Turning Crisis Into Success by Richard Jaffe & Charly Jaffe; Cardiff, California: Waterside Productions © 2019; ISBN 9781939-116673; 299 pages; $17.95.
SAN DIEGO – This memoir tells of a man bouncing on the exceedingly rough seas of entrepreneurship and finding emotional safe harbor again and again in the warmth of his family. It is not your standard how-I-made-a-bundle-and-you-can-too motivational book; it is a very intimate autobiographical portrait of Del Mar resident Richard Jaffe, which he wrote with the assistance of his daughter Charly.
It also tells how Jaffe fronted the money and successfully negotiated for the land on which the San Diego Jewish Academy was built in Carmel Valley.
Jaffe led two companies with the aid of his late father, Irving Jaffe, and other relatives and friends. The first, initially based in upstate New York, was Guido’s Fruit Icees, which packaged frozen ices containing sufficient fruit juices to qualify for use in school meals. The second was San Diego-based SafeSkin Corp., which manufactured latex gloves used by doctors and health industry personnel to protect their hands while in physical contact with patients.
Both companies faced severe crises leading Jaffe to internally hit the panic button while externally putting on a brave face. All the crises were resolved favorably, once Jaffe calmed his emotions and figured how he might work around the problems. Often those workarounds involved using his formula for salesmanship, which involved grasping what motivates the person on the other side of the table – be it a client, a banker, or a seller – and figuring out how to answer that need.
Jaffe took both these businesses public, making a lot of money in the process, and ultimately sold them to Fortune 500 companies. Guido’s Fruit Icees was sold to Coca-Cola; SafeSkin was sold to Kimberly-Clark.
Some people compartmentalize business and their personal life, but in Jaffe’s book, one sees how interrelated they are. His father was his partner and advisor as he navigated many of these crises; his wife, Ann, and children Brett, Charly, and Maxi were his refuge during the periodic business crises that both plagued and invigorated his career.
Jaffe likes to write poetry, and in one of my favorite chapters, telling of his engagement to the former Ann Levinson, he reprinted the poem that he read to her over a dinner one night. The poem culminated in his successful proposal of marriage!
Another chapter that I think many members of the San Diego Jewish community will relish reading is about the negotiations he conducted, at Ann’s behest, with real estate developer Jon Jaffe (no relation) first, to convince him to sell the prime hillside property for use by the San Diego Jewish Academy instead of developing it into some 45 luxury homes; second, to lower the asking price for the property; and third, to make a personal contribution of $500,000 toward the development of the Jewish day school.
The negotiations were tough, but on either side of the table were two mensches.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com