People occasionally ask me if there are any connections to major corporations and the Finders Operation? Yes, there are, through the operation’s connections to Robert L. Schwartz. Robert was a former Time Magazine bureau chief, an editor of Harper’s magazine, and an editor of Business Ethics magazine. Supposedly Robert’s key accomplishment was conceptualizing the modern conference center. However, Robert’s real calling seemed to be a mixture of entrepreneurship and business networking.[1]
Robert Schwartz was the owner and operator of a “Japanese-style” motel called “The Motel on the Mountain” in Severn, New York; the needs of his clients caused him to expand his business. “The idea for a conference center was born,” Robert, after selling his Motel on the Mountain in Rockland County, which had attracted several corporations that held meetings there. “Two former clients, one from A.T.&T. and the other from I.B.M., had outgrown the motel as a meeting place and asked me if I knew of a larger place that specialized in meetings,” Robert said, “and I knew an opportunity when I saw one.”[2]
Robert Schwartz purchased a building in Tarrytown, New York (Tarrytown is also known as “Sleepy Hollow” in American folklore), a twenty-eight-acre estate known as “Linden Court,” from then-owner Mary Duke Biddle. Running a single advertisement in the magazine “New Age,” Robert relayed the beginning of a “School for Entrepreneurs,” offering a three-week course at the cost of four hundred dollars and stressed that “the need for a new breed of entrepreneurs is transparently clear.” Robert then began constructing his vision of: “a self-contained entity designed to allow groups to achieve their meeting goals and objectives.” “In over 20 years in business, I have never received a response to any advertisement that was so overwhelming,” Robert said proudly. “My phone was ringing constantly. We literally have had thousands of corporations holding meetings here since. Participants come from all over the world, including the prime ministers of several countries who have held conferences here.” It was this combination of entrepreneurial spirit and connection making; combined with an obvious intellect; that seemingly catapulted Robert into success.[3] [4]
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