which owned half of Central America. Very interesting story. Yeah, fascinating. So that is one I suggested. It will be in a couple of months. And then the one we Thursday, I guess that is tomorrow. Is the book club, and it is a book. It is upstairs, hopefully, I better all go up and get it, so just a variety of books. And that is- that is been-

IG: 35:55
That is wonderful because, that is wonderful because not I think it is not, not everyone really gives time to reading. Not everybody gives time into- do you think that you know there, that you know this love of literature, clearly, you have a love and interest? Do you think that there is any connection between the literature-

PN: 36:22
Come to think of it, those are the classes I remember.

IG: 36:25
Yes-yes.

PN: 36:26
Absolutely. In fact, if this guy had answered the phone, I was going to tell him that this retired professor become a college president. And my wife is an influence on me and my daughter too. They are speed readers. They read an enormous amount. I have never seen anything like it. My parents were readers, so it was not-

IG: 36:43
It is part of your family.

PN: 36:45
It is part of it. My father was a big reader, and in the newspapers which my wife does not read, so she reads more books I am interested in. I read three papers. The newspapers are practically going out of business, except for people like me, which is bad, because I am not young, you know, and they are the only thing that keeps the government honest at this point, you know, with investigative journalism.

IG: 37:10
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And so-so, you know-

PN: 37:17
I am going to run and get-

IG: 37:20
So, we are back to talking with Philip Nachman, and we are going to talk a little bit about the political climate, the political issues that were predominant in your college experience.

PN: 37:37
The Vietnam War was key, and it was raging still. Uh, in my case, I was in the first cohort of people who were, quote, eligible for the draft lottery, which was a somewhat more fair way of drafting people. And I had the distinction of being number five in the draft lottery. You do not want to be five, you want to be 360 so while I was in your while I was in Binghamton, I was called up for physical because I had such a low number, and I had to take the bus to Syracuse, where there was an Army induction center. I thought I thought I would get out for some physical reasons, but a lot of other people on that trip were, I am sure, sick with anxiety. So, I went to the physical, took the Greyhound, and I wound up getting what is called a 4f of physical deferment. So, I did not have to go, but I was considering my options. I was not interested in being shot at by the Vietnamese or shooting them, because, frankly, I did not care about them. They did not do nothing to me. I did not need to do nothing to them, right? But the times were roiling with Vietnam protests. Certainly, I am not sure how much on the campus. I kind of do not remember that, but it was, you know, complete. Well, not the voc- the vocal students were more on the left than the right, but not everyone else, I am sure. I mean, it was a, it was a town in upstate New York, in the county I came from, was very Republican. That whole capital district was very Republican. And I am, I do not know what, what Binghamton's landscape was at the time in terms of national politics, but I am assuming it is somewhat conservative. I mean, upstate New York could be transplanted to the Midwest. It has got essentially nothing to do with metropolitan New York.

IG: 39:33
A lot of America, I think.

PN: 39:35
Yeah-yeah.

IG: 39:39
So-so, you know, so you said you do not remember any protests.

PN: 39:45
I am sure there were.

IG: 39:46
But what about your friends? What-what was the general mood?

PN: 39:51
Oh, the general mood was anti-Vietnam, anti-establishment. Long hair. Do not trust anyone over 30. I mean, this was 1970. You know, get stoned.

IG: 40:04
What kind of music did you listen to?

PN: 40:06
Grateful Dead. I think they actually, it was a famous concert at Binghamton.

IG: 40:12
I think it is (19)68.

PN: 40:15
I was not, I think it might, yeah, they were still, I did not, I was not there at the time, people were still talking about it. Leo Kottke, I remember going to one of his concerts. He is a fantastic 12 string guitarist. There were others. I went up to Cornell for a concert with some group Traffic. I think it was called. Yeah, something like that.

IG: 40:33
Remember the Nixon impeachment, the trials.

IG: 40:35
That was in (19)73 impeachment trials, were not they?

IG: 40:41
Yes, yeah.

PN: 40:43
And I think I already had, already I had already graduated, because, as I recall, that was the fall of (19)73 and I graduated. I took, I was on the five-year plan because I had transferred. And actually, my second semester in Binghamton, I really was not quite sure what I was that I wanted to be there all the time. And through this major that I created, I petitioned for an independent study on the American Crafts movement, which was a hippie movement. At the time, people were dropping out, moving to Vermont or somewhere, and making pottery or building furniture. And there was an anthropology professor, Daniella Weinberg. I think her name is, who I asked if she would be my sponsor on this because I was looking at it from sort of an anthropological perspective or a sociological perspective with no brilliant framework, I will have you know, but so I literally hitchhiked around New England, talking to American kids who were, quote, American craftsmen. I wound up living for a while in a commune in the Berkshires. I was hitchhiking, and someone picked me up and going around to different crafts people. It was a very interesting semester. I mean, literally, I was hitchhiking. [crosstalk] You could do that.

IG: 42:01
It was safe to do it when-

PN: 42:02
It was-was for me.

IG: 42:06
Yes-yes.

PN: 42:07
So, it did not even occur to me that was no nothing, no big deal. So, I did that.

IG: 42:13
Was it like living on a commune as part of your thesis experiment? It was a thesis or?

PN: 42:19
Just started. I read to write a paper. I see, I do not know where the paper so, so it was probably only four credits, so I did not get the 16 credits, or whatever a semester is worth. So, I wound up graduating in (19)73 not in (19)72 I got out of high school in (19)68 if I had gone straight through. And that was fine. So, I was in no hurry to be an adult anyway. So that worked out perfectly, which was not uncommon in those days. I mean,

IG: 42:51
To prolong your [crosstalk]

PN: 42:52
To prolong your, prolong your adolescence. It was not my education. So, yeah, I am clear on that again, if I were a pre-med major or an engineering major, I would want to keep going. I would not be wandering around as much. So-

IG: 43:11
So, what did you learn about this experience? Your anthropological study?

PN: 43:15
Well, the professor had me read de Tocqueville on America having to do with American the American spirit and democracy, which was a big experiment when de Tocqueville wrote that a total experiment. When did you write it? 1789, or something like that? Well, what was funny about it is, I wound up in New Hampshire, standing in someone's yard. People would just invite you to stay and this so I met some guy who forgot if there was a potter or whatever it was. His father was a producer on the Today Show in Manhattan.

PN: 43:52
No-no. [crosstalk] become-

PN: 43:53
Back then this kid's father, he dropped out of college to do this. His father was a producer on the Today Show. So, it is just kind of not that the father's famous, but it is just sort of funny. Here are these middle class, or probably upper middle class, or beyond, in his case, who are dropping out, not going the straight and narrow, not working for IBM as a salesman, but doing this and that. Those were the times. Those exactly what the times were, I do not know that it directly had to do with Vietnam, but it did have to do with, I think, not being all that impressed or interested in just following the normal course of events. Because look what it got us.

PN: 44:18
Exactly, breaking cultural norms and-

PN: 44:40
That was the norm, was to break a cultural norm. So, in fact, the cultural norm was to have long hair, to smoke pot, to maybe have an organic garden. That was in that school. That was the norm. It would not have been the norm at other schools, perhaps, but on that ilk, in that era, that. You know, Buffalo was the same.

IG: 45:01
So, you remember watching the American family?

PN: 45:06
Yes, in fact, one of my professors actually a guy named Richard, Richard Young [James Young], who was a political science professor at Binghamton, that was our that was the centerpiece of our class, was good for remembering an American family. It was a screwed-up family. The kid-

IG: 45:25
Very interesting.

PN: 45:26
Oh, very interesting. I mean, pretty rare. One-one of the kids came out as gay, which was rare with the father. You know, the father, the mother accepted it. I am not sure the father did. The parents got divorced, as you remember, the father sold mining equipment to Australian mining places. So Young- that was sort of interesting, too. I had forgotten about that class looking at the structure of American society, and it was some would say it was dissolution. I mean, that family became dissolved. I have forgotten about his siblings. I think he was the eldest. He had a younger sister. I do not remember. I think there were three. Think there were three, three kids, but yeah, that was really of that era. And you know, the teachers, Young and Starobin, they may have been radicals, but academically, you could not just hand in some crummy paper. They were, they were serious about their work.

IG: 46:26
Have you read their scholarship afterwards? Or, you know, they were, they producing scholarship of this period.

PN: 46:34
They were young guys. They were very young. That might have been the first. They were in their early 30s, and then Young, I do not know whatever happened to him, but I later lived in Berkeley and looked him up. He was living in Palo Alto, and we went out for dinner or something, because he was a young guy, still sort of related. You know, I thought I related to him because he was only eight years older than I was, or something like that. I tend to sort of remember people and hold on to them. And there was a TA in might have been in an American literature class. I am not sure which one literature of the American city with a guy named Milton Kessler, wonderful guy who he also had an influence on me. In a TA in one of the literature courses. Later went on to he was doing his PhD. He wound up having a career in prep schools, which was sort of when you cannot get a job in academia. You do that. So, if you scratch the surface of any fancy prep school or all these PhDs. And then I about 10 years ago, I looked him up. We had nice conversation, and he was interesting because of an assignment he gave us. I had never heard of this assignment. Compare the same work as literature. I think it was this and in its movie form or something, that I found the most creative thing in the world. I had never heard of such a thing.

PN: 48:00
Yeah, it was very creative. I thought he was a terrific young teacher. So, I had, I was happy with my professors as I recall, at least the ones I recall. Let us put it that way, which is good. I do not want to think of the bums. I am thinking of the ones that I that I enjoyed. And there was a certain amount of academic freedom to be able to petition this academic board and do this independent study, you know, the create your own major, and then even to take that semester off and get a sponsor, it worked out. I am sure my parents were worried sick. It worked out.

PN: 48:00
At the time, it was probably [crosstalk]

IG: 48:36
And, you know, and yet, over time you-you and I think that people of your generation return to very establishment type of jobs well after this, this period of great freedom and experimentation-

PN: 48:55
Yeah-yeah. Well, you know, some may have become artists if there were artists to begin with, which that helps. Some you know one guy my roommate is a real estate developer in California, I think, pretty successful. Another one of these guys that shared an apartment with me became a physician, so they may have been a little more focused than I. so yeah. I mean, people ultimately need to make a living, of course, and some people-

IG: 49:30
So, you know, from the vantage point of now, how do you look back on that period of, you know, breaking norms and going to communes and exploring, and this period of great experimentation [crosstalk]

PN: 49:48
Personally, for me, for me, personally, it was fun and it was not very taxing, which might have been part of why I wanted to do it. But when I think back on it, there was a tremendous amount of social disorganization and dismay. Do not do not trust your elders. Look at going back to Vietnam. It was terrible. I mean, it was absolutely horrendous. What was going on and it largely kids in college were personally untouched, because it was a poor person's war. If you were in college, you got a deferment. If you knew someone, you got in the National Guard, as did my as did my older brother, because my father knew somebody. So, as I think of my high school class, and I was probably at a class of 400 none of my friends were in the army. When I look at the yearbook, or there is a like a website for my high school, and I see who was in the army and who was not, it was not the kids whose parents were college educated. No shock, you know, to me. So, it was not an equitable war. In a sense, there was a complete waste of life, terrible waste of life. And people knew that, and that is why all this social foment. Yeah, I do remember a march downtown in Binghamton, some anti-war March.

IG: 51:11
But how do you think, for example, your generation, because of that experience, was different from your parents' generation? You probably looked at the world very differently.

PN: 51:20
Oh, absolutely. My father was in the army, in the US Army, when I was raving and ranting about the Vietnam War once, and this and that. And he said, you know, how do we put it? Some people are patriots. He was not necessarily talking about himself, but he was saying, do not be so judgmental, you know. And he knew what it was to leave a wife and go in the army, drafted at age 34 which was not fun to be in basic training when you are 34 and everyone else is 18. He is already out of college 10 years. You know, it was, he did not get hurt or anything, but it was certainly a sacrifice. And he knew plenty of people in his company that died, or just people who sacrificed. So, he looked at it differently, even though he was a lifelong Democrat, I do not know what he felt about the Vietnam War. Probably in the end, he got disgusted by it, as most people who were not complete apologists wound up doing as the truth came out. I do not think we ever had heated discussions. I would rave and write naively, and this was a conservative Republican town I grew up in, so it certainly affected the air I did not know at Binghamton, I did not know necessarily, any veterans who may have come back. One thing that absolutely has stuck in my mind, when I was at Hofstra, there was a guy on my floor who was a veteran, and he was there on the GI plan, probably. So, he was older and more, certainly more mature and older than these freshmen. He was stuck with on us, poor guy, and we were playing in the hallway. We were throwing a football or pitch and catch or something, and someone missed. His door was open. He was at literally the end of the hall. The ball went into his room. He ducked the one under his desk like a grenade. I mean, I could practically cry now, when I think about it, it was so traumatic. Was just a baseball and but can you [crosstalk] traumatic this-

IG: 53:32
This treated PTSD.

PN: 53:34
Yeah, which I never asked him about his experience with this poor guy. I am thinking, what something I never lived through. It is what I do not know about. I am thinking, wow, I think he was rattled.

IG: 53:47
Right. I think that studies of PTSD came to light because of the Vietnam War.

PN: 53:52
Yeah. I mean, think of the drug addiction and alcoholism that came out of it. I mean, World War Two had its trauma on people too, but there were not drugs to addict, generally, other than booze, you know? I hope that guy is okay. So, I did not really know many people who lived through that, necessarily.

IG: 54:19
It is in some way you are saying that, you know, do not be judgmental, because the experience of even the people that you are well, you are not opposing them, but you know they are participants in a movement that you oppose.

PN: 54:20
Yeah.

IG: 54:23
You know that their-their experience is-

PN: 54:28
But I do not know that I was that mature in that time. [crosstalk] I would have, would I have quote, defaced the flag? Probably not. It is just a difficult time. And Binghamton was very lefty. So those who were, quote, pro war. I did not talk. I did not know about it that, you know, they probably kept, maybe they kept a low profile. I do not know. I did not get involved in it, you know, I did not get involved with them. I do not know. I was not terribly political. I mean, I knew I, you know I would vote, and I know how I voted, and all of that. I had my feelings, but I was not marching, or I probably did once or twice, but it was not a big part of my life.

IG: 55:30
And throughout your life, you-you were not political. I mean-

PN: 55:36
I was, oh, I am very, I am very aware of current events. I always vote. I think once in my life, I did not and felt terrible about it because I missed a date or something. I was American Studies major to not, of course, care about it would be remarkable to me. You know, in the current climate, I am disgusted. And actually, I have with my wife's urging, she is, she is, she thinks more than I do, that mass protest movements have an effect. So that we went to the anti-gun rally two weeks ago. I think it was in Boston. It was all over the country. It went to the women's rally and all that. And some of it, I think, is, I do not know how useful it is, especially in this state, because this state always votes to the left and the legislators and all that. So, it is like, who are you complaining to complain in Arizona or in western Pennsylvania? I do not know what it means here, you know? Yeah, it is disheartening. I mean, it is sort of like the Nixon era in a way, with the corruption and the cynicism on the part of the people in power.

IG: 56:43
But there are probably lessons from, you know, I am sensitive about the time that I have been keeping you but I think that, you know, the (19)60s have something to teach this generation about, social organizing, protest, do not you think?

PN: 57:01
Would hope, well, it shows that it can make a difference. Vietnam eventually stopped huge marches. Johnson was in the White House covering his ears because he had to literally covering his ears getting sick over it. Yeah, it is going to have an effect. And maybe, maybe these teenagers who have organized the anti-gun rally will have an effect. I certainly hope so. The really small number of-of fundamentalist Christians and NRA members have been hijacked from it being a sportsman's club that taught about gun safety to being a shell for an industry, it is disgusting. So maybe these kids will have an effect. I certainly hope so.

IG: 57:46
I hope so too.

PN: 57:47
Yeah.

IG: 57:52
Any-any concluding remarks that you have, any-any-any advice that you have for you know, students, young people listening to this interview and thinking of what to do with their lives and how to plan their careers.

PN: 58:09
Well, if you do not know what you what you want to do, it is hard to plan. If you do know what you want to do and you are definitely going to go to graduate school, yeah, study hard and get into the grad school of your choice. But if you are not that focused necessarily on a technical career, which is what rolls the roost right now, take courses out of your comfort zone. Take an art history class, take a music appreciation class, take something that you will live with, sort of like play a lifelong sport, not football, learn tennis. You know that if it is a liberal arts education, think of what that means and use it because you can enjoy it for the rest of your life. I mean, sure, get a career. Figure out how to make a living, become a technical expert, if that is what you want to be on something or other, or be a high school English teacher, if that is what float you know floats your boat, no question. Or librarian or a development officer. So, advice would be, take advantage if you are at a. at a Binghamton or any other liberal arts school, take advantage of the fact that it is a broad menu, and if there is a faculty member that you admire go to their office hours, they will appreciate it. You may learn something. They may help you get out of your locked out car like Robert Starobin [inaudible]. One thing I failed to remember. I did not forget it; you did not ask. I had an interesting experience in that I, quite coincidentally, wound up renting an old farm on the top of Bun Hill Road, if you know where that is, right. I was having my car fixed at some gas station on closer to downtown. And I needed a ride back to the school. Some lady was getting gas, and she was going to be heading back toward the campus. And I said, "Are you going by the school?" And she said, "Yeah." I said, "Can I have a ride?" This woman gave me a ride in those days people would do. And we chatted a bit. And she was living on this old farm that she said. I said, "Oh, that sounds really nice." She said, "Well, my husband and I are moving. Do not say anything to the landlord, but maybe you would like to rent it." So, I rented this farm. Old place was not being farmed, but this place went literally on the top of Bun Hill Road with a lot of acreage, broken down, old farmhouse for $100 a month, three-bedroom, three-bedroom place, and found met some guy in the parking lot who is my friend to this day, who said, "Yeah, that sounds like fun, yeah, why do not we do that together?" And his was common at the time. He had just gotten back from traveling in the Middle East, people used to go to go through Europe with a backpack. And he said, "You know, I would like to get goats. I saw a lot of goats in Lebanon." I said, "All right, let us get goats." So, we did dairy goats. We had three or four goats, and it was fun. Then we had an organic garden, and got credit for it. You could pull this act. There was a geography, geography professor, Ed Van Derval [Joseph VanRiper]. I think his name was something like that. He was willing to if we took, kept the journal and took notes, we got four credits crazy on raising, on having an organic farm. So, the guy down the road had a plow, and we- was a big enough plot that we had. We paid him to plow it for us, and we grew stuff. And we had this organic, I would call it a farm. We had a garden, a large garden, and that was fun. And the property still had some plum trees that were bearing fruit, and there were-

IG: 1:01:55
How wonderful.

PN: 1:01:56
And there were apple trees all over the place. I collected apples and brought them to the cider mill and Endicott and had them pressed and then sold them on the campus.

IG: 1:02:07
It was fun. So, you were part of this.

PN: 1:02:10
I was part of the hippie [crosstalk]

IG: 1:02:10
But part of, you know, maker, I do not know that it was maker is now.

PN: 1:02:18
That is now, that is making.

IG: 1:02:20
Yeah, sort of, you know, yeah, back to the line.

PN: 1:02:24
It is back to the land thing.

IG: 1:02:25
And but that you got credit for this at college.

IG: 1:02:28
Yeah, it is pretty amazing at a legitimate college and all that. So, it goes back to that American Studies thing I did when I was hitchhiking around talking to craftsmen and all that, that was really a back to the land movement. I so to an extent, while in college, I did that, actually, I have a picture to show you.

(End of Interview)

2018-04-04

Irene Gashurov

1973

Philip Nachman

Philip is owner of his Watertown, Mass.-based business, Nachman BioMedical, Medical Industry Exec Search, a recruiting firm for selling medical devices. At Harpur College, Philip created his own major in American studies, which included a class in Jewish-American literature.

Audio

Harpur College – Seventies alumni; Harpur College – Alumni working in the medical industry; Harpur College – Alumni CEOs; Harpur College – Alumni from Upstate New York; Harpur College – Alumni living in Boston

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Harpur College – Seventies alumni; Harpur College – Alumni working in the medical industry; Harpur College – Alumni CEOs; Harpur College – Alumni from Upstate New York; Harpur College – Alumni living in Boston