A LOT of our customers tell us how wonderful our employees are, and not just the ones they interact with, but also the ones they never get to contact, but the customers SEE the results of those employee's work (like those who pull and pack the orders, those who do the completely honest condition grading, etc, etc)!

Of course they most often focus on those they DO interact with, which is Phillip, my "right hand man" (who, oddly, like myself is left-handed!), Angie, our office manager, Clark, the warehouse manager, Matt, who answers most auction related emails, and Terri and Lana, who process most orders.

Many of those who compliment the above add that it is great that these people have mostly been here a LONG time (a lot of them add in that when they call OTHER auctions they rarely get the same person twice, and that whoever they talked to the last time no longer works there!). And it is that longevity of employment that accounts for our success, and WHY we have such an extremely smooth running organization!

Of course, I, Bruce, have been doing nothing but this for 28 years (from 1990 to 1998 it was known as "Bruce Hershenson Vintage Movie Posters" and it was mostly a one-man operation (running an annual catalog auction, with semi-annual giant sales lists), with a few part-time employees during busy times.

But in 1998 I changed it to "eMoviePoster.com" and I quickly saw that a business with hundreds of auctions a week would need a bunch of employees, and right from that point, I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I believed this could, over time, become a major auction business, but for that to happen I needed employees who would stick with the business for years, and ideally many years.

So from Day One of eMoviePoster.com, I looked to ONLY hire the very best people, and to pay them so well (compared to other businesses in this area) that they would never want to leave (barring special circumstances, like moving away). I have never wavered from that vision over the past 20 years!

On October 15, 1998, Phil showed up at my door, and I hired him, and he has been an integral part of how eMoviePoster.com has grown over the nearly 20 years he has been here. I could write a book about all he has done, but he constantly tells me I write too much, so I won't do so, but please take my work for it. In six months he will have been here 20 years!

On May 1, 2000, Angie started, and I can't begin to say how important a part of what we do she has been. She is the biggest reason that all orders are sent smoothly and on time, and when we make a rare mistake, SHE is almost always the one to set things right.  In a few days she will have been here 18 years!

On January 1, 2002, Gary started. After a short time he began to do the conditioning of posters (and creating the titles of auctions, and giving a last look for errors), and he has learned an INSANE amount about posters over that time (and he is surely the world's #1 expert on poster artists, from almost ANY year or genre!). He is well into his 17th year here!

On August 2, 2002, Toby started wrapping packages here. He has ABSOLUTELY packed more movie paper than any human being alive (or who has ever lived!) and if you have been impressed by our packing, it is Toby you should be thanking (although in recent years we auction so much that he always has help, because no one person could pack everything). In a few months, Toby will have been here 16 years!

On October 15, 2003, Clark started here, and this place took a quantum leap forward when he became the warehouse manager! Prior to that, our place was very disorganized, with posters EVERYWHERE. It was all we could do to hold 300 auctions or so a week. Over the following years Clark used his amazing organizational skills to get every item where it should be, and have systems for receiving entire truck loads at a time! In six months Clark will have been here 15 years!

So the above five people have been here a combined EIGHTY SIX years! Now I could also go on and on and on about our other 26 employees, and I feel I should, because their having been here fewer years than the above five in no way reflects on their competence or their importance here, so I will describe what they do in the next club message!

But the next time you wonder about WHY it is that we do what we do so much better than ANY other auction, think about the 86 years of experience our top five employees bring with them (and my 28 years!) and that is surely a big part of the answer!

See Also
Did you know... about many of the rest of our great long time employees (Employees Part II of III)?
Did you know... about the five employees who have been here between 3 and 4 years (Employees Part III of III)?