Tom Stepanchak

Tom is the Mobility Services Innovation Manager for BMW Financial Services USA. In 2020 he returned to the United States having spent five years as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for BMW Financial Services in Japan and three years as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for BMW Financial Services in India. He has been General Manager Marketing Communications for BMW Financial Services USA and his career has also included a three year spell at BMW's headquarters in Munich.  

Before joining BMW, Tom spent 12 years in the entertainment industry with Dick Clark productions in Los Angeles and New York where he learnt a lot of the skills and behaviours that helped him to excel in his later roles. He also picked up some fascinating stories on the way that he shared with me when we spoke. 

I would definitely encourage you to check out these links to some of the ground breaking and highly entertaining projects that he talks about. 

BMW Films – Madonna 

MINI Protection – Paulie Walnuts 

 Hidden camera test drive surprise – Sachin Tendulkar  

BMW Z4 THX project  

 India Tom and Tokyo Tom Blog 

I had a lot of fun recording this conversation with Tom and I am delighted to be able to share his life and career story with you. As always, I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. 

You can contact Tom via email: Tom.Stepanchak@bmwfs.com 

Why not follow us on Instagram @careerviewmirror where you can comment on the specific episodes that you have enjoyed.  

To help you navigate the content we've separated it into chapters which work on Apple Podcasts and certain other streaming platforms. 

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by Aquilae. 

If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us grow. 

For details of our forthcoming guests follow us: 

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Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk 

Twitter: @cvmpodcast 

Episode recorded on 15 October 2021 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, family and school
• 9:45 College and the radio station
• 16:00 Joins WLEN radio
• 21:07 Three Mile Island meltdown
• 24:24 From aluminium factory to the Show Palace
• 31:34 Seeking adventure in Florida
• 36:28 News production, bloopers and Dick Clark Productions
• 41:42 The American Music Awards, move to LA, becoming a runner at Dick Clark Productions
• 49:19 Michael Jackson's trophies
• 55:01 Director of Publicity for Dick Clark Productions
• 59:25 Quits job and heads off travelling
• 1:06:51 A mortgage, marriage and a corporate production position....... intro to BMW
• 1:13:14 From showbiz to the corporate world
• 1:21:34 BMW action adventure films
• 1:26:59 Adopting their son
• 1:33:08 Move to Munich
• 1:36:58 Back to USA and BMW Financial Services
• 1:41:45 Move to India as Director of Sales and Marketing and starting a blog
• 1:49:31 Five years in Tokyo before returning to the US in Mobility Services
• 1:52:08 Tom's reflections
• 2:02:39 Wrapping up and takeaways

Transcript

Tom Stepanchak: 0:00

Are you out of your mind and my mother in law said Can't you be normal? And I said life is too short to be normal.

Andy: 0:08

Welcome to Career-view Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host Andy Follows. Tom Stepanchak listeners, Tom is the Mobility Services Innovation Manager for BMW Financial Services USA. In 2020 he returned to the United States having spent five years as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for BMW Financial Services in Japan, and three years as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for BMW Financial Services in India. He has been General Manager marketing communications for BMW Financial Services USA, and his career has also included a three year spell at BMWs headquarters in Munich. Before joining BMW, Tom spent 12 years in the entertainment industry with Dick Clark Productions in Los Angeles and New York, where he learned a lot of the skills and behaviours that helped him to excel in his later roles. He also picked up some fascinating stories on the way that he shared with me when we spoke, I would definitely encourage you to check out the show notes, where we've included links to some of the groundbreaking and highly entertaining projects that he talks about. I had a lot of fun recording this conversation with Tom, and I'm delighted to be able to share his life and career story with you. As always, I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

Aquilae Academy: 1:46

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by the Aquilae Academy. At the Academy, we turn individual development into a team sport. We bring together small groups of leaders from non competing organisations to form their very own Academy team. We build strong connection between team members and create a great environment for sharing and learning. We introduce the team to content that can help them tackle their current challenges. And we hold them accountable to take the actions that they decide are their priorities. We say we hold our team members feet to the fire of their best intentions. We do this internationally with teams across the world. If you'd like to learn more about the Academy, go to www.aquilae.co.uk.

Andy: 2:32

Hello, Tom, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?

Tom Stepanchak: 2:36

Andy, it is great to see you. You look fantastic. By the way. I'm coming to you from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is on the east coast of the US. Where I am is about midway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. If you know those cities in Pennsylvania,

Andy: 2:51

thank you very much. That's not an area I know well at all. And I think you're possibly our first guest from around there. So welcome again. And where did your journey start Tom? Where were you born?

Tom Stepanchak: 3:04

Right here I I've come back full circle. I was born and raised in a little town called Columbia, Pennsylvania. It's maybe 10,000 people, I'm sure you've never heard of it. I went to high school here went to college in this area as well. I'm one of four boys. I'm the second out of four boys in the family. My father was the president of our local hospital. And my mother was a registered nurse. In fact, she worked with Dr. This is very relevant today. She worked with Dr. Jonas Salk back at the University of Pittsburgh, developing the polio vaccine. And she actually was a Red Cross volunteer and went around the country and dealt with patients who were suffering from polio and had to deal with the iron lung. And that is so relevant today. Because back then that was a breakthrough to have a vaccination against polio. And look where we are here today in the modern times. Now dealing with COVID.

Andy: 3:53

It is full circle, as you said, you've travelled full circle, and I look forward to getting into some of your, your journey, but also full circle in terms of what your mother was doing and where we find ourselves today. And so did you say with a second of four

Tom Stepanchak: 4:07

second of four boys, we're all two years apart. So I have two of my brothers live local here in this area. And one of my brothers lives in Los Angeles. But yeah, it's been a great experience. So I was in as soon as I graduated from college, I left the area. So I've been gone for 40 years. And now in my older years, you know, my wife says, you know, we got to live somewhere. Why not here. So we actually built the house long distance, but I'm, I'm getting ahead of that we'll come to that in time. But I was away for 40 years, and I've come back and my mother is still here. She's 97 and still going strong. And my mother in law is here. She's 87 and doing very well. So it's it's working well for us.

Andy: 4:44

That is good. And I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But I do think how wonderful that you've been able to travel and get away as you say for 40 years go around the world as we're going to discuss and come back and your mother's still there and you can have this nice time that's coming up at this stage of your career, so thanks, Tom. So let's let's not skip over those those early years. Tell us a little bit about the family. So what was it like growing up? Tell us a little bit about your experiences there?

Tom Stepanchak: 5:13

Well, first of all, no, I don't mind saying that all I was born in 1959, I'm 62 years old, I have a lot of high energy. I feel like I'm 25 years old, no joke at all. Again, in our small town of Columbia, when I was about five years old, my parents bought this 100 acre farm, just outside of town. And so that was always our getaway place in the summer times, we'd go out there and do all kinds of projects on the farm very, you know, manual, physical labour type projects. We're not farmers by profession. So we rent the land. But it was a great growing up experience. We learned how to do a lot of things, you know, fix cars, and tractors and paint windows and all kinds of things. So again, with four boys, you know, I guarantee you, our parents kept us quite busy there on the farm.

Andy: 6:00

And what about school? Talk to us about school? What sort of a student were you?

Tom Stepanchak: 6:05

You know, it's it's been kind of a downward slope, I would say I was I was kind of like an A student in elementary school and a B student in high school. And by the time I got to college, it was maybe C. So I don't know what that says Andy but it was a downward trend.

Andy: 6:18

You peaked early?

Tom Stepanchak: 6:20

Yes, I did.

Andy: 6:21

Well, we know that's not It's not hampered you having a great career. So when you came to school, I'm just thinking, your father was working in a hospital managing a hospital?

Tom Stepanchak: 6:30

He was the president of our local hospital. Yes.

Andy: 6:32

Right. And you clearly haven't gone down that route. So what were some of the influences? What were some of the careers you had visibility of when you were growing up?

Tom Stepanchak: 6:42

Well, I don't know where it comes from. I guess it's it's probably in the DNA, because I think, you know, my brothers feel the same way. You know, we were we were raised the right way, and in a kind of an old school manner. And you know, my father was very strict. And the worst offence you could do was like to take a tool out of out of the workshop and not return it. And the belt came off. I'm sorry. It's shocking to hear that in today's day and age, but the belt came off and we got the belt. We learned from a very early age, you always put away your tools. And no, I have to say we were always, you know, my brothers are always very motivated to earn money. And my oldest brother, Richard, he got a job at the local hardware store, probably at age 12. And every quarter, they would put out this quarterly flyer. And so he at 12, and me at 10 would go around to every house in the neighbourhood, and pass out these flyers. And we got a penny per flyer that we delivered. My recollection is that we probably made about $32 A quarter. But you know, for a couple of kids 10 and 12. That was big money, big money, especially back in the 1960s. So, so I was 10. At the time, we did that. Age 11. I started Tom's lawn service, I had a lady that I mowed her lawn, I made $3.50 for mowing her lawn, and then word spread, and I grew up to about maybe 12 or 15 lawns over the years. At age 14, I worked at a local Dairy Queen, which is an ice cream store here in the US. At age 15. I worked at a local drugstore. And so I was earning my own money. And we always, always, always, were taught to save our money. We also at the farm, we had 1000 strawberry plants, and we would grow strawberries and pick them we'd sell them for 50 cents a quart. And we would save this money into our college fund. So for very early age, we were told to save for the future, especially for college. I had chickens and I would sell eggs for 50 cents a dozen beautiful brown eggs. And again, all of this money was was saved for the future. So it was it was a really strict upbringing, a very disciplined upbringing. And I've asked my brothers about this, we wouldn't have traded for the world because it made us who we are today.

Andy: 8:56

That sounds very industrious childhood that you had, a very entrepreneurial childhood and school was going on, as well. I'm wondering to what extent did that balance that you have between work and education affect your thoughts on what life was going to be like, afterwards? Do you do you think from an early age you felt I'm going to be able to make money I know how to make money already.

Tom Stepanchak: 9:21

You know, it's always one of those questions that's that's in your mind is what you know, what am I going to do when I grow up? And you know, the whole way through high school the whole way through college? Many, many, many years. I swear any. I was in my 40s saying, What am I going to do when I grow up? You know, now I'm 62. And I'm thinking about the next chapter. Okay, what am I going to do like, the next phase of life here? I still haven't figured that out, by the way, but I'm working on it.

Andy: 9:45

Okay. I certainly relate to some of that thinking. When you were coming towards the end of your school days where was your head then? What sort of thoughts were you having about what direction to go in?

Tom Stepanchak: 9:58

Well, I can tell you something. It was really pivotal to me was at age 16. I saved up enough money and I bought my own vehicle I bought a used Datsun pickup truck. If you can imagine what that looked like, and

Andy: 10:12

give us a colour, it'll help the picture

Tom Stepanchak: 10:15

It was, I can send you a photo was it was a light green, faded green. It was a 72 Datsun pickup. I bought it in 76, as I recall, but again it in Pennsylvania at age 16. I got my licence right away. As soon as I turned 16 I bought the truck. And that allowed me to expand Tom's lawn service because now I could go out farther. And I had freedom and I had mobility. And when I started college, then I was a commuter. Actually my freshman year I was able to drive back and forth. And then and then after that I moved on to campus. But something that again, it was really pivotable once I went to a local college here, Elizabeth town College. Oddly enough, Andy tomorrow, my wife and I are going to our 40th college reunion tomorrow. So it's been a long time. But when I joined when I got on campus as a freshman, I joined the local radio station there and it's a small school, I think we had maybe 1400 students. And it was a little am, 6:40am radio station. And I think if you stepped maybe one block off of campus, you couldn't even hear the station. It was like really old and scratchy. And I joined the local radio station became a DJ there. But that was really, really pivotable. But I'll I'm jumping ahead a little bit. I'll tell you how that played out for me later.

Andy: 11:29

But that listeners explains why Tom sounds so good.

Tom Stepanchak: 11:35

Thank you, Andy you're too kind.

Andy: 11:37

So you. You're welcome. So, subject wise, what were you leaning towards?

Tom Stepanchak: 11:42

It's funny, I initially my freshman year, I started as an accounting major, because I had two years in accounting in high school, and I really liked the subject. I really liked the teacher. Okay, yeah. Because back to the earlier question, what am I going to do? Yeah, I really liked this, maybe I'll be an accountant. And then I got into college. And everybody told me this. I didn't believe it. But it was true. I got into college, I took accounting, my freshman year, first semester, they covered two years of what I had in high school in one semester. And they were racing through it so fast. I'm like, Oh, my God. And then I got to the second semester of accounting, and everything was new. And I'm like, I'm over my head. I don't get this, you know, this is not right for me. So I switched from accounting to a general business major business management, and went on from there. But I, this is dangerous for the kids to hear about. I gotta tell you this. You asked me anything I learned in college in the classroom. Zero, I'm sorry, I don't remember anything Andy I don't remember anything. But where I learned and got value in things that helped me for the rest of my life were the activities. It was the radio station. It was the newspaper. It was the yearbook. I was in I was active in all of those. And you're working together as a group. And even though you're students, there's a hierarchy. There's management, there's tasks, there's deadlines. There's all of that stuff. There's creativity, there's arguments, there's decision making. That's where I learned value. Those are things where I picked up skills that benefit me to this day. Again, from the books. I can't tell you a thing I learned.

Andy: 13:22

Yeah. So I'm looking at your career, and we're going to go through it and it looks to me like a textbook. It's the progression if you are interested in communications and marketing communications, when we start to get into the journey, it does look like textbook career, it looks, you know you've done 40 years, as you said, with continuous progression in that field. And it's now interesting to hear how early that started. So yes, there was entrepreneurialism, there was the industrious nature of your childhood. But that could be generic, you know, that could be helpful in a lot of fields. But it's it sounds like with the radio station, you're getting into communications, arguably delivering leaflets, you know, was getting into communications as well. But where did that where did you start on this track?

Tom Stepanchak: 14:13

Well, it again, it goes back to those early days. And I don't know why. I mean, obviously 60s and 70s was a different time. And we were just we were all focused on we gotta make money, we've got to earn money. And like if you can get, look the jobs are plentiful today. There's help wanted signs everywhere. It was the opposite. During my day, you were knocking on doors looking for job trying to find work. And so that the summer of 78 so was after my freshman year, I went crazy. I literally had two full time jobs, and I was still doing all of my lawns, probably about a dozen lawns. And even in that mode, I was still looking for another job, which I found. So my two full time jobs so one of them I worked at a local licorice factory, the night shift making licorice. And I have to Twizzlers, licorice. Hershey Foods. I gotta tell you, I loved licorice at the time, I think I have an aversion to it. Now I don't think I can eat another piece of licorice in my life. So that was the night shift. And then during the day I was selling advertisements. So if you went to a local diner, a restaurant, they would have like a paper mat. And there would be advertisements around the edges of the mat. And so I was selling that and had all my lawn service going. So I was out selling these, these placemats and I stopped at a local restaurant to get a drink. And for some reason, there was a newspaper there for some reason I picked it up, went straight to the want ads. I had so much work and I was still looking for more. I don't know why Andy, I can't answer that. I came across an ad in the newspaper that said there was a radio station looking for somebody on Sundays to put on what I called the church tapes. Like on Sunday mornings, you have public service announcements and public service programmes. You know, there's a Spanish programme, there's a church programme, whatever. I said okay, well, I've got this great, you know, one year experience as a freshman working on my local college station, I got experienced, of course, I went in and applied for the job in my, it was for WLEN radio, a real broadcast radio station here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I'm like, oh my god, this is a real radio station. I went in with so much passion and so much enthusiasm. They had to hire me, they just had to hire me. So they they hired me and I'm like, great kid, you're gonna come in and put on all these church tapes. And but I got on the air. And so So you put on the tapes. And then every hour, there's a break, see, come on, and you do the weather, tell the time do a little bit of news. And I'm sure some places are recording, I was so nervous the first time I turned on that microphone, and had to tell the time and the weather. But so I did the church tapes, you know, for a couple of months. And then with that, like a normal weekend shift opened up. And I got promoted up to that shift. And so now I was like a real live DJ, I had my own time slot. I'm playing all the music of the time, it was a disco was big back in then, it was probably Ring My Bell and the Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever, all that kind of stuff that was the time of, of that time period. And, and it was great. And I loved it. And I was I was I think maybe 19 years old. And I made, I made $3 an hour. And then when I got this promotion, I got a 10 cents. So I made $3.10 an hour doing this weekend shift, but it was great. So I was I was in college, you know, five days a week, and then doing this DJ shift on the weekends.

Andy: 17:41

So I'm wondering, this, it's a wonderful story. And it sounds like there was a point where it was all about the money. So whether it was cutting lawns, or all the other jobs, the the main driver was getting money. But the passion that you had when you went in or the something triggered when you went into the radio station of that excited you perhaps in a different way than the just the getting money of other jobs is

Tom Stepanchak: 18:07

it's so funny. You see Andy, you're talking about it was all about the money because that's actually one of my, you know, lessons that I would I would save for the end, but I'll jump to that point is my advice in life is don't do anything for money. Don't don't do anything for money, do it because you want to because you add value because you have passion. Don't do anything for money. I think for me and my brothers as well.

Andy: 18:30

When did that penny drop if you like?

Tom Stepanchak: 18:32

Well, no, it was it. It wasn't a penny drop. It was it was all it was about it was about earning money to save money, and always making sure that you were secure for the future. That's what it was about. It's about security for the future because you just you never know.

Andy: 18:48

So this driver was security not having money, per se. It was building security and a feeling of security.

Tom Stepanchak: 18:56

My brothers and I are all pretty tight with a buck. Look out ndy

Andy: 19:00

Right, right. And was a taught a learned behaviour. Was that what you were taught?

Tom Stepanchak: 19:06

Yeah, I just, it was seeing my father, well, my parents grew up during the Depression. My mother on her side, they're both from the Pittsburgh area. My mother on her side. She was okay. Her father was in real estate and they were fine. They were secure. But you know, my father was an immigrant. His his parents came over from the Ukraine, you know, they went to Ellis Island. They didn't speak English. You know, they got settled in the Pittsburgh area. My grandfather who I never met, my grandparents died before I bought was born on that side. My grandfather worked in a coal mine and he worked in the steel mill. And my father was one of seven children. And he can tell stories about you know, he didn't have shoes, you know, if he got an orange for Christmas, that was a good Christmas, you know, so growing up like that in the heat of the Depression. Obviously that was it and you never change that that that was my father. went to 92. That mentality was in his body his whole life. And that I think cascaded down on the four boys as well. So it was amazing. Andy, you just helped me piece it together here. It's it's that upbringing that says, Look, be prepared for the future. Someday it could all end and you have nothing. So get money, earn money, get money, save money, always have that nest egg ready

Andy: 20:24

Mm hmm. And thanks for sharing that, Tom. So, to go. obviously, financial security pretty, you know, an understandable thing to strive for. Lots of jobs give that potentially some jobs that not all jobs are equal, though. And I'm wondering then, at what point did you decide to do more radio and I don't want to jump ahead for you. But more, radio and less, less lawn mowing. you're still at college at this point.

Tom Stepanchak: 20:55

Yes. I kept that lawn mowing. Even into my senior year in college, I kept that lawn mowing. And why did I do that? Andy? I don't know. But I did. But let me let me go back to college. So I want to I want to test your knowledge of history. The there was something that really, really big and major happened in March of 1979. In Pennsylvania, this will actually pinpoint where I am. Three Mile Island melted down. That was in March of 1979. And so the college where I was attending was only six miles away. And it happened on a Wednesday. The accident happened on a Wednesday. And they said that's okay, don't worry, everything's fine. And then Friday, they came around with bullhorns on the police truck saying, Stay inside, close your doors, close your windows turn off all ventilation. And we're like, this is ridiculous. I mean, radiation can go through walls. And so everybody fled, which was the worst thing to do. But anybody everybody fled. But for me to leave college and go home, I was only 15 miles away. So it was it was a delicate time. And I was I was on the air I was on radio and and I have to say I got so many compliments. During that time here. I was very calm. I was very relaxed. I remember President Jimmy Carter came to visit Three Mile Island and he was there to try and calm everybody down. Don't worry, it's gonna be okay. And it was a it was a. So we had our radia ion vacation from college. And t en it's true. We called it and t en after about two weeks or so they most everybody came back ot everybody did. But it's so fu ny cuz I you know, I had some, some college classmates who w re going home to Phila elphia, maybe 90 miles away, and they thought they were safe. And meanwhile, they were meeti g people there in Phila elphia who are moving farth r away, because they thoug t they were too close to this hing.

Andy: 22:45

Everybody felt they needed to move, depending on where you started from.

Tom Stepanchak: 22:50

Oh, here'sa funny story that at the exact same time, there was a movie called The China's syndrome, which came out with Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. And it was about a nuclear power plant in California that starts to melt down. And I'm not making this up. Go watch the movie from 1979 in the in the script at one point somebody says well, jeez, what happens if this thing melts down? And the answer is it'll wipe out an area the size of Pennsylvania, which is exactly where we were.

Andy: 23:19

This is not funny. No, it's It's I don't want it is though

Tom Stepanchak: 23:24

I can't make it up Andy this this was all happening right in front of us. So anyway, it was it was a delicate time period. We survived so it just you know there's two they're still there today. This unit one and Unit Two on the Susquehanna River here Three Mile Island. So Unit One was the first a very very safe well constructed, unit two they slapped together pretty quickly. And this accident happened with young engineers there. It happened happened very quickly after that unit had come online. So Unit Two is completely permanently shut down. It'll never be used again. And Unit One is still up and running and functioning. So life goes on.

Andy: 23:59

Wow. So what how did I get us to there?

Tom Stepanchak: 24:03

Well, I don't know. I it was it was I'm sorry.

Andy: 24:05

No no, It was it was good. It was a brilliant story. I just wondering I can't remember what where we were up to

Tom Stepanchak: 24:11

You were talking about you know how the career path had progressed for me

Andy: 24:16

yeah, when you'd got so at college, you're still doing lawn mowers you're doing weekend job on the radio station. And tell us from there. Tell us

Tom Stepanchak: 24:24

Alright so March of 79 was Three Mile Island we got through that so summer 79 My brother Richard my oldest brother was working at a an aluminium factory here in the area called Halmet and I went an applied for a job because the would hire college kids in th summer to work on the factor floor to you know help leave fo vacations and things like that So you would drive a forklif and move scrap aluminium aroun and do whatever you do. And applied and Andy have no ide how or why but they had on position in the office in th Scheduling Office, you know suit and tie Office. And the gave it to me. I, I have no ide why it was maybe random pullin names out of the hat. So here am surrounded by all my colleg friends and they're down working swing shift with th hard hats and the blue outfi and sweating bullets becaus it's stinking hot and humi there. And I'm in an ai conditioned office with a sui and tie on, you know, helping t schedule the aluminium throug the factory. Andy my mothe always said she she says you'r the luckiest person on the fac of the planet and, and I alway push back I said, well, and worked hard. I put myself i position to have good thing happen. But the more I reflec on that, I think she's right I'm the luckiest guy aliv without a doubt

Andy: 25:40

That one was just plain luck, you reckon?

Tom Stepanchak: 25:42

But then But then there's more again, because Anndy I just I'm never satisfied. I'm looking for more work. So my friend Don Anderson got a job at a place called the Show Palace. So you gotta remember this was 1979. And Donna Summer, disco was king. And this this place opened up called the Show Palace. It was in the it was under construction in the process of opening up and he got a job there in construction he said its fine. So I went over I got a job in construction, and I'm helping to build this place called the show palace. And then it went from construction to opening night. I became a bus boy then, and so I had a white shirt on little black bow tie, and I was a bus boy there to bus tables. And they they'd hired this DJ from somewhere. I don't know where I don't remember his name. And he was I'd say this out loud. He was a phoney he was a phoney he sold himself as a DJ. But there it was opening night and he went up into the booth. And he just he freaked out. He had a meltdown. And he just like I can't do it. And the owner really tough tiger. He snapped his fingers. He pointed at me. He snapped his fingers. He says you up in the booth, because he knew I worked at a radio station. And there I am in my white shirt with my bow tie as a bus boy and now the DJ of the brand new show Palace on opening day. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So that was it. I was that was it. Bus boy days were over I was then the DJ at the show palace. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Andy: 27:11

Fantastic. And so not completely lucky. I mean, based on the fact that you already worked in a radio station. So you were the most experienced person in the room at that time when it happened. And how quickly how comfortable that I don't know if you remember that first moment, from waiting tables to being in the booth? How quickly did you settle into that? Was it I can do this?

Tom Stepanchak: 27:35

Yeah, it was we used records back then. Again, if there's a younger generation, listening here, ask your parents what an LP is 33 and a third,

Andy: 27:42

ah they've come back, they've come back

Tom Stepanchak: 27:44

Yeah, that's true. The vinyl has come back. And there were two turntables, and it was all disco music, and you had to mix it and you would, you would try and mix it so that the beats would line up so that the segway from one song to the next would be smooth. And I had zero experience doing that. I learned on the job. I just figured it out. And sometimes you get a really good mixing, man, that was a really good mix. And the next one, it would be kind of bumpy. And so you just figure it out as you go. But But it all worked.

Andy: 28:11

Very good. Very good.

Tom Stepanchak: 28:13

I'll just I just keep progressing through. So that was that was summer 79. And then I got the summer of 80. Again, I went back to the aluminium factory back to the office. You know, I was I was doing the radio DJ thing. I still was doing the lawns, I was doing the show palace. But Andy, that wasn't enough, I still needed more. So I started my own mobile DJ service. So I had an amplifier and speakers and music and lights and all that kind of stuff. And so I'd go around to like high schools and colleges and weddings, weddings were big for me. And you know, I would DJ book for three hours or four hours and play music so people could dance.

Andy: 28:52

So it's not dissimilar to cutting lawns. But for someone who likes communicating and likes music, and has got the DJ experience, so you're travelling around delivering your service, but you've slotted into something maybe a bit more passionate about.

Tom Stepanchak: 29:08

Yeah so that that definitely was the entrepreneurial side and, and again, so now I'm getting older, I'm getting in my senior year of college and oh, what are you going to do? And, and I remember telling everybody at that time, it's look, I want to be an entrepreneur. I said, I can't imagine myself being in some corporate job someplace. I, I want to be an entrepreneur. And but I didn't know why I had no clue. I had no clue what I was going to do. So, you know, I just I just kept doing what I was doing so in I'll just put a timestamp on this. I started my senior year, it was November of 1980. And Ronald Reagan was elected. And we went through to then January of 81. And you gotta remember back in that time period we had we had American hostages trapped in Iran. They were trapped for 444 days. And Ronald Reagan was elected and then the day Ronald Reagan was was inaugurated was the day the

Andy: 29:59

does he does he not like you Tom? hostages were released. And I got to say that there was just this this groundswell of positive emotion and positive energy. And like the Vietnam War was now a little bit more distant, a little bit more away. The Iranian hostages were released, we had a new president, and there was optimism in the air. That was a real turning point in our country here in the US. And it was a good time for me to be getting out of college. And I really got caught up in all of that. So the optimism was there. I graduated in the summer of 81. And I said, Okay, now what am I going to do? I need to go find a job. I went back to the aluminium factories, and now my third year, and I say, You know what, well, that that office job you had isn't there anymore, you know, you can go down to the factory floor. So I went down to the factory floor. And I was I was driving a forklift, I made$5 an hour, which was great money back then. $5 An hour great money, working swing, shift, hauling scrap aluminium, driving a forklift, hot, humid, sweating the whole thing. And again, so now I have this college degree. The summer job has just now ended I'm getting into autumn. And I have no job. And I'm still on doing the lawns and doing the DJ thing. But those aren't careers. And everybody's like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And then my youngest brother, my brother, John, who was still in high school at the time. He He's very quiet. He speaks maybe one sentence a day. But when he speaks, it's worth listening to. And everybody saying what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And my brother John says, Why don't we drive down to Florida over my Thanksgiving break? You can get a job and stay down there and I'll fly back. I'm like, Okay,

Tom Stepanchak: 31:51

I've said it many times before he knows he's not gonna be surprised that I just said that.

Andy: 31:57

Let's take you a long, long way away, brother and leave you there.

Tom Stepanchak: 32:01

But just to put it in context. I mean, so where we live in Pennsylvania to Orlando, Florida is about 1000 miles. But you know, I was tired of the snow and the winters and you know, I had been stranded in some blizzards a couple of times. The blizzard of 78 was just brutal for me as a commuter. Go into college, I got stranded in a blizzard had to hike like seven miles to school in the steep snow. I sound like my grandparents. Now I know that it's true. It's true. That did happen to me. So so my brother my brother was in high school and again in my Datsun pickup truck and I had this little camper shell on the back and I threw some personal belongings in the back and a mattress on top. And so November is our Thanksgiving season here. He had a four day break from school. We drove down to Florida. We stayed at Daytona Beach for a couple of days. And then I took my brother to the Daytona airport, I watched him getting on the plane, you know, to fly back to Pennsylvania to go back to high school. It was the scariest moment of my life. My brother is now getting on this plane. And I'm in my truck. And I had $600 cash in my pocket. And no job, no place to live. And no clue. And I didn't know anybody. Am I Okay? What am I going to do now? So I drove to Orlando. And at this point, Orlando, this was 1981 There was only one theme park down there and it was it was called Disney World at the time. You would notice the Magic Kingdom today. That was there was no Epcot there was no animal kingdom. There was no dis none of that was there was just one theme park the Magic Kingdom. And so I got to Orlando and I was going around and I was you know knocking on doors and trying to apply for jobs. And they would give me the application and Andy I'm sorry they asked these really really unfair questions on these applications. What is your address? What is your phone number? They're completely unfair questions I'm sorry

Andy: 34:01

probably hygiene factors as well. Yeah.

Tom Stepanchak: 34:04

So I'm I'm whatever waiter restaurant I'm filling some I'm running down this Pennsylvania address and this Pennsylvania phone number and I'm turning it in they look at me we're not gonna hire you, you know you who are you? So I kept doing this and I thought this isn't working. And by the way I was living at the i4 the interstate four goes right to Orlando and they had a rest stop there. You know, we come over and use the bathroom or get a drink or something. And that's where I was living. I was living at the i4 rest stop in the back of my Datsun pickup truck. And I said okay, well now Disney is here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for Disney. So I went in and I applied to Disney and I got the application. And I Okay, I need a better answer here. So I went over to the payphone. payphone with the Yellow Pages. Again, younger kids, ask your parents. I went to the payphone with the yellow pages. I looked up this place called Camping World So I write down this address for camping world, I write down the phone number for camping world. And I turn in my application and the woman chats with me a little bit. She's okay. She says, she says, we'll call you next week and set up a second interview. I'm like, I never thought so fast before in my life. And I said, Can we just set up that second interview now? And she says, well, well, we've never done that before. But she says, okay, and she came back. She's okay, come back on this day at this time for your second interview. And I'm like, okay, so I came back. second interview, I got the job. I got the job at Disney. And but the thing is, Well, I worked I again, I loved I worked at the

Andy: 35:39

what was the job? Haunted Mansion, which is the coolest attraction in the entire park. I'm sorry, I love the Haunted Mansion going in. I love it even better. Now. I worked at the Haunted Mansion. But here's the thing. The job was only for 10 days. Because they hire extra people between Christmas and New Year's. That's their busy season. They needed extra people. So I had four days of orientation for a job that lasted 10 days. Disney is brilliant with that stuff. They are so in control of their brand. Everything was controlled hair, makeup, jewellery, wardrobe, everything perfectly controlled. What a great experience that was at the time of my life. So that was December 81. I worked Christmas Day I worked New Year's Day. couldn't have been happier. Great experience. Brilliant.

Tom Stepanchak: 36:28

So well then the job the job lasted 10 days it was I did get a place to live. So I literally rented a room in some this is a long time before Airbnb but it went to the newspaper. I found an ad I rented a room in a house for exactly one month. And then you know the job dried up and I was okay. I'll get back on the road. I'll just start driving and I started driving south. I'm like, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. And I got down to Fort Myers, Florida. It's on the Gulf Coast of Florida further south. And actually I connected with an old college friend who was two years older than me. I knew her from the radio station back in college. Her name is Evelyn Johnson. She went by the handle EJ the DJ, she was a great great lady. And she was working at a TV station in Fort Myers, Florida little tiny TV station small market. And I was visiting her and she said Hey, there's there's a job open at the station. Why don't you go for it. I said, I said I think I'm gonna go to Key West tomorrow. She's gonna come I want to apply for the job. So I applied for the job. And again, no TV experience at all. And they hired me. So my job then was to run the camera for the six o'clock and 11 o'clock news. So they say okay, now my training was this. I'm gonna do my whole training for you right now. Okay, this is the camera. Okay, here's how you zoom. This is tilt. This is pan. This is focus, put on the headsets and do what the director tells you. That was it. That was my training. So I put on the headset, and he's like, Pan left panel too far pan, right? tilt down too far. Check your focus. He's screaming at me screaming at me in the headsets and I Oh, you just learn on the fly. But so Andy here's the funny thing. Two months later, I was directing. I was in the booth. Because it was such a small station. The people come in, they get experience they move on to bigger markets. It was a rotating door nonstop. Two months later, I was in the booth directing and screaming at somebody else to pan left and you're gone too far. Great experience. Incredible.

Andy: 38:27

Yeah. Absolutely Yeah yeah, we use bloopers, yeah

Tom Stepanchak: 38:29

So I stayed there two years. And I worked in news production. So I was producing news writing news editing news, assigning news. I did a news production for two years. And then along the way, of course, wacky things would happen mistakes would happen e call them bloopers. Do you kn w the word blooper? bloopers and outtakes and I just naturally saved all of those. And then on we were an NBC affiliate. There was a guy named Dick Clark out in Los Angeles who would produce these blooper shows once or twice a year it was an annual special and they would show like mistakes and outtakes and things like that for movies and commercials. And so I started sending my my tapes to LA and they started to use some of my material on the air. And so I started to develop this relationship with this this company called Dick Clark productions. Again, Americans will recognise that name. He's, he's now dead almost 10 years, but a big, big celebrity in the US. He was known for this show called American Bandstand, which is which is very iconic. Every New Year's Eve in Times Square like when the ball would drop. He would like welcome in the new year. He's very famous for that. But he would, he would host a lot of TV shows but also produce a lot of TV shows that he didn't host so a big production company in Los Angeles so he started using my material. Then in January of 84. This this special once a year, went to a series so they were on every Monday night and they needed a tonne of material I sent material they call it this a we love it. They said, We want you and your weatherman to fly to Los Angeles this weekend. We love your material. We've created this award called the Golden bloopers award. And we, you know, we want to give it to your weatherman. And I'm like, okay, sure, I'll do that. I got approval from the management. And so they really only wanted the weatherman because he had wacky things happen to him. And, but, but I

Andy: 40:27

Can I just asked Tom, did the weatherman know that you've been sending these bloopers?

Tom Stepanchak: 40:30

Yes, oh Yeah

Andy: 40:31

Presumably he, he was the blooper he was the one that was making the mistakes.

Tom Stepanchak: 40:34

I gotta tell you station management was very uncomfortable with this because they said, Oh, we look foolish. And we're like, Nah, come on, it's light. It's silly. It's fun. It's good promotion. And, and they were very uncomfortable. But they they came around, they could see the benefit of it. So the the people at Dick Clark productions, they only wanted the weatherman. But I developed enough relationships over the phone, you know, they invited me to come along as well. That decision there changed my life, like you cannot believe it. So we get to Los Angeles, and we meet Dick Clarke. Oh my god, we need Ed McMahon, the other hosts of this show again, another name from the past, oh my God. And they filmed a segment and it worked great. Dick Clark at the same time was also producing another show called the American Music Awards, which is a live two hour music award show kind of like the Grammys. And this was January, February, January 1984. And this was the year that Michael Jackson had come out with he had come out with Thriller and Thriller was like everything Thriller was like the number one selling album at the time. And so Dick Clark says to to the two of us, he says, Can you stay for the American Music Awards? And we're like, yeah, we can do that. He says, he says, he says, Hold on, he says, I'm gonna see if I can get you some tickets. So Dick Clark, this big celebrity runs off to come back. He says, he says, I got you two tickets. Don't worry. Unbelievable. 11th row of this huge auditorium that seats 6000 people there we are in the 11th row American music awards. All these big acts are there. And fortunately, I had an aisle seat. And so the show is going on. And the winner is Michael Jackson. The winner is Michael Jackson, the winner Michael Jackson won eight awards that night. So he just won. He was there with Brooke Shields. By the way. Brooke Shields was his date that night. He just won his eighth award. It was the commercial break. They walk him backstage, they bring him into the audience and they're walking him down the the aisle of the audience. And he just walked right past me. I said what the heck. And I reached out my hand I said, Hey, Michael. And he stopped. He turned around, he shook my hand with his ungloved hand. He shook my hand. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, Michael Jackson shook my hand, Michael Jackson shook my hand. I was like this screaming little kid We stayed for the after party. Oh, my God, the bug bit the bug bit. So Andy, what else can I do? But go back to Florida quit my job and move to Los Angeles. That's what I did.

Andy: 43:07

I don't think there was anything you could have done.

Tom Stepanchak: 43:09

I had to do that. I had to do that. But again, I had no job lined up. And so I said I gotta create a job for myself. So as soon as I got back to Florida, I started calling the president of the company. I didn't know him at all. He didn't know me. Somebody gave me his name. Because I had an idea and I wanted to pitch him an idea. I called him. His name's Fran Lamaina. I said, Can I speak with Fran Lamaina? I'm sorry. He's in a meeting. And so I packed up my Datsun pickup truck. And I started driving it's 3000 miles. I started driving West. And every day I would stop and I go to a payphone I dropped my quarters in the payphone. I'd call up Dick Clark productions. Can I speak with Fran Lamaina. I'm sorry. He's in a meeting right now. I called every single day as I'm driving across the country. I get to Los Angeles. And I'm calling calling calling. And finally the secretary says, Hold on. Let me put you through. And he picks up the phone. And I did the elevator pitch. I was I was sharp. I was on my game. I here's my plan bump, bump, bump, bump. Here's my idea. He goes, he goes, why don't you come in and see me. I'm like, fantastic. So I went in the next day to see him. And I pitched my idea in person. He goes yeah, he goes that's a good idea he goes. We're not gonna do it. He goes how, how'd you like to be a runner? I'm like okay, a runner meaning a gopher mailroom bottom of the pile. And I made $35 a day and

Andy: 44:39

Can I ask what the idea was Tom?

Tom Stepanchak: 44:42

Oh, it was it was it was for publicity and PR and promotion and on how to help promote the blooper shows. I just I wanted to do more promotion around the blooper show and again, I was like a small town small market guy. And to me it sounded like this big idea. Now I'm talking to this the president of this multi million dollar, you know, TV production company, and that's just like it's like a flea on the back of an elephant kind of idea in his in his mind,

Andy: 45:09

but what do you think he did here? Or what did he notice or receive from you?

Tom Stepanchak: 45:13

Well he must have been talking to other people in the office who said, Hey, there's this guy, Tom from Florida. And you know, he was here for the show. And you know, he's a young guy, he's got a lot of energy. And see at that point, he did learn that I'd moved to California because I got that advice. They said, they said Don't try and get a job from Florida nobody's going to hire you have to be here. And so that's why I quit and moved down and, and for the record of my college roommate, Brian Carroll was living in Los Angeles at the time so I didn't have to live in my truck. Once I got out there. I had a floor to sleep on at hi tiny apartment. So I got in got the interview. He says why don't you to be a runner, a opher. And again, it was it wa$35 a day. 20 cents a mile. And Wow. And where did you Where did you get to then by the end of oh, by the way, we need you to ay and tomorrow, but we don't n ed you on Friday. So don't com in on Friday. It's it's not st ady at all. And then I started in the mailroom, and they sa okay, here's a bunch of tape. Take this tape to ABC. That o e goes to NBC. Take this cheque, put it in the bank. Oh, pick up Dick's dry cleaning by the wa. Dick had dogs he would bring h s dogs to the office, take t e dogs over to the vet. They nee their toenails. Trim it just Xe ox. We started photocopy. We sai Xerox Xerox, see all the scrip s, you know, put this one n pink paper, put that one o green paper, every colou had a different purpose. And pu three hole punches in it. On nd on. Just working in the ma lroom. This was before FedEx. T is was before the fax mach ne was invented. You just ran around town delivering stuff. I had my Datsun pickup truck. nd you know, and I had this thi paper map called the Thomas guide, because I didn't know here I didn't know Los Angeles nd you have to follow this map nd try to find these places and nd you get lost and then in he guy that hired me, Jeff Cop. He ran the office. Like he was drill sergeant right out of Ful Metal Jacket. He didn't talk e just screamed. And he screamed obscenities. And I kno this is a G rated programme. o I have to clean it up here a little bit. But I'm tellin you, he could use the F word a a noun, an adjective a d adverb a preposition a dangling modifier. And every sentence he had had that word i it. And it was always directed t us in the mailroom. And e were just idiots. We were scu. No matter what we did was wro g. It could have been better. T at was life. But you know what? ou're in show business. Andy we' e in show business and peopl took the abuse because now God that was incredible to say I worked at Dick Clark production. That was a that was a big, b g deal. Even though I'm in the m ilroom, it's a lonely runn r. But great experience. Bot om line is I stayed there and mo ed up to the ranks. I stayed wi h him your time there? Well, I have to back up for a second. Cuz there's one other point that I wanted to mention here, as kind of a lesson learned. When I was in Florida and travelling cross country calling the president. You know, I called every single day for, I don't know, 10 days, I'm guessing. And I assumed that I was only talking to the secretary. But I learned later behind the scenes, she was telling the president, Hey, that guy Tom from Florida called again, that guy Tom from Florida called again. So she was just passing that little feedback to him. So when I got to LA and then she says, Hold on, let me put you through. And then you know, I came in, I pitched my idea. And he said, You are the most politely persistent person I've ever met. And so that was one of my, my lessons learned is you know, dedication, passion, politely persistent. I'll never forget those words. I was just committed to the idea. And I kept pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing in a very polite fashion. And it finally opened the door for me.

Andy: 49:03

Great point Tom, and also the role that everybody in the business plays there there's assistants and gatekeepers you know don't forget, they speak to their bosses and their bosses Listen, to say what sort of how did this person behave? Do you like him? Should I see him?

Tom Stepanchak: 49:19

You don't think you're breaking through but maybe under the radar you are and in this case, I was and it absolutely worked for me. So one other quick story I have to tell you as a runner, and I think it's statute limitations are gone. So I think I can tell the story now. so I I'd been there maybe two months. And so the way these award shows work is when when Michael Jackson, here's your award, they give you a dummy trophy. And then they wait and see who wins and then everything gets inscribed and engraved and then the trophies actually come two months later. So now I'm there now working two months into my job and all the trophies show up. And there's Michael Jackson's. They're all wrapped in baby diapers in these boxes and there's the Michael Jackson, eight trophies, and he lived in Encino, you know, part of Los Angeles. Maybe I don't half hour from the office. And my boss Jeff Cops says okay. Get these trophies over to Michael Jackson's house. I'm like, okay, so I load my Datsun pickup truck. I load up Michael Jackson's eight trophies and I get out there and you know, big gated thing and there's all these girls standing outside. They're standing outside Michael Jackson's gate, you know, and I, I push Hello Tom from Dick Clark productions, I've got okay. The gate opens up and I drive in. And I get inside and and my boss told me, you get Michael or one of his parents to sign for these trophies. I want a signature that these trophies have been received. And so I get out there, the guard lets me in and I said like, I need Michael or one of the parents to sign. He goes, he goes nobody's here. He goes, nobody's home. So I I call up my boss, Jeff. And I said I said Jeff, sorry. There's nobody here to sign for them. He just started screaming his obscenities. And then he says, and this is like now six o'clock now six o'clock in the evening. And he's grumbling he goes take them home and guard them with your life. I'm like, okay, I get in and my my roommate Brian is there I get home and I I take these eight boxes into this little apartment. I said, Brian, I said, I got Michael Jackson's trophies here.

Andy: 51:30

Is that what I can see behind you Tom?

Tom Stepanchak: 51:33

Okay, and Andy, I think I think I'm, I think I'm protected here. We opened up one of the boxes. And we took a whole bunch of photos with Michael Jackson's trophy. And we put it in the laundry basket, we put it in the refrigerator. We put in all these unusual places, and I have all these photos someplace in my basement, I'm sure. And then, you know, wrapped it up and then I took the trophies back the next day and got the signature and I was on the way so it's it's funny because, you know, there was a very tight relationship between Dick Clark and Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson made his network television debut on American Bandstand as like as like a nine year old boy with the Jackson Five. And so that was one of those moments that helped propel the career of the Jackson Five and ultimately Michael Jackson. So the tight relationship between these these two men, and it got to the point where I'd go to his house so many times that when I would pull up to the gate, I didn't even have to push the button. The guard could see my truck through the the monitor and the gate would just automatically open up and all the little girls asking are you Michael's friend? Are you Michael's friend? So I you know I would see him out there and he was he was just like he would like dancing around. He just had like stuff all over the floor. And he's you could just tell he was just like he was thinking of his next moonwalk. His next dance routine. he was he just a brilliant, brilliant, creative person. You know, always thinking and challenging to do something new an amazing person. We lost him way too soon. But there I again, I think this this story is from 1984. So I don't think I can get in trouble now.

Andy: 53:10

No, no. So I'm just gonna say what's your next story Tom?

Tom Stepanchak: 53:17

Well, I worked for Dick Clark productions then over the next three years and see a lot you understand in Hollywood, it's a lot of freelance work, because you work on a show. And shows get renewed and sometimes shows get cancelled, and shows go on summertime hiatus and they say we need you now we don't need you then. And at this time, Dick Clark productions was exploding with growth. And they kept getting selling more shows. And they were jamming more and more people into this building. And then summer would come and then all of a sudden the building would kind of empty out. So I I was freelance I would get on this show and that and then move on to the next one. Fortunately, the shows were pretty consistent for me. But then in 1987, the writers strike hit and then all the shows stopped. And now I'm like, Huh, no job, nobody's hiring. And I spent, you know, the summer of probably 1986 on the beach in Los Angeles, you know, wondering where I'm going next check was coming from and I eat those ramen noodles and hotdogs. I mean, I think the total spending on my meal for the day was maybe 50 cents. You know, I didn't spend more than that. Because Because again, you just don't know when that next opportunity is gonna come and you're calling people. There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing. And so then eventually shows came along. There was so many people who are so nice and so kind to me that that took me under the wing. I think like Barb Stevens and Chris Fernandez and Karen Smith. These are people that really helped guide and steer me. And I just I just broke the Dick Clark rule. You're never supposed to thank people because if you start to thank a couple of people, there's a lot of other people say, wait a minute, what about me? I apologise to everybody else. But those are three names that come to mind that really helped guide me and get me going then in 1987, Dick Clark decided to go public, this was the big thing at the time to take your private entertainment company and go on the stock exchange. And they needed a director of publicity. So the president Fran Lamaina gave me a call and why don't you come in see me says he says we need a director of publicity, to help, you know, manage our corporate business and our corporate affairs and everything and, and he says, We want you for the job. And I'm like, Okay, I said, I says, you know, what, what am I supposed to do? He goes, he goes, you'll figure it out. So, here I was, I was, I think, maybe 27 years old, no experience whatsoever. And I was the director of publicity for Dick Clark productions. And I walked in I had a desk a chair and a lamp I walked in the first day the phone's ringing, it was a guy from Los Angeles time who wanted a code. I'm like, I don't know anything. There's, there's no file cabinets. No, no, there's no nothing here. And I just had to learn if I had to write the annual report and produce the annual report and do quarterly statements to show I, I just learned all that stuff on the fly. But, but this was the really good thing about Dick Clark Productions is that, you know, he Dick had this philosophy of, look, just take somebody who is who is smart, who is a fast learner who's committed, and, and who'll learn, throw them into the deep end of the pool way over his head, and let him swim really fast or sink. And if you sink will throw you out and bring somebody else in. And I tell you, in my case, my head was well below the surface of the water for easily five or six months. And then about six months, you know, I kind of, okay, I'm starting to understand this and figure it out. And I did the job for two years. And it was great. It was fantastic. I learned so much. I can't, I can't begin to appreciate Dick Clark and everybody in that organisation enough for the education that I got, we all call it a Dick Clark University. All of us we call a Dick Clark University, because we all had stories like that, where we were thrown into the deep end and sink or swim. And fortunately, a lot of us were able to swim.

Andy: 57:08

Wow, have you used that style with your with people you've been responsible for?

Tom Stepanchak: 57:14

I learned so much. And I have to say that in my Dick Clark years, it was very, very tough and aggressive. And here's the thing. There are no problems only solutions. And the worst thing you could do was come back to somebody and say, I can't do this. Worst thing you could do, and and I, I made that mistake like hey, Dick, I'm sorry, I got a problem. I can't figure this out. And he would scream at me. He's like, I'm only one guy. I can't do it all do this and do this and call that guy just scream at me. And I'd walk out of the room. I got to figure this out. And so yeah, don't ever, ever, ever go to somebody with a problem. You only can go with solutions. So I was tough and aggressive. Fortunately, as I progressed through my career, other people softened me and gave me more balance. Because that attitude worked in the entertainment industry, but it did not work in the corporate world. But you'll see how that plays out. But well listen, okay, so I was doing this director publicity thing. I did it for two years. It was 1989 Los Angeles. It was the Bloods versus the Crips. It was gang wars, non stop, you know, drive by shootings. Los Angeles was a very, very difficult place to live, you know, drugs deals going down on every street corner drive by shootings. And Andy I'm not exaggerating, it got to the point where if you turn on the news, they would say, oh, there were 13 people killed this weekend in drive by shootings. Now to the weather. It just became commonplace. And so my best friend out there, Jeff James, super great guy, super great, buddy. He and I were kind of he was born and raised in that area. And we were sick of Los Angeles. We gotta get out of here. So we were inspired by this movie Baby Boom with Diane Keaton, where it's a woman who has a high pressure job in New York City and she moves to Vermont and starts making applesauce. 1987 Baby Boom, Diane Keaton, I highly recommend it. We saw the movie came out. We said, Okay, let's get out of Los Angeles. Let's buy a van and we're gonna travel the whole United States aimlessly living in the back of a van. And my friend Jeff was a big baseball fan. He says, You know what? He said, Let's go to every baseball stadium along the way, like done. So we started to save our money for two years. We flew to Hawaii first and got that one checked off the list. We bought this van. April of 1989. We quit our jobs. We jumped into the back of this van and just started driving. We went north to Alaska. Don't ever drive to Alaska. That's my advice we get. We got two flat tyres. The second one came before the first one was fixed. Then you're just hoping somebody you're hitchhiking trying to get to a place to buy a tyre. And then you just open up your wallet and say, Please take my money, please give me a tyre. You do whatever you can to stay on the road. And so we did that. For six months. We lived in this van, we went to every state, there's 50, we went to every state in the United States, we went to every single baseball stadium. In the United States, there were 28 at the time. And then the World Series was coming up. This was October of 89. And that year was the Oakland A's versus the San Francisco Giants. Both in the San Francisco Bay Area, they're cross team rivals, cross Bay rivals, so we pulled into San Francisco. Thanks, my brother Dave was living there at the time, and he had secured us tickets for game five of the World Series. It's the best out of seven, he had secured his tickets for game five, we pull into San Francisco, where their game three is about to start. Boom 7.1 earthquake hits San Francisco. This is October of 1989. We we grabbed our camcorder. We're shooting footage, you know of the earthquake that's happened and things fallen off the walls. And so obviously, it was a really bad earthquake, it delayed the World Series. But in that series, the Giants got swept in four games, there was no game five. So here we were, we'd been to every baseball stadium in the US. The icing on the cake. It was right there game five World Series, and there was no game five. So that story did not have a happy ending. It was a great story, but I'll tell you actually, it does have a happy ending. But I have to save that that comes 30 years later.

Andy: 1:01:36

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, hold on

Tom Stepanchak: 1:01:39

All right. Sorry about that.

Andy: 1:01:41

So no, it's all.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:01:42

Well, so we're on this trip. And then the number one question I got is what are you going to do when

Andy: 1:01:45

This is an absolute romp, as we say Tom you get back? And I said, you know, if I had the answer to that question, now, I could never take this trip. But now after six months, the trip was over. We were back in Los Angeles. Hmm. What am I gonna do when I get back? And the answer I kind of kind of a flippant answer that I said to everybody is ah maybe I'll go be a ski bum. Now I'm back in Los Angeles. It's October and I thought, I guess I'll go be a ski bum. So I drove up to Mammoth Mountain in California. It's a huge 30 Lift gigantic mountain where I'd skied there before. And I went and applied and I said, I'm looking for a wintertime job. And so they gave me this list of jobs. I got a list of 30 different jobs. They said pick three and I said, Okay, I can I can run a chairlift, I can work in the gift store, I can ride a drive a snowcat, snowplough or something like that. And I turned it into HR. And they looked at my resume and they said, Oh, we have a video department. I said, Really, this year, we have an opening in the video department. I'm like fine that's great. So I worked in the video depa tment at Mammoth Mountain. And I lived in employee housing, no v hicle, I lived in employee h using, I learned to ski with no poles holding a camera becaus I would go out there like s iing all over the mountain and shooting ski schools and all kinds of things. And it was jus a great experience, onderful ex

Tom Stepanchak: 1:03:09

But but but Andy the, the snow only lasts for so long, and the snow was starting to melt. And then there's always that question, what's next? What are you going to do next? Because now I'm 30 years old and still just kind of floundering around with my life.

Andy: 1:03:21

Let us pause just for one second then. So for someone who had financial security as a really strong driver, we thought in the early days, there seems to be no problem with short term roles.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:03:35

Everything was a risk, everything was taking a chance. And that's that's one of my lessons learned at the bottom, take a risk, take a chance stick your neck out, what's the worst that can happen? You fall down, okay, you pick yourself up and you try again. But I gotta tell you, when you when you don't have a job and you don't have a place to live, that is great motivation that is great motivation to go, you know, get a job and make money and feed yourself and get a place to live. But the thing is, see I was again, I turned 30 years old at this time, but I was still I was still young and still single. I had no commitments. Yeah, I didn't own a house or anything. So these are the times to do that kind of stuff. You know, it's a lot more difficult, you know, at our age now at this point,

Andy: 1:04:20

and by this point, you'd had repeated examples of not having a job, but getting a job not having a job but getting a job. So you're probably building up some some sort of expectation that I can do this there was confidence around this

Tom Stepanchak: 1:04:34

I think during that writer strike in 86. That was the longest stretch I went without without a job and that was nerve racking. Yeah, there was some sleepless nights there and you just keep calling people and sorry, no work but then it was always feast or famine then all of a sudden my phone would ring three times on the same day with three jobs that had opened up and I ah now I have to pick which one do I want, you know, feast or famine? But alright, so yeah, the trip was over. Go to Mammoth. I did a season up there. That was phenomenal. The snow is starting to melt. I'm like, Okay, now what? And just at that time, I got the call from Dick Clark productions. And they said, We just bought this game show called Let's Make a Deal. Americans, hosted by Monty Hall. Years and years ago, everybody in the US will know called Let's Make a Deal. We just bought the rights to this game show called Let's Make a Deal. We're going to do it out of these brand new Disney MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. We need a prize guy, we want you to go to Florida and be the prize guy on let's make a deal. And I said, What does the price guy do?

Andy: 1:05:39

I'm glad you asked that

Tom Stepanchak: 1:05:40

Yeah. They said don't don't worry, go to Florida you'll figure it out. So here here, I was at this 11,000 foot summit ski resort. All of a sudden to like sea level in Orlando, Florida, like, you know, 3000 miles away, and I went from like this ski guy to a prize guy in Orlando, Florida. Okay, what does the prize guy do? Oh, okay. So you have to get the prizes and they have door number one and door number two and door number three and Okay, so door number one, we're going to put like a washer dryer and door number two, we're going to put a car in door number three, we're gonna put a camel, you know, and somebody has to guess you know which door do they want to get the prize? It's that it's a wacky game show. And people dress up in costumes. And they jump up and down. It's, it's a lot of fun. You get to look up on YouTube. Let's make a deal.

Andy: 1:06:26

I will. I won't do it now.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:06:28

So I was in Orlando Florida doing the show. And that show I think lasted about six months. It got cancelled. I mean, this is TV, you know, sometimes the ratings aren't there. And so it got cancelled. But see at this time, see, when I got to Florida in Orlando my second time, I could see how much that area had grown and was growing. And now I'm 30 years old. I said, You know what? I want to buy a house. And so I bought a house and I said I'm gonna commit myself to Orlando. It's a growing area, it's a good investment. So I buy a house I get on doing the show. It gets cancelled in six months. Now I've got a mortgage. Now I've got a mortgage and no job.

Andy: 1:07:08

Just adding up dialling up the pressure now.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:07:11

So what am I going to do, and I'm begging for work and hoping for the best. A new show came to town called That's My Dog. It was a 30 minute game show for dogs. And I got hired on to that show. I was the contestant coordinator for that show. So my goal was to fly all over the US and audition dogs, and then bring them to Florida and perform on the show, which was a lot of fun. It was a very silly, fun, very family friendly show called That's my dog. But here's the thing, you we did one year's worth of programming in two and a half months. So, okay, I was able to feed myself another two and a half months and pay my mortgage for another two and a half months. But you know that dried up and then you're on to the next one. So Dick Clark to the rescue again, he had started a corporate productions division in Princeton, New Jersey. And they call me up and they said, you know, why don't why don't you go to Princeton, New Jersey and work in our corporate production division. Now there's, there's another really, really pivotal part of the story that I've gotta mention here. This was in February of 91. Again, I'm unemployed, I got my house. And there was a college friend named Linda Linda McCutchen, my same class Class of 1981. I knew her in college and her friends and my friends were friends. And we did friend things together. And after college, whatever we just went our separate ways. And when I was on this trip on the baseball tour, I was in the Philadelphia area and I visited her very quickly and we had a dinner and I went on my way, but it was enough to start this relationship with postcards and letters maybe once or twice a year. So now I'm down in Florida, she came down to Florida to visit and let's just say that there was some alcohol involved there was drinking and dancing and Okay, 30 years later, we're married and two kids.

Andy: 1:08:58

Woooo. Lovely.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:09:02

So she was she was in the Philadelphia area. And magically I am the luckiest guy alive Andy magically Dick Clark productions opens a new division, a corporate production division. I mean 20 minutes away from where my soon to be fiance was living and calls me says why don't you go work here. Fantastic. So I move from Florida back to Pennsylvania. I moved in with my future in laws. I wasn't even married yet. I moved in with my future in laws. That's where I lived. And then got started on the job, got married, got a house. It just all magically came together. And so I mean, we it was declared bringing his television expertise to the corporate world. So I clients like AT&T and IBM and Visa. And then in 1994, BMW came knocking on the door, and they said, Hey, we're launching this new car called Z3 roadster and we want to do a non traditional launch and we bid on the business and there were I'm not exaggerating, there were 30 companies bidding on this business and he wanted something out of the box completely never had been done before. They went from 30 to six to two it went down to down to two companies, Dick Clark himself got on a plane and he flew into the New Jersey offices of BMW and walked in and closed the deal. And we won this business to launch the Z3 roadster. Okay, Tom, here you go, this is your project, go launch this car. So the the problem was I lived in Pennsylvania and the BMW offices are in northern New Jersey, 90 miles away. I said, Okay, Andy, I'm not joking. I commuted 90 miles up 90 miles back every day for a year 180 miles round trip, it took me four hours in the car, launching this piece of business, the Z3 roadster. And it was difficult. But oh my god so rewarding. In the end, we did some really cool things that have never been done before, that have since been copied by you know, every other, you know, launch since then. But what a great experience. So here I was I was a Dick Clark productions employee stationed in the BMW office, launching this piece of business. So did the job. The launch went great. I wrapped up the project. You know, I went back to the Dick Clark offices. And then two months later, Jim McDowell, the Vice President of Marketing from BMW called me, and he said, Hey, why don't you come join us at BMW. He says, We've got a job here. And he said, there's there's no surprises, you know, us and we know you. We've had a chance to work together over the past year. And the job was to do product literature and brochures, car brochures, and I'm listening to this pitch on the phone. I said, Okay, let me think about it. I hung up the phone and I said to my wife, I said, There's no way I'm going to BMW. I said, I'm not a car guy. I said, What? Go to BMW make car brochures. I'm not a car guy. You know, I'm a Hollywood show business guy. She says don't give up on this too quickly. One week later, done deal, I resign accepted the new position. That was almost 26 years ago.

Andy: 1:12:15

Let's find out what happened that week between your wife, saying maybe don't give up on this and you joining what was the conversation or the the events

Tom Stepanchak: 1:12:25

Andy, it's another key point for the end of this thing is about the value of reflection. You know, we make 100 decisions a day. And sometimes you have to make decisions quick to keep the ball moving. And sometimes there's decisions that need time to sleep on and reflect on. And I've got it, I've gotten much, much better in my older age learning which ones can be made fast. And which ones need to slow down a little bit. That one I slowed down, slept on it, hought it through. And oh my od, phenomenal, phenomenal ecision.

Andy: 1:13:01

We know it was the right thing to say because of what happened later. But I'm still thinking, yeah, Hollywood guy versus car brochure guy. I don't get it. So what was the what was the reason for doing it?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:13:14

Yeah, I just, I realised that through my because I was with Dick Clark for 12 years. And if if you think about some of the stories you've heard over the 12 years, there was very, very few times that I was an actual employee on the payroll, a lot of that was freelance, and it's come and go, come and go, come and go. Okay, now I'm married, you know, thinking about starting a family, you know, another house with another mortgage. And I'm now 30, whatever, I don't know, 34 35 years old. And I'm thinking this is not sustainable. You know, this whole Dick Clark, if it could dry up tomorrow, and I could be done. BMW has stable stability and security and long term for the future that that was the turning point in that decision. Phenomenal decision really, really pivotal. And so yeah, so after 12 years with Dick Clark, you know, I resigned, accepted BMW. My wife, a school teacher, she was still teaching pregnant at the time with our daughter, and I'm back to commuting 180 miles a day again. Yes. And so here I am commuting 180 miles a day. wife with a very difficult complicated pregnancy she was having a lot of complications, trying to sell a house trying to buy a new house and trying to learn a new job. And they wanted me to speak German they're sending me to German class to learn how to speak German all at the same time. And again, a lesson learned that that doesn't kill you makes you strong. Andy I thought I was gonna die. I thought I am gonna die. How am I going to do all this? How am I going to do this all, but it's the perseverance. Be persistent. Perseverance. Don't give up. Just get through the next day, get through the next day get through the next day. And it all worked out. You know, my daughter was and my wife was in the hospital for the last three weeks of her pregnancy hooked up to an IV. I mean, this was like a high risk pregnancy. And I'm commuting and people are screaming at me in German. I'm like, Ah, I don't know if those wheels are standard or optional, I don't know. And it all worked out, our daughter Kayla, born came out great, healthy. We sold our house, we bought a new house, we got moved into our house in New Jersey. I started six months, I started to settle into the job, I started to understand it. And I'll never forget, it was October of 96. beautiful autumn day, we're driving around with these trees and the sun beating down on us our brand new baby in the backseat. And I was smiling ear to ear Andy I'm getting chills. I will never forget that moment. I will never forget the smile on my face. And I'm like, I survived. I survived and now the sun is shining, beating down on me. And life is good. You know, life is good. Persevere.

Andy: 1:16:17

How long was the period? How long was that somewhat brutal period?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:16:23

Easily six months. I found it every you know about what's it called the change cycle. There's a an official name for this. Like when you start a new job. You're excited then you come crashing down and you have to build it up again. Yeah. And in I found that at the six month point is kind of where you hit bottom and you start to turn things around and pull it up again. So I think it was about that point six months.

Andy: 1:16:45

Very good. So you got a big smile on your face. the sun's shining down.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:16:50

Well and I remember telling Jim McDowell in my interview when I was interviewing for the brochure job because again, I'm a Hollywood guy, how can I tell people I make car brochures, you know? And I said, it's like I said, I don't want to do brochures for the next 17 years. I was replacing a woman who was retiring, who had done brochures for 17 years. And I said I don't want to do brochures for 17 years. He says look, he says All I ask is that you do it one year, just do it a minimum of one year, and we'll see what happens. Oh my god, exactly one year, there's a knock on my metaphorical knock on the door. job opened up in advertising. So then I moved over and I took over all of the advertising so that working with the creative agency, developing all you know the TV, the print, the out of home, newspaper, magazine, radio, whatever it is developing all the advertising materials, a phenomenal experience and did that for three years. And then after that the department manager guy named Baba Shetty really wicked, smart guy, wonderful human being Baba Shetty decided to leave the company and go take a new opportunity. And I went after that job with gusto. And see, here's the thing oh Andy, you know what, good point here. My my Dick Clark aggressive attitude was still deep in me. Because I'd only been four years at BMW at this point. And I was I had this you know, hard driving intense you know, no, no, don't bring the problems only bring me solutions kind of attitude, you know, minus all the swear words. And, you know, so now this department manager position opens up and the VP marketing Jim and I've never he's a dear friend and we've ever spoken about this here. Now. I don't think he wanted me for the job. You know, I wasn't the right personality. I wasn't the right fit. I didn't have the right temperament. And I was like a pitbull in his neck. I just sunk my teeth into it. I want that job. I want that job. I want the job. I want it and he was he was trying to talk me out of it and might you but you're doing great things here. He was doing everything to talk me out of that job. And I'm like, I want that job. I want that job. I want that job. He gave it to me. He finally gave it to me and and I switched like that a light switch flip and I said you know what? I can't be like I've been you know, I'm in a senior position now. I've got a team underneath me I've got this massive budget to do all this marketing and media buy and everything else like that. And Baba Shetty was he didn't know it. But he was an excellent mentor because he was always very calm, cool, collected and even in the face of like things going wrong adversely. I'd be screaming ah that's not fair. We can't do that. And I'm like, all fired up and waving my hands around. He was always very calm and very cool and collected. And I said, I need to be like that. And a switch flipped.

Andy: 1:19:48

Really. So you had an epiphany. And but it wasn't because anyone had sat you down and said you need to be like this. You just he his behaviour. You spotted it and and had that epiphany.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:20:01

I'm not a big fan of the word mentor, I don't, I don't like the word mentor. I don't like the idea of, oh, I'm going to be your mentor, or I'm going to mentor you. I don't like that. For me, mentoring happens organically. It comes from observing. And I've learned so much just by watching people. And I've learned about good things that I like, that I want to emulate. And I've also seen a lot of bad things where I say, I don't ever want to be like that. I don't want to do that. And that has what has moulded and shaped me as I've grown through the years and through the decades. And so again, I because I did tell that story to Bob after the fact after he was gone. I said, I know, I know what it was. It was a couple of months into the job. And Jim was giving me some feedback, kind of like an early review. And he says, you know, he says, Wow, he says, you've you've really changed and he was really pleasantly surprised. And he says, you know, maybe having because we just had our son and he's maybe having a second child has calmed you down. And and I said, I said no, I said Baba was a good mentor. And I told that story to Baba. And he's, he didn't know it. He didn't realise he didn't know it. But he was he was being a mentor just by being a good person acting the way you're supposed to act. And I was watching, observing, observing and absorbing it. And now emulating it. Yeah

Andy: 1:21:30

Hmmmm, yeah .Very valuable. Very valuable.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:21:32

Good flashbacks. I do have to do a quick sidebar, since I mentioned second child. This is something I've really got to mention as well. This was back in 2001. And we were working on a on a under the radar top secret project called the big idea. That was the code name called the big idea, which then later went on to become BMW films. And The Hire the internet series. So we were, we were working on this thing under the radar. And this was 2001. Andy, do you remember what the internet was in? 2001?

Andy: 1:22:10

I'm trying to think where I was yeah I was in a job where I had email and things then. So

Tom Stepanchak: 1:22:14

AOL.

Andy: 1:22:17

AOL Yeah. AOL.com

Tom Stepanchak: 1:22:18

I had an AOL account. And I remember I upgraded from the 28k to the 56k. modem. Whoo. And you plugged it into the phone jack. And there was that sound effect, you know do do If you can drop in that sound effect later, that'd be great for the listeners

Andy: 1:22:34

we'll do that. We'll put it in about now.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:22:36

Okay That's what the internet was back in 2001. And so we had this big idea where we wanted to do something that had never been done before. We wanted to use this brand new thing called the internet. And we came up with this idea of Where's the car the star? Where is the car always the hero? The answer? action adventure films. Why don't we make short films with action adventure featuring the car and put them on the internet? That was it. That's the whole there's there's your elevator pitch. That was the pitch. And we we took it to Tom Purves, our CEO. And we just talked about it for 20 minutes. And he says, You know what? He said, I have no idea if this is going to be a huge success, or nobody will know it. But we got to find out. And that was it. That was the greenlight to go forward and do this. And we brought in Dr. Ganal, and Dr. Panke, these were two board members in Munich, and we got them on board with the idea. And and right away, they say you know, the internet has no borders. If you do this in the US, it's going to go around the world and, and they got it they completely got it. So we had this support in Munich, we had the support from our CEO. So under the radar, we were building this thing, and we had no clue what we were doing. We were inventing the wheel here. And it was a pressure cooker. And I swear if the windows had opened, people would have been jumping out of the windows, it was just so amazingly intense. But again, you know, perseverance, we plugged through, we got it done. We launched these films, and they took off like a rocket. And we did eight films. And then there was another one later, a couple years ago, the ninth but we did eight films in 2001 and 2002. The one that everybody remembers is, of course, the one with Madonna. And the story there is, is we hired Guy Ritchie as a director, who had just gotten married to Madonna, like a month earlier. And we gave him a script and he didn't like and he says, Do you got any other scripts? So we gave him another script that we didn't like. He says I can rewrite this script and I can make it a comedy. And we're like, go for it. And he says, Do you mind if I cast my wife? I'm like, it's your story to tell cast whoever you want, I don't care. So finally he puts he puts Madonna in this thing. And again, this was all top secret under the radar. Nobody knew about it. People in Munich didn't know what we're doing and and then he shut down Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles and you got Madonna there and word leaks out spread around the world. It was all over the internet. BMW is making a film with Madonna. And let's face it Madonna is very you know she's a lightning rod you either lover or you hate her. And let's face there's a lot of people out there. Oh, she's despicable. And how could BMW work with her? You know, there was a lot of that like, attitude coming from from people. And then the people at the PR people in Munich. Were calling me screaming. I mean, are you but people the press are here knocking on the door. They said something about Madonna. We don't know anything about Madonna. Are you working with Madonna? And like, Well, look, I'm not allowed to say anything. It's a tough. Ah You got to tell us these things. They're screaming at me. And I'm like, I hung up the phone. I thought well, how great is that the press are knocking on your door asking about a BMW marketing activity. This is fantastic. You couldn't ask for better press. But so then obviously, the film came out huge success. And so if if you loved if you watched the film you love Madonna. You love it was a lot of fun. It was just great fun.

Andy: 1:25:56

We'll put in our show notes. Tom.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:25:58

Oh, yes, yes.

Andy: 1:26:00

we'll get the link to it, put it in the show notes.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:26:02

They're all on YouTube. They're all on YouTube now. And this is before YouTube. So if you if you hated Madonna, then you say oh she kind of made a fool of herself. And so it was a win win. So it really turned around. And that's a good point. This was in 2001. There was no broadband. There was no high speed. There was no YouTube, there was no Facebook, that stuff did not exist for years to come.

Andy: 1:26:22

Yeah. So if you wanted to watch that, you had to be pretty dedicated to stream stuff in those days

Tom Stepanchak: 1:26:28

we had a download, right? There was streaming or we also had a downloading option. And people would, they would download it, literally, they would spend eight hours overnight downloading a five minute film. But they were passionate about it. And I gotta tell you that the press the PR, we got outta that thing phenomenal. Phenomenal. It's it's it was it's a it's a great gift, the project of a lifetime, couldn't be more proud of it

Andy: 1:26:54

Brilliant, brilliant story

Tom Stepanchak: 1:26:56

But oh, I'm sorry, but I got it. I'm sorry, I gotta go back to the other part about. So this was in March of 2001. Pressure because we launched in April 2001. So a month before March 2001. A couple of months prior to that, maybe a year before that. My wife and I had started the adoption process. And we were deep into this adoption process. And you know, there's a lot of different ways that that can possibly go. And then all of a sudden, in March 2001, a month before BMW films launched it connected. And our son was born in Utah. And we it was a birth mother with a way the way this is you write a letter you say dear birth mother, please send your child to us. And we send the birth mother out. And then they have these women who are nine months pregnant and they read all these letters, they say there that's where I want my child to go. And so we would get these calls. Okay, we got a situation this is the situation do you want to be considered? We say yes, yes, put our name in. We put our name in, and then we'd get rejected. See, we already had a child. And we knew we knew we were competing against other people that had no children, and tried everything in vitro everything and they couldn't get pregnant. So we know we were losing out. So finally, finally, finally, this birth mother says okay, I like this letter, arranged a phone call. So the birth mother interviewed us over the phone for 90 minutes. She got off the phone and she said, Yes, that's where I want my baby to go. And she says, I want them. I'm getting emotional here, I want them in the delivery room with me. So we lined up, the birth was going to be induced on a Monday. So we lined up our plane tickets we are going to fly to Utah, we're going to be there for the birth of our son. Three days before that we get a call the baby came early. The baby's here, get here now. We dropped everything, flew to Utah, went from the airport, to the rental car rental counter, got our car, went to the hospital, walked in the room. And she says here's your son, here's your son, one day old. We are big, big advocates of adoption. So you'd asked me at the beginning if there's anything I want to promote, I want to promote that.

Andy: 1:29:22

Lovely.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:29:23

So that was March of of 2001. And we had to stay in Utah because a lot of paperwork that has to be signed and we weren't allowed to leave the state until all this paperwork had cleared so after five days the paperwork had cleared. And it was funny we would we'd go to restaurants with this brand new baby in the carrier and people come right up to us that's a beautiful baby How old's the baby like two days? And they look at my wife say Wow, you looks fantastic

Andy: 1:29:51

Another reason for adoption, ladies

Tom Stepanchak: 1:29:54

adoption so after five days all the paperwork cleared we're able to fly back to the US Then, literally like one month later, we were launching BMW film. So again, it was all of these like major life events happening at the same time. But perseverance, persistence, don't give up. Keep going. That's the advice

Andy: 1:30:14

Incredible sequence of events and we'll have a look at those movies. Tom, I remember them I remember Clive Owen as well and Z4 by then it was

Tom Stepanchak: 1:30:25

yes, yes, you're right Clive Owen what a brilliant actor he was phenomenal.

Andy: 1:30:29

Because he could show things in those movies that you couldn't really show in a regular TV. Commercial.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:30:35

That's exactly it I mean, we on our very first film with John Frankenheimer, we took a seven series and filled it with bullet holes. Now, what car company in the world would take their flagship car and fill it full of bullet holes? What what car company would do that? But see, that was exactly the thing. And we never stepped over that line to say, you know, look how dynamically this car is handling. good thing we have active steering control, you know, good thing, we have dynamic stability. We never stepped over that line. We said just let the car perform and do what it does best. And you know, the car always comes through in the end the car's the hero and saves the day and we go on to the next episode.

Andy: 1:31:11

Yeah, so people watch the car behave in the same way that you watched Baba behave. And they they learn from just the demonstration.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:31:20

We had. We had 10 year old boys go into dealerships asking for M5 brochures. And, and I said, You know what? They're 10 Today, you know, someday they're gonna be 25 they're getting they're dreaming about the M5 now. So what were that gift that keeps giving the the longevity of that is just phenomenal. Yeah. So I'm gonna jump ahead now. So 2004 I got the tap on the shoulder. You want to go to Munich? I'm like, Yeah, sure, go to Munich. And it was to a department called Marketing innovation with a guy named Chris Koenders. He's the guy that recruited me to go and, you know, develop the next big marketing innovation idea, you know, from Munich. And so, 2004

Andy: 1:32:01

Had you got a reputation Tom, had you got a reputation then off the back of these films?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:32:06

Yes. Yes. Clearly, you know, that was a very nice entry on the CV and you know, my phone was ringing. quick sidebar too I'm sorry, the phone was ringing. The phone was ringing a lot back then. A lot of headhunters were calling as well. And you know, I would listen, I'd say no, thank you. I'll never forget this. This one Headhunter called me up. And he said, he is pitching the job to me and I just listened in. And I said, I don't know. He says, he's like one question. He said, Do you see yourself retiring with BMW? And I said, Yes, I do. He said, Thank you goodbye. hung up the phone. I thought what a great question. In one question, he realised he's not going to waste any more of his time or mine

Andy: 1:32:48

Brilliant question was that had you thought about it before or was that the first time you'd thought about it?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:32:53

No, it was a first time first and last and only time ever heard that question? And it took one second to answer that question. Yeah, I said I do. So he said thank you. Yeah. So So 2004 moving the family to Munich. My daughter is eight years old at the time, my son is I guess, three years old at the time. And wow, that was tough. That was very, very tough to get to get try to get the family settled. And you know, my daughter started in school and my son is three go into like a preschool and, and struggling with the language and learning where things are and and struggling with the job because now you know, now at headquarters see in the US, I'm here I'm in at the time, US was the number one market in the world. And I was, you know, a pretty good sized fish in a pretty good sized market. And now I'm going to headquarters, which is massive, you know, Munich is big, and I'm a tiny, tiny, tiny little speck, in this massive market. I'm going to I'm coming in with this, you know, American attitude, hey look at all these great things we do in the US. So we're gonna do that stuff here. Hmm, that was a rude awakening. So I realised very quickly, I was a very small fish in a very, very big pond. And there's a lot of people here that have opinions, and they want to be brought along the way. And oh, by the way, there's no budget. So you've got to come up with ideas, and then convince people that they should put their money toward it. And one of the ideas that came up from a guy named Tim Hiler on the team he said, Why don't we make a TH one of those THX sound desig logos that you hear in movi theatres. Here's another soun effect to drop in. The audienc is listening. So he said, Wh don't we put a BMW in one o these THX you know, sound logo that can play in movie theatre around the world? So he threw i the idea and I said Yeah, I lik that idea. So I started runnin with it. And building buildin building building this thing. S I would go around and I woul sell the idea to all thes people and oh, yeah, I like th idea. I said, Do you have an money? No, no, I don't have an money. So I I was I was slowl slowly building and it' getting, can you give me little candy and I was I had 1 different sources. And I wa pulling a little bit of mone from 11 Different sources to ge enough money to do this thing And push was coming to shove. S I had to go to call the fau he V Kreis, Dr Ganal's V Kre s Dr. Ganal was the board memb r for sales worldwide. And I ha to go to his board member meet ng and pitch this idea. And it w s tough. And I had some peop e in the room that did not want to give up their money. And I'm itting there with my hands up, lease give me your money. Don' you love this idea? And Dr. anal finally says, Look, I like innovation. I like new idea. Sometimes you need top down decisions. We do it. And he walk d out of the room. And mean hile the guy there who was mana ing the meeting with the minu es and everything's Whoa, whoa whoa, when he when he goes he goes, Wait, where's this money coming from? He says, You igure it out, walked out of the oom. So the guy taking the minu es that helped push me I'll push this project over the edge and et it done is a guy named Stef n Richmann. Stefan Rich ann, last month came in. He's our new CEO of BMW Fina cial Services in the Amer cas regions. He's in charge of N rth and South America, in the mericas region, and I repl yed that story for him when I sa him and he says he saw you as h is I remember that people I re ember that he's I don't reme ber that specific project as i's 15 years ago now, but it just goes to show you know that be n ce to everybody be very, very nice to everybody because you now, they're going to come arou d again. You'll see him a seco d time in life.

Andy: 1:36:46

They certainly do.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:36:48

So anyway, I got the project done it came out great. It we I took my family to the movie theatre in Munich and and the sound logo came on and my son is like that's my dad. That's my dad. Yeah.So that was that was quite rewarding. But anyway, so this was only a three year assignment in Munich, the time was running out. And you know, as an expat, that's a bit challenging because you've got to kind of find your next job in the company. And I had a firm offer in Australia, but it wasn't quite right. So I said no to that. Had an offer in Mexico. I'm like, Ooh, no, I don't speak Spanish. No, I don't want to go to Mexico. I had an offer at at Motorrad to do motorcycles. And like, you know, I'm not a rider. I got a young family. I really don't want to be riding motorcycles. And so these opportunities were coming up, and they just weren't right. And I just kept saying no to everything. And meanwhile, the clock is ticking. And my time is coming up and Kirk Cordill gave me a call. There's a guy you know, well, Andy Kirk Cordill. And he was in Munich. And so we met in Schwabing for coffee and, and he said, Look, they just offered me this marketing job for financial services in the US. And he goes, he goes, I'm not interested. He said, Do you want it? And I'm like, wow, I'd never thought about financial services. Because my whole career at this point. I've been on the sales company side. So I said, Okay, financial services. And he started to introduce me to some people and I started to meet people in Munich, I made some phone calls to the US. Done deal, done deal, got it done, literally, like the next day, got on a plane, move back to the US and started my new job in financial services. So that was in summer of 2007. And here's another history question what was starting to happen in the summer of 2007. It was the housing crisis in the subprime and the market was falling out. and the whole economy was just going through the floor. The bottom had dropped out, like I got back just in time. But you know, we're a big leasing market here in the US and the cars come back in three years. And if a dealer doesn't take the car, then it goes to the auction. And so I reached out to the head of auctions, a guy named Randy Beale and we came to the Manheim auction in Manheim, Pennsylvania, the granddaddy of them all 37 auction lanes, and I'm standing there watching all of these BMW is coming through the lane, and there's nobody there to buy them. And the cars were stacking up and there's another wave coming behind next week. And next week, another wave come. That was a difficult time. And I gotta say that the management took some really hard decisions, and they took the right decisions. And it was a really, really rough couple of years. But we got through it. We got through it and survived. But sorry, so I was doing marketing for financial services. You know, we had some really cool projects. We launched Liquid MINI Liquid Assets, the first ever app for BMW Group worldwide. This was in I don't know, 2008 This is when iPhones were just coming out. The idea of apps were just coming out. And we'd done some really unique point of sale. We modified it into an app so Michael Jobst was the genius behind that and we launched the you can download the MINI Liquid Assets it's a fun little game that you can play on your phone that promotes financial services in a very fun, kind of subtle way. And then we were launching new insurance products. And I remember Mark Fisher, the head of insurance, you know, I met with him to talk about some marketing ideas. He goes marketing for insurance. He goes oh my god he goes insurance is a toxic topic. He said, If you want to clear out a room just come in and say insurance everybody goes running for the exit. So I said, Well, you know, we take that challenge, we take that as a challenge, we're going to try and find a way to make insurance fun and exciting. So boom, boom, boom, again, Michael Jobst. We put together a viral video. And we were able to get this guy called Paulie Walnuts from a TV show called The Sopranos. You know, the mafia show, we got him in this spot. And it's it's really a lot of fun. You know, MINI, MINI Protection, MINI Protection with Paulie Walnuts, look for that one on YouTube as well. And it was just a huge hit a lot of fun. So anyway, so let me fast forward, I'll get up to like October 2011. My name was on an international list. I didn't even know it. I'd put it there years ago and forgotten about it. And somebody HR Munich called and said, Hey, do you want to go to Japan? And I'm like, oh, wait a minute, Fukushima had just happened. I mean, was nuclear radiation all over the place, like two months after this? Wait, I survived Three Mile Island, I don't think I would have moved my family to Tokyo, just not far from Fukushima and go through that. So I said no to that. And she called me a couple of months later and said, Hey, is this a job in India? I'm like, India. I don't want to go to India. And she said, Don't give up too quickly. You'll get a phone call from a mystery person in a couple of days. So two days later guy named Dan DeChristopher. You know, Dan, do you remember Dan?

Andy: 1:41:52

I do remember Dan. I met him briefly. Yeah,

Tom Stepanchak: 1:41:55

sweet guy. We lost him a couple years after that. But salt of the earth you couldn't find a sweeter human being than Dan. Dan called me and he says, Hey, I'm thinking about India. Are you thinking about it? they needed a new CEO, and a new director of sales and marketing? And so we talked about it back and forth. And I said, Okay, I tell you what, Dan, I, I'll go if you go. He called me back two days. He says, I'm going I said I'm in. So I went from there's no way I'm going to India, two weeks later, done deal. All employee announcement Dan and Tom go into India. It happened that fast. So pack the bags, move the family over to India. It's I love that I love the experience. The it's a it's a sensory overload, the sights, the smells, the sounds, the tastes, oh my god, sensory overload. The people there are amazing. They are so hardworking, and dedicated and committed. They are unstoppable. They're highly motivated to progress. And so there's a blessing and a curse with that. So yeah, they're dedicated, committed, motivated, they want to be advanced. But every six months they're looking for like another promotion or a salary increase. They want to move up in society there that's really really important. But by the time I got there, the the office had only been open I guess maybe about a year so so it was kind of startup mode. And the people they did not know the BMW culture. So I think that was the value I was able to bring. You know, so many years with BMW I could bring the BMW spirit, the BMW culture, here's how we do things the BMW way and had a lot of fun with that. And again, Alan Crookes Alan, I face Melbourne, Australia, and I bow to you, Alan is my hero. He's the one that brought me into the region. And he came by to visit and he says Tom, yes, you know, why don't you Why don't you do some films like you did in the US? You know, can't you get Madonna again? Why don't you bring Madonna here and do some films for India and I'm like, okay, Alan, we take that as a challenge. And we spent a year developing an idea concept, what can we do with this thing, and we put it all together and it became this hidden testdrive surprise with as you as a cricket fan, we know Sachin Tendulkar. He's the God of cricket. As an American. I didn't know anything about cricket. I didn't know who Sachin was. But I knew he was like this mega superstar. And I just spoiled the ending. I'm sorry, but we did put Sachin in this video and it took like off it took off like a rocket It was incredibly rewarding. And a lot a lot of fun. Put that one in the notes to Andy.

Andy: 1:44:30

That video. I remember it was it was very exciting. Very good. And can I just say and I checked with the with you in the beginning that you also created a blog, didn't you when you went to India? And do you want me to talk about that? Or do you want to say something?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:44:47

I'll set it up very quickly. When when I was leaving to go to India. I had people say you got to do a blog. You got to do a blog. I'm like, Excuse me. I'm trying to move my family to India right now a blog is the last thing on my mind. And then I got to India and I was massively jet lagged and suffering right away from Delhi belly, you can imagine what that is to say the food there is very, very, very spicy. And if you come from the outside, you get Delhi belly and your, your intestines are highly challenged. So I was wide awake at two in the morning and I just typed blog into Google. And I started doing this blog. And I know people don't like to read. And again, India is very vibrant with colours. So I just took a lot of pictures. And I put this thing together. And my mantra was lots of photos, minimal text. And so I put up all these photos, I did one sets of copy to explain what was in the photo. And you know, I started doing it, I did it like once a week, and I thought ah, 10 people watch this, and it just, it just took off. And people kept following Because, you know, for people outside of India, this was like shocking to see like cows going down the middle of the street and monkeys, you know, going through your garbage and just the wild, wild, crazy things that were going on. And it took off like a rocket and like hundreds of people were following this thing every week. So I did it religiously once a week for three years when I was in India. And Andy, I know you were a big follower. And you always wrote me notes. So I appreciate that

Andy: 1:46:10

I was and it was Yeah, I did write you notes. And I was enjoying it. And I think and I'm going to encourage listeners to look it up. And we'll put it in the show notes the link to it. Because it's it's there now. And it was one of the things that you know, sure you meet people as colleagues, don't you and you you hear about their successes and you hear Yeah, they're good guy. But this really helped me to understand and to feel a little bit more about you, I knew you had this real curiosity about the countries that you're in, and the way you are embracing the culture. And the way you Yeah, you had really brought your all your years of experience into creating something that was going to be very accessible and user friendly, if you like, here's the pictures, minimal text, but really nicely written copy, I noticed you didn't even call it a caption or I wrote something underneath you had a copy underneath so it was it was all professionally done. And I encourage people to have a look at it.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:47:04

People, people were so nice, so complimentary. And and people thought it was pretty simple and easy. Because you know, it's whatever, 25 photos and one line of copy Oh, how long does that take you like 10 minutes, the fastest I ever did, it was three hours, it took hours and hours and hours because I just to edit the photos and get the right ones. And then I worked really, really, really hard on the copy. And if I could take a sentence that was 10 words and make it seven, I would do that I would really make sure that every word worked as hard as it could. And that that comes back again, from my Dick Clark days, Dick was the hardest working man in show business. His most valuable and precious asset was his time. And the worst thing you could ever do was waste his time. And once I said a sentence in 10 words, when I could have used five, and he took my head off, I was wasting his time. So that that education has forced me to be very tight and succinct and get to the point. And I used that that skill in that blog to to make sure those words work very, very hard.

Andy: 1:48:11

And it was a real eye opener. Because the places you went the things you photographed the the everyday things that you photographed. And I was looking earlier at it again and the opening er when you first went there from the US, your friends back home, absolutely sort of shocked by where you'd gone and how adventurous you were and the fact that you're back on the noodles getting. So from from back in your college days. Very good

Tom Stepanchak: 1:48:42

When we told people are going to India, every single person thought we were crazy. Are you out of your mind? And it my mother in law said Can't you be normal? And I said life is too short to be normal. And everybody thought we were crazy. We got to India and wh n the blog started. And then eople started to see our experi nces. And then all of a sudden t switched and they said, Wow, what a great experience for you kids. And I said absolutely. o I said the future of the wo ld is coming out of Asia. And'm glad my kids are gett ng a head start. My daugh er is a high school graduate of he American Embassy school in New Delhi, India. I mea, what a phenomenal experie ce. The three years were runni g out, I needed to find that next location Alan Crookes came to India. I picked him up at th airport he got in the car he s ys you're going to Tokyo next I m like, Okay, I'd never been to apan before in my life. I knew nothing about the market so far We packed up the bags move to Tokyo. It was suppos d to be three got extended a fo r got extended to five so I did five years in Tokyo. The isa was only good for five ye rs so I needed to leav and a phenomenal experience. I love Tokyo. The people a e incredible. The culture, he food, the mass transit, I ould talk all day about how onderful Tokyo is wonderful e perience. But now it's April of 2020. This little thing called COVID has hit. My five year vis is expiring. I'm trying to ge a flight back to the US I c lled the American College. Th y said don't come back. Now it s a hotspot, it's exploding ere don't come, I said, I have to leave. My visa is expiring. omehow I was able to get a fl ght. And I got to the airpo t and the message board w s cancel, cancel, cancel, canc l. On time, there was one flight going to Chicago. It was my f ight, the airport was deserted just complete. I got to Chica o, Chicago O'Hare deserted e d to end, the the onl place opened was McDonald's. y first meal back in the US w s at McDonald's. I'm sorry, but it's true. I got on a plane a c nnecting flight, there were 13 seats, and only eight passeng rs. And how they kept that plane up in the air. I don't kno. But it was the smoothe t, easiest, most flawless tr vel in my entire life, flying f om Tokyo back to the US. And so've been working from home eve since I've been off my my la top working from home. And you k ow, I had a team of I think sev n people. I knew two of them f om the past. And the rest I'd n ver met before I got to know the over Skype and, and just the c mputer. So since then, you now, things have opened up a bi. And I've got a chance to mee people and life is slowly comin back to normal. So we hope e erything

Andy: 1:51:25

We do. And does that bring us up to present day then?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:51:29

present time, right, I'll just do it real quick mobility services. This is my area now. And we're trying to be very innovative. We're trying to invent the future mobility. We're really really working hard on this. It's not easy. It's a lot of like square pegs trying to fit into round holes and but just like all these other past experiences, you know, we're committed to trying to figure this thing out. So Well, Andy, listen, I know we've gone so so long here I had no idea that I as going to take all this time. If you don't mind may we jump t

Andy: 1:51:58

You take your time Tom, I'm it's wonderful wonderful the end. And you know, I have ome reflections here that conversation. So don't feel rushed

Tom Stepanchak: 1:52:08

Reflections, you know that I've only had two employers over the last 37 years. I had 12 years of Dick Clark productions and in 25 years now with BMW. And I know the world doesn't work that way today, you know, people, especially on they job hop aroun a lot. I don't know if it's goo or bad. It's just a observation. Another point i that that I'm definitely generalist, you have generalis and specialist I'm a generalist you know, I'm not going to b I'm not like a dentist who i going to go to dentistry schoo and be a dentist my whole life you know, I like to tr different things. And if yo think about it, I used to wor in Hollywood. And then I wa selling leases and loans i Japan. And now I'm thinkin about the future of mobilit here in the US. So, you know, think I'm pretty adaptable. can plug in pretty easily bu you know, being a generalist i is is my personal style. An again, all these little nugget that I've picked up along th way, they all add value t everything I do. My next tip i read, read, read, please read. mean, read books, read books I'm a huge fan of Malcol Gladwell, anything Malcol Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell doe read it. He did a book calle Outliers, this chapter calle The ethnic theory of plan crashes. If you do one thin from this podcast, go get tha book and read that chapter Outliers. Ethnic theory of plan crashes is the chapter. Malcol Gladwell. He does a podcast An y you should listen to h s podcast. He does brillia t podcast, by the wa

Andy: 1:53:40

Why? Why should we read that chapter? I've read Outliers. What why? Or I might have listened to it as an audiobook actually, to be completely honest. That one. Why is that so important? Why do you want to share that chapter so much Tom?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:53:53

It's it's about basic communication. And it's they researched all of these plane crashes. Why are these planes crashing? Was it? Was it poor maintenance? Was it Poor training? Was it weather? No, it was because this guy sitting here, the pilot could not communicate with this guy next to him the copilot. And he could not communicate properly with the air traffic controller. And they study like Korean Airlines and the reasons they had so many plane crashes. And I don't want to ruin the story. Yeah, go back and read it again. But it's about basic communication and making sure your communication is clear. You can apply that to everything you do personally and professionally. So Gladwell, and podcast brilliant. Michael Lewis, I will read anything that Michael Lewis writes, he is phenomenal. Flash boys, every book that he's ever done. He did one the premonition which is about the pandemic, on and on and on. I'm drawing a blank now he's done.

Andy: 1:54:54

He wrote one about it. Well, he wrote the Big Short. Big Short. Love The Big Short, he wrote Moneyball. Moneyball, he wrote the one about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The Undoing Project.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:55:08

Yes, yes. I know you're a big Moneyball fan. I know a lot of people have seen the movie. I tell everybody read the book, you get so much more from the book than you do the movie. Right? Everybody's trying to replicate that Moneyball spirit, you know, of using the power of data analytics to make good decisions. Phil Knight Shoe Dog, What a delightful story. I'm not a runner. I don't wear Nikes. What an amazing story. Phil Knight Shoe Dog, the Steve Jobs book. It's been 10 years now. But Walter Isaacson phenomenal book. And Jack Welch. I mean, I got to say that the Jack Welch book, it's 20 years old now. And it's about his previous 20 years. So going back even 40 years, so it would look dated today. But I gotta tell you, there are nuggets that I got out of that Jack Welch book that I still use in my daily life. Really, really, at the time that I read it really inspiring and motivational to me, and I highly recommend it.

Andy: 1:56:08

Which one was that Tom?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:56:10

Well, it was his autobiography came out in 2001,

Andy: 1:56:14

Winning or Winner?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:56:14

Ah Straight from the Gut, Straight from the Gut yeah Winning came out after his that he got, he got married t the woman who he was in a interview and got married t this woman who was a writer, sh was a journalist and became hi wife. And then she then wrot the book Winning. And it' basically his autobiography kin of like repositioned more i more in a textbook kind o style. So I would say stick wit the first one Straight from th Gut

Andy: 1:56:40

Very good. Jack Welch is famous for his leadership style, obviously, Tom, how would you describe yours?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:56:47

consensus builder. I'm a consensus builder, that, that I never walk into a room assuming that I'm the smartest person in the room. And I want to hear the opinions of everybody in the room. And then from there, get all the voices on the table and build a consensus from there. And it's so funny when I when I first got to Tokyo, in the Japanese culture tends to be very top down very hierarchical. And I got to Tokyo and having a meeting and I said, What do you think? And what do you think? And what's your opinion? And they looked at me with these blank stares? It's like, well, no, you're the boss. Just tell us what to do. And we'll go do it. Like, no, you have to have an opinion. And it took about six months to break through that. But then, you know, once it broke through, and it's like, then I couldn't shut people up, which was great. I loved it. I like everybody had an opinion. Everybody had a comment. So I really watch, I really enjoyed watching that transformation. From this top down approach to consensus builder.

Andy: 1:57:45

You've told us about some real personalities that have featured in your journey, who do you consider to be role models that have had the biggest impact on you?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:57:54

I put in, as I say, three areas. So my parents without a doubt, giving the foundational skills to be like a solid person and character character is just drilled into our heads from birth. You know, be a man of your word, character. So parents. Dick Clark when I say Dick Clark, I mean, the man and the people at the company as well. I learned so much it was Dick Clark University. And then Jim McDowell, the VP of Marketing, who had hired me at BMW. And I was once described as this as a diamond in the rough. I was like this raw gem that needed polish. And that credit goes to Jim McDowell, really smart, bright, insightful, and you could go to Jim and say Jim I'm kind of stuck on this problem. He would always look at it a different way. Did you ever think about it this way or think about it that way, and he would always open up the mind with a with a new idea, a new approach. And those are my my key key role models.

Andy: 1:58:51

Thank you, Tom. And final question, what motivates you and brings you happiness at work?

Tom Stepanchak: 1:58:56

What motivates me is adding value. You know, if you can hold something up at the end of the day, or the end of the week, say look, I did this, it added value, it made things better. And happiness for me is just working with great people. If you're working with great people, that brings me joy, and I see the smile on your face too, as well.

Andy: 1:59:12

I would totally agree with that.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:59:16

The other message I wanted to leave here at the end is is don't be motivated by money. And I'll be honest, I've it because you you were I think connecting some dots for me there at the beginning of this thing because I was very very money oriented to earn money to save money to make sure I had security for the future. But But don't be motivated by money. In other words don't don't change jobs because they're gonna offer you$5 more. You know, for me, it's been motivated by where you can add value where you can make a difference for that for me is the true reward.

Andy: 1:59:53

Yeah. I think you were motivated it depends. There's sort of a time in your life when you can afford to not be motivated by money. There's a time when you simply have to have money unless you've been gifted some or born into it. But once you have a choice, then make the right make the right choices.

Tom Stepanchak: 2:00:15

My son Greg is in college. He's a sophomore. So yeah, I need to keep going here.

Andy: 2:00:19

Yeah. Well, Tom, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey. And I love these conversations because I have learned so much about your earlier years from from this conversation, and there are some amazing stories in there. And so thank you for sharing them

Tom Stepanchak: 2:00:43

And let me just give you one more to cap off the show. It goes back to baseball again. So now I'm in Tokyo. Baseball is big in Japan. They have 12 teams, I said, You know what? I've been to every baseball stadium in the US. I'm going to every baseball stadium in Japan. I accomplished that I even brought my friend Jeff over. He came and saw a couple of games with me. So that was a great joy. And the the the nip it's called the Nippon series it's the World Series in Japan was coming up. And it was the Tokyo Giants, not the San Francisco Giants. But the Tokyo giants were playing in the the the World Series in Japan against the Fukuoka Hawks. And I secured tickets for game five. And I said oh my god deja vu again. What? What if there is no game five and fortunately Sakata san Sakata san in Tokyo. Thank ou so much. He also was able to et tickets for game three. So e went to game three, I saw I aw the World Series, the Nippon eries of baseball in Japan. And hank God he got those tickets or game three, because just ike 30 years prior, the Tokyo iants got swept in four games, here was no game five. So now I ave a happy ending to the tory.

Andy: 2:01:58

Oh, brilliant. Stop buying tickets for game five Tom. But a wonderful story. And I think is that captured in your blog? Because your blog carries on for eight years of all these journeys. And so I think that's in there as well.

Tom Stepanchak: 2:02:11

It's one of the final entries, but it is there. Yes. Yeah.

Andy: 2:02:14

Yeah, I thought I'd seen that. So thanks again. Absolutely brilliant. And I wish you all the best with your mobility services, innovation. And I'm sure we'll stay in contact and talk about other things too.

Tom Stepanchak: 2:02:28

Yes, thank you, Andy.

Andy: 2:02:34

You've been listening to Career-view Mirror with me, Andy Follows I hope you found some helpful points to reflect on in Tom's story, that can help you with your own career journey, or that of those you lead parent or mentor. So some takeaways from my perspective, first of all, all those jobs that he had as a youngster, the fact that he had a very strict upbringing, that concept of taking more risks in the early years and then reducing the amount of risks as we get more responsibility and get further into our careers, how he managed to live on those short term contracts. In the first part of his career, and how he followed the opportunities that came up. He had to change his leadership style from one industry to another when he went from entertainment to automotive, and how those skills are transferable. So things he learnt. For example, don't use 10 words if five will do served him well. When he moved into BMW. He also was honest enough to talk about the role that luck plays. And coupled with that, the impact that being persistent has, and I enjoyed that story where he was travelling from Florida to LA stopping every day phoning Dick Clark productions, and the assistant there described him as being the most politely persistent person that they'd ever encountered. After our conversation I went back and I rewatched The Hire which is one of the short films that Tom made with Guy Ritchie, Clive Owen, and Madonna. I also watched the surprise test drive event from India. And that's well worth it for the expressions on the faces of the people meeting their idol. The link to all of these short clips are in the episode shownotes. We've also included the link to Tom's blogs from his time in India and Japan. As Tom said his motto was lots of pictures, minimal text, and I thoroughly recommend you take a look at these if you want to get an insight into these two fascinating cultures. Could you imagine two more contrasting environments in which to live and work? See what you think we publish these episodes to celebrate my guests careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. And I'm genuinely interested in what resonates with you. If you've got any comments or feedback for us. If you have any questions, or if Tom's insights have helped you please let us know by leaving a review. Your feedback helps us grow. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser or you can find the episode on our Instagram at Career-view Mirror and comment there. Some listeners have reached out to me with specific requests and I've been able to introduce them to some of my guests and discuss their own career direction, which has been very rewarding for me my listeners and my guests, and thank you to all of you for sharing your feedback. thanks also to Hannah, our producer, to be among the first to know about our upcoming guests. Follow us on Instagram at Career-view Mirror. If you know people who would benefit from hearing these stories, please show them how to find us. Thanks very much for listening