Koelzer Brothers Reminisce: Lessons from the Pharmacy & Dad | Pete, Tom, Tim, & Mike Koelzer Koelzer

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Mike Koelzer: Peter, Tommy, Timmy, my brothers, introduce yourself to our listeners.

Pete: Old, it's the youngest. You want me to go first? Alright, so this is Pete. have a degree in marketing for Michigan State and then MBA in finance from Western Michigan. I worked for IBM for 20 years and the last 20 years I've been running smaller IT services companies in West Michigan.

Tom Koelzer: This is Tom, younger brother, Pete and twins are Tim. Currently I work for a company called Tenant Advisors. We're a commercial real estate firm that I founded back in with a business partner. spent 17 years at CBRE. Prior to that, graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in business finance 

Tim: This is Tim. I'm Tom's twin brother. I went to Michigan State University. I got my MBA at Kellogg School of Graduate Management at Northwestern University. I have a firm called Consulting. We do marketing strategy for a host of clients, including pharmaceutical and medical device and healthcare companies.

Mike Koelzer: Just to jump in here, then, I'm Mike and I graduated from Purdue Pharmacy School in 1991, and I've been at the family pharmacy, which these guys all graduated from years back and so we're here today to talk a little bit about that. So did you guys like going into work? Did you hate going into work or was it okay 

Tom Koelzer: Yeah, I wouldn't say I liked it. I think there were periods of time primarily around the holidays where I actually liked to work around Christmas because everyone was in a good mood and you were wrapping presents, Russell Stover Candy. I actually liked going in during that probably one week period. We all put ourselves through college. I think we all started working at the store, I believe at 14 it was just kind of expected that if you were part of the Kelzer family, you were gonna work at a drugstore. And so I didn't mind it. I didn't look forward to it other than around the holiday time.

Tim: We worked a lot and I think all of us started before working at the drugstore, doing paper routes going up, its press, Detroit, free Press. You have to wake up at six o'clock in the morning and do that, and then we'd go to school. And then you'd work and oftentimes work started at six o'clock.

'cause the store was open from six till 10. So it was a lot. And I remember, you know, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock roll around. I was a clock watcher. It's like getting me outta here, certain nights, but that's because we worked so much. But I liked the job itself. 

It's just gotta be a lot of hours, you know, as a young kid.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Tim: The benefit of that is, you know, we've all kind of started our own firms. We're all working independently, kind of charting our path now. I think there was a lot of learning that coincided with that.

Mike Koelzer: yeah. How about you, Peter?

Pete: I would say I liked it. I mean, I liked going to the store we worked hard in those days. You didn't stand around waiting for customers, you'd clean shelves, you'd stock things, you'd suit, floors, all that kind of stuff. To me there was a sense of, it was the family business , we could learn a lot and you probably got to do some things.

Dad would give us a little bit of leeway to do some things. And there were a lot of characters we worked with over the years and customers, and you get to know a lot of those people as well. Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: Nowadays when I have people scheduled at the store, I just have a computer system and they just say, I basically need this time off. But I remember back in the day, you know, we'd have to fill these, well not fill 'em out, you just write it on a sheet and you'd have to tell your life story to dad to make sure that you could have that time off. Going to the dentist you'd say like, how many cavities to make sure it was important enough, you know?

 One of the things I didn't like is that you could never ask for time off and then just be at home sitting on your ass and have dad see it.

Because he'd be like, well, why did you ask for time off? And so

 I never liked that, 24 7, look at us, 

Pete: The one thing I think though, that was a little different back then is a lot of people would have jobs where they signed up and they worked this day, this day, this day. Dad would make off the schedule like every week or every two weeks.

And I think he got, I don't wanna say better kids, but he got better employees 'because they were the people who were active in sports or music or whatever, extracurricular activities and good students. So they appreciated that. And then he would make the schedule.

Now we did a lot of things like, you guys know, we'd come back from sports practice in high school at five 30 and you'd have to work from six to 10 at night. We would do a lot of that stuff like Timmy was saying earlier.

Tom Koelzer: I

One thing that kind of talked about is, like Timmy mentioned, and Pete just mentioned, all of us kids were, for the most part, I think three sport athletes as were a lot of the other employees. So you would go to school from eight to three, you would have your high school swimming or tennis or football from three to five, and then you'd go work at the drug store from, from six to 10. That happens probably two to three days a week. And as Pete mentioned, When you worked at the store, you were waiting on a customer you were dusting shelves or you were cleaning up. I mean, there was no just sitting behind the counter and waiting for a customer to come up.

You were doing work or you were very quick to go get that customer so they didn't have to wait. And that was kind of instilled upon us and I think everybody at the drugstore customer service then and today is so important. When we were at the pharmacy, none of the employees would park in the front row near the door.

 We were on the way back to give those parking spaces to the customers. And I think that's something you learn, but you didn't really learn it until afterwards it just became part of your personality and part of your work ethic.

Mike Koelzer: When you guys look at business school is there anything that you think that you learned at the pharmacy, either from dad or just working there that business school didn't give to you?

Pete: I thought about that and I think I learned more at the drugstore than I did in all my education and my business career. In addition to college, I spent 20 years at IBM, and the first year was an extensive training program. these guys would talk about, some guy, they'd say, oh, this guy's a regional manager, and he's responsible for a hundred million dollar company.

And I'm saying that's kind of equivalent to me running the candy section at the drugstore. It was the same issues, the same things to think about. We got to do procurement and restocking and advertising and pricing and getting along with people. I really think I learned more like Tommy said, how to be a business person and how to be in a service organization than I did in any of my other jobs or career.

Mike Koelzer: When Peter talks about that, it makes me think about you guys on your resume. You'd put what, like, we had a postal station and sometimes someone would forget their medicine when they went to Ontario or something, and, now all of a sudden Timmy's like international shipping manager or something like that.

Right.

Tim: That was Tommy. Dad got a kick out of Tommy's. He saw his resume that he put together for, senior year in college to get a real job. And he put light bookkeeping, which I think was counting the till. And dad got a kick

relations if he would spend some time with the post office.

 all those things, you joke about it now, but you did learn about how to run a business, how to start a business. I think the thing that, probably more importantly was less that than more about just instilled in us, you know, the work ethic.

You know, there aren't many kids today who go to school, they have practice, they work until 10 o'clock at night. And I think that was, you know, you talk about what lessons learned, I think the culture, you know, Dan never talked about culture, but I think it was a culture of customer first. working hard, serving the customer, finding something to do. Certainly instilled a sense of entrepreneurialism, finding something to do so you could add value. So those are the things that I learned that, you know, I also experienced later in my career in consulting.

Tom Koelzer: Dad thought that was the funniest thing when he saw my resume coming out as a senior, university of Michigan Business School. I think I had seven or eight different departments. I was, head of customer service. I was the head of inventory. was the director of finance.

Pete: Yeah,

Tom Koelzer: repair and

Pete: yeah,

Tom Koelzer: I had a lot of hats,

Mike Koelzer: Well, kidding aside, it is a business where, , just the different areas that you do touch. You know, all those things truly touch you did touch, you get a little bit of a taste of it where a lot of these companies now you go into it and you're just like focused on one thing.

So we did get a little bit of a taste jokingly, but all those things we did touch a little bit.

Tim: Yeah, you did. And even, you know, even the kind of breakthrough thinking back then, I mean, this is what the early eighties, you know, dad was doing, you know, pharmacy delivery, and now that's a thing, you know, with an apps and

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Tim: But that mindset of here's a customer need, how do I fill it?

You know, how do we creatively come up with a new service? There's a lot of innovations and thought and customer service that you just picked up and you can distill them down into life lessons or business lessons into their functional areas.

and dad kind of innately didn't really have training. He just kind of picked it up and I think that's the way the store was successful.

Mike Koelzer: You see some of these companies now they're getting like a billion dollars for a new delivery app or something like that, and you're like, all four of us could have said, that's not gonna work. You know, as a 16-year-old, we know that doesn't work. You're not gonna be able to do this or that. so we truly did have a lot of good experiences there. I think we had more than we even realized. I think we have a deep sense of business and you just think everybody knows that, but not everybody does

Tim: You assume it's common sense 'cause you

On.

an early age, so you think, well, everybody knows this, but you pick things up over the years and then we started, like Tom said, we started at age 14 and we, I was there a good 10 years all the way through. grade school and high school and even college, we would come home.

Tom and I both were lifeguards, community country clubs, that was, you know, that was two Halves of a day. So you'd spend half day at the country club, then you'd work the other half at night, the store. but yeah, you learn those lessons and you just kind of assume everybody else has them, but they don't.

And so I feel very blessed to have that opportunity to learn at such an early age.

Tom Koelzer: Yeah, just to kind of piggyback on that. Yeah. We did have two jobs. We would, we would be a lifeguard, a country cover or Bly field, and then you would go to the store and I remember dad would come home in the evening or in the afternoon and you'd be resting. You'd be like, know, lying on the couch, maybe watching tv.

And would start laughing. I said, yeah, I just stay out, done with work. He said, work. He said, you're a lifeguard. He, you sit in the sun for four hours. And I get rest. 

Mike Koelzer: Whenever I'd go to Kent, 'cause I, I worked at Kent Country Club after you guys, you're like four years older than I am. So I worked four years after you did. But dad would always say, you have an important job there. And I'd be like, yeah. And then I remember back in the day, like three of us guards , we'd sit with our backs up against the wall where the shade was.

We couldn't even see the bottom of the pool. And you're just hoping that at the end of the day, you walk over and no one's on the bottom. I did a crap job and dad had the, wherewithal to, he didn't warn me about too many things, but that thing he did, I didn't listen to him. But, but, at, you know, it, he, he said it, 

Pete: So I started at the store when I was in eighth grade, and my job was, I would mop floors Friday night. We'd mop floors once a week, and I went in at nine o'clock at night, stock shelves, cleaned them, and then we mopped from 10 to 11. That's how I got started.

I made a dollar 40 an hour, I remember. And I thought it was great, this was my way in. I think it's probably a different time , but I think the drugstore was seen as a good place to work.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: Dad, dad ran a good business. He was sharp in that way.

I don't know if kids have that same opportunity now where you have a business owned by an entrepreneur or a sole proprietor, and you get to work there for the guy who owns it.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: That's a lot different than if you're working at McDonald's, following the process on how they do something.

Or you're at a big company. It's just a whole different culture. when I went to work for IBM I didn't have that same, I didn't care as much about it, And I think it's different when, for me, working for the family business, 

 Even though we didn't own part of the company, you felt like you were an owner and it was a little bit different. So If some other kid was goofing off, you'd kind of think, why are you doing that? This is how you're supposed to do things.

Mike Koelzer: Timmy. that story about when dad didn't like you. I mean, 'cause it's a stressful place and sometimes, I didn't even like working with people when it's stressful there and it's not as busy now and not as stressful. But sometimes I'd say things I'm like, well, that's not really me.

I guess it is me. But you know, that stress brought that out, that time that you like answered something wrong to dad. Like you just said the wrong thing, you said Yeah. Instead of Yes or something like that. And dad kind of got on you. But that's the nature of the busy store.

Tim: yeah, it was late at night and dad said something to me and I said, right, got upset because I didn't say yes. I said, right. And he took offense

Mike Koelzer: Hmm.

Tim: that was part of the issue is, you know, you'd have dad at home and then dad is your boss at work and you know, but yeah, dad, he, he was pretty,

strict. He was pretty strict too, you know, both at home and at, and at the office. And, I said, right, instead of Yes. And he, he didn't like that whatever

Pete: Yeah. The other thing too is, he had between his two other pharmacists who had been there with him a long time. There's a lot of consistency of the way to do things and how you act and if you want to call it the culture, , it wasn't a nice thing where he had other people he could trust to do the right things when he wasn't there.

Mike Koelzer: And speaking of that, I remember one of the pharmacists, would sort of decide who she wanted to be. Friends with and things like that. I remember

Pete: Right.

Mike Koelzer: you're on a stage and literally we are, we're six inches off the ground.

 But he would say, you're on a stage and you act the part regardless of how you feel for a customer.

Tim: Dad he was always so busy on the stage and the customers would come in and they'd talk to him, say, Hey Jim, did you see the football game? And he would always be looking down. Working, you know, filling prescriptions or whatever. But he also knew in the back of his mind that he needed to connect with people.

So he would wait until they got out of the store after they picked up the prescription. These guys are probably thinking I got out without Jim pestering me. So he'd go walk outside probably thinking, geez, I didn't greet

Pete: yeah,

Tim: And so for the next five minutes they'd talk, dad would be halfway out the store

Mike Koelzer: He did that

Pete: He did that at home. Yeah, yeah,

Mike Koelzer: be, he may be reading the paper and then he felt when someone started leaving, he kind of felt guilty. Then he'd get up and he'd

yeah.

minutes in the driveway with you.

Pete: you'd be home all weekend and you're packing up, ready to head back to college or whatever, and then he'd start talking to you. We had the whole weekend to talk to you, but he forgot to. 

Tom Koelzer: You'd come in for the weekend, from Michigan or Michigan State and you'd spend all weekend there and it was always a warm, friendly place. But dad, he had a lot of kids. He had, 11

Pete: right?

Tom Koelzer: you wouldn't get a tremendous amount of one-on-one time until you said, I'm leaving, to Ann Arbor

Tom Koelzer: out the door to those last five, 

Pete: yeah,

Tom Koelzer: three minutes of conversation.

'cause he

Pete: yeah.

Tom Koelzer: a little bit, guilty

 I just think that's kind of a common feeling. I feel that way with my kids as well, 

Pete: Jimmy, you mentioned dad talking to customers. I mean, I think the funniest thing about dad was when he'd, you think about it, everybody comes in the store, they know who he is, but you get all those customers and you'll draw a blank on who it is or, or what their name is. And always if you're there and somebody comes in, they say, Hey Jim, you got my prescription.

And if he drew a blank, he'd be like, yeah, I'm kind of bit Pete, can you get that? So I'd go up and I'd say, yeah, who's it for? And they'd say it's for Joe Smith. And I'd be like, okay. And I'd walk back and dad would be like, who's that? I said, Joe Smith. Oh yeah. Okay. So Joe, how are things, you know what I mean?

his best buddy that he,

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: you knew what he'd call you over that to get the prescription. That he forgot the person's name. And so you knew you had to get it out of him and pass it back to him 

Tim: And every

he'd get the name wrong. I remember somebody came in and, and he, the, the guy got a prescription for his son. His son was named Sean, SEAN. And dad said, so how is Scene doing this day? 

Mike Koelzer: When dad tried to remember, he'd read a book once in a while. Remember he had those tape series on memory or something like

Pete: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: Anyway, he had a kid in his football team named, let's say, Frank Jones.

and so he said, I'm gonna remember that. So he remembered Frank Howard, who was a kicker or something. 

Pete: A baseball player.

Mike Koelzer: baseball

Pete: Baseball player. First baseman for the Washington Senators. 

Mike Koelzer: So

Pete: Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: So you guess it, you know, and now the kid comes in and dad calls him Howard all the time. 

Pete: Oh yeah, yeah, He did that with Steve Summeri. One time he walks into the store and he's walking out, he says, Hey, Mr. Kelzer. And dad says, Hey, Kenny, how are you? And he says, that's Steve. And Dad just said, oh, you changed your name again.

just, the way he said it, it was just funny, 

Mike Koelzer: So you guys mentioned dad would get people from local high schools right? And it seemed to be that all the employees were kind of people that were somewhat interrelated, you know, a friend of a friend, something like that.

Pete: Yeah, I think a lot of people might have had some connection. They were customers. I think a lot of siblings, there were like two or three of 'em working, and of course some of 'em would've been people from our grade school, even athletes who played football for 'em, that kind of thing.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: it was pretty much a, neighborhood type people and some kids of friends of his, which sometimes was a good thing, sometimes wasn't as good of a thing

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Pete: right. I

Tim: were two specific instances where there was I, at least two that I know of where there was kids of, dad's friends or neighborhood kids, and they embezzled, you know, money or,

Pete: Yeah.

Tim: money orders or whatever it might've been. So, like you said, Pete, good and bad, you know who the parents are, but you don't always know who the kids are.

And there were a couple times when the kids that were hired took money from the store, 

Mike Koelzer: I don't think he ever put up help wanted signs either, because maybe 95% of the people coming in there you didn't really want as an employee, so you had to be careful about that too.

Tom Koelzer: On the other hand, I think dad did a really good job in watching out for certain people and trying to help people, whether it be a relative. or the daughter or son of a friend that may be not on the straight and narrow path. Maybe someone that came from a broken family. I think he always kind of looked out for those kids, in every part of his life, whether that was coaching the store, or really wherever. He always knew those kids and their family life and maybe it wasn't the best because maybe a father went absent, parents were divorced or other issues.

And dad saw that, didn't make an issue of it, but helped that person out as best he could.

Mike Koelzer: For our listeners, our youngest sister is learning disabled. And I think that, that, I think, see , you guys knew dad longer and earlier in his career than I did. I think Jenny kind of softened dad up a little bit too. I think it opened him up a little bit for people that had maybe more challenges and things. Maybe it was way before that.

Pete: Yeah, and I think some of that is just as you age and, and go on in life, you're probably a little more in tune to that stuff as you've been through, the back half of your life. Your eyes are open to that a little bit more than you might've been younger.

 when you got a business and you got 12 kids, that's one thing. When you're older and all your kids are taken care of, you may change your perspective a little bit.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. 

over the years and 

I think that's right Pete. It was, experiencing things whether good or bad things don't always go as planned and you have the benefit of, looking back, thinking back. And so I think it definitely softened his approach to and his emotions over time.

Mike Koelzer: I remember 20 years ago or so, it was mom and dad's 50th anniversary, their wedding anniversary. This was a couple years before dad died. So we had a nice dinner for them with friends and family. I got a tear in my eye and I said, when I was like 11 or something, the basketball went on top of our pop-up camper. And so I crawled up on the camper and basically the whole top collapsed and I went up and told dad and he was like, Hey, that's okay. That happens. And he bought a new canvas for it and things like that. Anyways, after this talk you guys are out in the hallway.

You're like, are you sure? You know, that's not the dad we knew, 

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Tim: Well, I,

I had a basketball in the house once and this was terrible. You know, we used to watch family movies and so the family movie projector was up in the family room. 'cause we had watched movies the night before I just, you know, threw the basketball and it hit. And you can imagine how delicate that was.

, knocked the wheel off. And man, that was a big expense. I don't think I told dad I waited until I thought he was 

Mike Koelzer: Nope. I told dad, I went up when you,

told

when you guys were sleeping down there, I went up and I said, dad, I don't know why, out of respect for him or whatever. I told dad that you guys were playing ball in the house and you broke the projector.

Tim: and then

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. 

Then I 

Tim: to

felt. 

So I, the worst possible time dad's out doing yard work, it's like 95 degrees up. I thought I would confess that I picked a bad time 'cause he must've been frustrated, so I didn't go well. 

But the nice thing about that is

Tom Koelzer: had that,

that

eye twitch. So

if things were good, they were

Pete: When he is really mad. Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: He got that in the Navy, didn't he? From drinking too much coffee or, or biting down in his pipe or something like that?

Tim: Probably

Pete: when he was mad then that I would, that left eye would twi and people at work would know that

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: I've had guys tell me like later on, oh, you're dead with it. I would start twitching.

Tom Koelzer: right.

Pete: mad.

Tim: It was like a signature tell, you know? 'cause it, you see people play poker. It's like they might do something every time they get a good hand, but every time dad was angry, his left eye would start to twitch and you knew it was time to get out of there. Otherwise you're gonna hear it from dad.

Mike Koelzer: Might even be what Botox is for these days. You know? I think that was invented for some kind of facial thing like that. 

Tom Koelzer: It was kind of legendary to have that eye twitch, whether it was at the drug store or at home or on the football field.

 I started a twitch, it was like, okay, this is real business here.

it's a

Pete: Yeah.

Tim: You're in real trouble.

Pete: Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: So dad, how old was he? But he went from one pharmacy to like four pharmacies. He was kind of one of them, besides Walgreens , he was one of the first chains, you know, sort of in town. Before I was in the picture, long before I was in the picture, I think he stopped those.

And I always wonder how he felt about that. He felt he was sort of like, who's the guy and it's a wonderful life. You know, he felt like things got too small for him. I've

that. 

Pete: The one time he owned three stores that I know of, the main one and the two other ones . And I have very faint early memories of going with him to visit the other stores. So I remember one of 'em, they'd give me a pretzel rod, back in those days when they had soda fountains and those kinds of things.

So I remember one was on Union Street, I forget what the other one was, but I remember going with dad to make a visit to the stores.

Mike Koelzer: Hmm.

Pete: And what he always told me was they did okay, but not enough compared to the main store.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: and he ended up, being able to, he kind of bought him for the liquor license back in the day.

That was something you could do. I don't know more beyond that, but I think back then he probably had visions of, he's gonna own a chain of stores.

It's just you spread yourself too thin and then you're relying, I mean, you think about it, I mean, he had these pharmacists he could trust who he knew ran his other store.

Now you have somebody else who's managing the store and you don't have that same kind of trust built up.

Tim: that then Pete, he had three stores at one point, moved down to one, and then he opened the card shop, was what, about

down. There was a hardware store between the drug store and the card shop. Hallmark card shop. But he did that for a number of years and I think he talked about trading dollars. He didn't really make money. Obviously he wanted to make money, but he was doing it more to keep the neighborhood propped up, you know, providing more services. Then he did that for some years and then sold that as well, then expanded the store.

Right. Mike? I mean, you've been a couple, you've been through a couple of expansions or remodels? 

Mike Koelzer: Well, he doubled the size of the store, the footprint when he was like 65. I mean, I hope to be long gone by the time I'm that age. So he was, he was, well, you know, enthused in it. Still later in life, 

 Dad's working style, Everybody said Dad was messy. At least we heard that from home. But I looked at some of his stuff. He had some good orders. 'cause he had to collect rent from, I think eight different people. He had a couple duplexes and a fourplex. Some of his stuff he was very organized on, but that wasn't the image that we got from him.

The store was always, he always had piles of stuff there too. But he knew where stuff was.

Pete: I think he might have been organized but messy.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Pete: he knew where the important stuff was. He'd do that, but he wouldn't get any Good Housekeeping awards for helping out around the.

Tom Koelzer: No,

Mike Koelzer: no, 

Tom Koelzer: no.

I mean, he had his box that he'd lu around for three weeks, and it would be, what's that CU Keeling box that,

Pete: Yeah,

Tom Koelzer: box

Pete: and k boxes. 

the one that says, 

You,

get

you can't,

Keeling, you

yeah, 

Tom Koelzer: so it'd have eight

Inches.

stuff like garbage mail and bills. And a month on a Sunday night, he

Pete: yeah.

Tom Koelzer: through that box

Pete: through it.

Tom Koelzer: he'd go through eight inches of that kind of stuff.

And then in the next month he'd do that again he would just kind of accumulate that. And then the other two kinds of messy habits. One was his coffee cup. I mean, he always had coffee cups that were in the car . And the other was his pipe. Now, he always had the pipe cleaners out there. I don't even know the name of the tobacco that he used to have, he constantly would have a pipe and he would constantly have a coffee cup. So I think he had some messy habits, but he,for the most part, was pretty organized, I think.

Tim: Favorite messy Habit was when he would eat peanuts sitting in the chair, probably doing the mail. He used to shake the peanuts in his hand and then rather than use a napkin or something to clean it, he would wipe going from left shoulder down to his waist.

He'd wipe the peanuts on his sweater, and he'd go to the store. Somebody might come over, to the door and and he'd have this,

look at.

of peanut shells and shavings all across his front while he had his pipe in his coffee mug. That was one of my favorite dad.

Messy memories.

Mike Koelzer: at home, would come down with his pipe and scrape his pipe out and maybe absentmindedly he'd throw the knife back in the drawer. when I would eat an orange, you know, I'dcut the skin into quarters, to peel it back. Every once in a while you'd be eating an orange, and inside of it would be like burnt tobacco.

You know? You think it's like a miracle happened and you realize the knife you had, had dad's, pipe cleaning on it.

 speaking of that box that he would have, I recalled that he'd be watching like the masters or something and he'd have this stuff all over the table. And I remember saying to a friend of dad's I'd said, I told my dad that I'd never want to, get to that point where life was so cluttered that it just didn't fit right in my head. And this friend of dad started laughing. He's like, you think he needed to do that? he would have this prop box. He would just come and spread it onto the table just to have some peace and quiet for a few hours. And people thought he was busy.

 So when you guys think of your career, Timmy, you and I had talked on a podcast before this. When did you guys decide I? Well, let me say mine first. I had a couple different directions but one reason I settled on pharmacy is because when I was at pharmacy school, I knew when I got done, dad was gonna be close to retirement and I knew none of you guys were in it. I knew dad wasn't gonna be in it, and so I had kind of had this, this direction I could go. I liked the business part of it. I like the science part of it. When you guys were making decisions of where you were going to go to college and things like that, You knew some people.

What was your decision process and did the store affect that at all? negatively or positively.

Tom Koelzer: You hear a lot about helicopter parents these days where the parents are all over their kids and trying to give them directions and do this and do that. And both mom and dad were maybe the other side of that. They gave us enough responsibility, and enough ability to make your own decisions. I think a lot of kids these days. The parents don't let their kids fail. And I think that could be a challenge because they don't fail at 18 or at 22. They fail at 35. So I didn't see that as a positive because when I graduated from JC it was like, I don't know where to go to school.

I don't know if I should go to the States. I dunno if I should go to Michigan. I was probably going to be a dentist. I was maybe gonna be in business

Mike Koelzer: Dentist. Wait, you were gonna be a dentist? What the hell? I didn't, Tommy, you really thought about being a dentist.

thought

Pete: he was watching Rudolph one day and he thought,

Mike Koelzer: how? Did that ever come to think about that? Well

Tom Koelzer: I, I always wanted to be a dentist. I, that, that's just something I wanted to do. And, through high school, my first year, her being the dentist, my first year at JC Junior College was, I was pre-dent. And it got to

Mike Koelzer: wait a, wait a minute. Pretense. So you took, I'm gonna call you out on this. So you took chemistry your freshman year at JC

Junior College.

Tom Koelzer: yeah, I

Mike Koelzer: I didn't know that.

Pete: I didn't know that.

Tom Koelzer: I took a

Medically kind of related schools, and I had no idea I was gonna go to Michigan. and then I started chemistry and it was like, you couldn't really see it, right? You had these theories and you had atoms, and you had neutrons, and. I couldn't really wrap my arms around it, even though I wanted to be a dentist. and I certainly probably could have gotten through the schoolwork and gotten into dental school. cause we were all pretty good students

 Had I wanted to. But after about a year or two of that, I was like, I don't want to be a dentist. So that's when I graduated from junior college, still didn't have that direction. What do you want to go into? Didn't get a lot of guidance from dad. It was kind of, as kids we were like, this is your life.

Kind of figure it out. And thankfully we all did, but not a lot of direction. So I could have gone to Michigan State or Michigan. I knew I wanted to go to a big school, and chose Michigan because I got in. The one thing I can say about the drugstore and working there is that it really ingrained upon me and made me know that I really wanted to do my own thing in terms of either my own business or in some kind of a profession where you can control your own destiny. So first, job outta college was a logistics company, sales. And from there I knew I wanted to either be a stockbroker or a real estate broker because I can have my own business run the way I wanna have it not report to anybody. And I think a lot of that had to do with, when I looked at that, it was like he was his own. Person,

person.

career. I wanted to do that. I didn't wanna work for a big company, I wanted to work for something small. I never saw myself going up the corporate ladder. 

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Tom Koelzer: I want to do that.

Mike Koelzer: You know, that's the one thing I liked about, or like about the pharmacy is, and you guys know this, you could come up with an idea. And within like five minutes you could test it. Whether it's a sign or something like that and you get feedback and all that stuff. And that's one thing that I don't think I would like in a bigger company of not being able to have those kinds of ideas.

Tommy. That's all well and good, but I think you kind of made the dentist thing up for the show today. Timmy. Did you know he wanted to be a dentist,

Tim: news to me. 

Mike Koelzer: You guys were both at JC together, so you would've known what classes he took.

Tim: But you know, we were kind of, I, I don't think, I never really paid attention to what he was taking, you know, 

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Tim: My story, like, we talked about this. Podcast a bit ago, I was more by Mike Brady and the Brady Bunch and Larry Tate and McMan and Tate, from, which is my career.

 Mike Brady would have the drawings if the architect that

Mike Koelzer: The architect,

Tim: panel, room I thought, well, that's kind of interesting, you know, to be drawing. so I took some architecture

I took some 

at JC as well. again didn't have a whole lot of direction

A,

 From mom and dad.

And so I, there was a class I didn't, I didn't think, I didn't even want to take was physics. You had to take physics. I thought, well, I don't wanna take physics. Let me try something else. 

then I was, um. 

I was, uh.

more by advertising. I think just the combination of the business side combined with creativity, I was always looking for, whether it was architecture or advertising in my current career, consulting, it's a combination of the analytical side combined with creativity, I think drove me more towards marketing, where I got, you know, a degree from Michigan State and then got my MBA in marketing, at Northwestern, then started my own firm about 25 years ago, helping other companies through marketing achieve business growth.

Mike Koelzer: How about you, Peter?

Yeah, so a couple things. First of all, I had no idea about Tommy and the dentist, and I always say to myself, it's like the last thing I'd want to be would be a dentist. I always say, why would anybody go to be a dentist? I remember people would say in pharmacy school, people would say, I'm not gonna be a physician because I don't like the C sight of blood. And I'm thinking, yeah, plus you're not smart enough.

 But if someone said to me, I don't want to be a dentist 'cause I don't like, you know, touching them I'd be like, Hey, I agree. You know,

Pete: yeah.

Mike Koelzer: I would never be a dentist.

Pete: Yeah.

Tom Koelzer: I am like the only person that probably likes to go to the data, so every six months when I get my teeth cleaned, I love that I could almost fall asleep in that chair. And I like when they're, picking at your teeth and just, I mean, I just kind of like it, it's kind of goofy,

Pete: weird.

Tom Koelzer: but,

Pete: Yeah.

Tom Koelzer: that was kind of a, know, obviously it wasn't a set in stone goal because I shifted fairly quickly,

 definitely something that I wanted

Mike Koelzer: Huh?

Tom Koelzer: at some point in my life.

Pete: For me, I always say if I was an only child, I would've, I would've been a pharmacist and run the drug store.

I loved working in the store and running that, but said, I don't want to have it. 10 or 11 partners.

Mike Koelzer: Yep.

Pete: it wasn't the only thing, I didn't like the pharmacy medical portion of it.

I liked the business side of it. Running the business. and the same thing you guys said about school. I mean, mom and dad did nothing to encourage where to go to school, what school to look at, and of course we paid our own way. I ended up going to Michigan State 'cause Joan, who's my wife, was there and gonna go to vet school from high school. And our sister Julie was there a couple years ahead of me.

And it was the year after Magic Johnson was there. They won the NCA championship. So I'm like, oh, Michigan State, I didn't even think of anything else. And we were all good students and I thought, oh, you gotta do something in chemistry, or there's English or there's whatever.

In my first semester, I took a business 1 0 1 course where they had this computer simulation thing where you could invest in a product, invest in r and d and set your pricing. And then the next session they'd do it again. And you could either try to grab market share and to me it was like I'm good at this, I did well at it and I was like, you mean this can be your, you know, just a business degree.

That can be what you do. I didn't even really know that existed because everybody we knew was a pharmacist or they were something, so then I was like this is what I want to do, business-wise. 

Mike Koelzer: What's interesting is the 11 kids, besides Jenny with a learning disability, so basically 10 out 10 outta 10 that could graduate from college. So everybody has a college degree. So there was something, there was something there, whether it was dads and moms, you know confidence they gave to us

the goal that we saw that dad had done.

But something was there because I don't know if there's a ton of families with a hundred percent, especially a big family, like ours with 10 kids, a hundred percent graduated college.

Pete: And I think it was just kind of maybe assumed that that's what you did. And interestingly enough, we all paid our own way too.

Tim: Yeah.

Pete: It was different back then. 

Mike Koelzer: gave me a full ride. Timmy and Tommy didn't Dad pay for all yours?

Tom Koelzer: Yeah,

Tim: In

Pete: Yeah.

Tim: us a

Pete: And it,

you got

yeah,

Tim: He

money too.

Pete: When it was a different day and it wasn't as expensive and financial aid was probably better, in fact, I remember like dad, when I was moving back to Grand Rapids and left IBM and I'd called dad to say what do you think I should do? And he'd never tell you.

And, I was kinda looking for him to say I would do this or I would do that. And I was kinda like, gimme a hint, Dad was a smart guy, right? At least analyzing stuff and he wouldn't do it, he would kind of make you, and I don't even know so much of his by design, but he'd kind of make you think through it. I don't think he wanted to direct you. In any certain way, 

Tom Koelzer: yeah. I agree and I think, You wonder if you had more direction. And I wonder about that with my kids. How much is too much and how much is not enough? And I don't know if there's any right answer. But going back to the college thing, the 10 out of 10, it was kind of an expectation. There was never any question that you weren't going to go to college

 And you knew you were gonna pay for it yourself. All of us, I think, started working. I know Timmy and I, we used to deliver handbills to all the little houses around the cave pharmacy. And I think we got a penny, a handbill. We started probably at, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old. Delivered the handbills. We graduated the

Graduated

Free

Mike Koelzer: Detroit Free Press

Tom Koelzer: problem with probably that was

you'd have to have the

that

every day by seven.

 And the worst part was you'd have to collect. So every month you'd

every

 and your take home, pay for the

pay for the money.

getting up

Getting up at six 30.

o'clock, delivering, the newspaper every,

Every, every day was 30 a 

and then

then that's when you kind of work, Starting at 14. You put a lot of hours in there. We all had part-time jobs and, a lot of us went to Grand Rapids Junior College, basically. 'cause it was a financial thing to do. You didn't have the money to go to a four year school.You stayed in Grand Rapids and you worked at the drugstore. It worked out for everybody.

Mike Koelzer: Peter. Didn't they get that free press from You? 

Pete: Weren't, wasn't

Yeah, yeah,

I,

Mike Koelzer: gave it up relatively early if they remember having it. 'cause you're

than they

Pete: I had it for two and a half years, and you guys probably had it for like a year or so 

Tim: well we had the

had the Grand Rapids press. Tom and I did for, there was a period, maybe six months 

Pete: yeah,

where we were overlapping both morning and afternoon. So I had to have the paper delivered before 7:00 AM and so I'd bought it like six 15 and you probably only had 30 customers, but they were spread out over a, if you ride your bike on it, you probably went over a mile or more to do that. And I had it for over two and a half years.

And there were only two or three. I know it's no more than three times where dad ever got up to drive me or help me. So that's like rainstorms, zero degrees. Some other parents, they would like, take their kid, it's like they had the paper route, they drove him all the time. The dad would drive the kid around with his papers and I never had that.

I look back now and I think for how little I got, of course, in today's day and age, I wouldn't have let my 11-year-old kid hop on a bike at six 15 in the morning and deliver newspapers. you wouldn't do it.

 That's why I still think Hey, look, I've worked hard and earned for what I've got. so you feel nobody really handed you anything. You feel good about that. 

Tim: What are those life lessons? 

made eight.

but man, it taught you , work hard, 

Mike Koelzer: I never had a route. So there you go.

Tim: I guess you can,

Pete: So he,

Tom Koelzer: All

Pete: So he does podcasts and talks for a living.

Mike Koelzer: Sit on my ass.

Tom Koelzer: All.

Mike Koelzer: You know, one thing my kids don't do with me that I love doing with dad is these long talks. In fact, I even start the show by saying, this show's kind of a memory of long talks with my dad. 

My kids just don't do it. Maybe it's the internet. Maybe they don't respect my opinion for that. I don't know. And maybe you guys didn't have those long talks with dad. What do you think the difference is there?

Tom Koelzer: I think Mike, that you had the long talks with dad. 

Mike Koelzer: Mm-hmm.

Tom Koelzer: You were the last son. A lot of the kids were already out, out of the house.

of long talks

Hmm. I remember him around a lot. I mean, he was at every single sporting event, 

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Tom Koelzer: meet, every football game, a lot of the baseball games.

an umpire. He was a coach. He was around a lot. But I never really had any deep conversations with him.

Mike Koelzer: Hmm.

Tom Koelzer: While I love and respect both mom and dad, have that daily conversation or that phone call. I mean, you see some parents,

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. 

Tom Koelzer: they'll have the, the daily phone call or the

 I do think the one thing that kind of brought us all together when dad got sick the last couple years of his life, he made it a special, Goal to bring people together, whether that was in

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Tom Koelzer: or to go camping or whatever. And because of that, I don't know that I would ever be as close to all of you, and sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews,

Because of that time period, because

three year period where,

 go into Grand Rapids. And that has continued for the last 25 to

five to 30 years.

my kids now know their cousins better than, certainly than we knew our cousins.

And we got along great with all of our cousins. But you didn't, you didn't know 'em like my kids know your kids.

Mike Koelzer: Pete and Timmy, was our topic on, we were talking about, I guess Oh, the long talks. 

Pete: I didn't have, I mean, first of all, dad could talk, if you got him going right, he could talk.

 I remember you, when the four of us shared the same bedroom. And I remember dad would come down and he'd lay with you on your bed and you guys would talk, you'd call it, let's have our talk.

And you guys would talk about stuff. It's funny listening back to him because I mean, you were, we were probably like 15 or 16 and you're, eight or nine, which is a big difference. But if I would be up an empire and walk with him on the beach somewhere and you'd get him going, he's easy to talk to he talked for hours, but when I was in college, I. I came home quite a bit from Michigan State, to work on the weekends or whatever, but I think I talked to dad on the phone once or twice,

you just didn't do that. You didn't call long distance, Maybe occasionally you'd get a letter. 

And I think the technology, like even with our, like our, our nieces and nephews, how, like Tommy said, I think, yeah, when we got together as a family, when they were younger, like the waterfront that really solidified and then the camping trips.

now, because they can easily text there's a whole subculture that we don't even know about

cause they'll be saying, oh yeah.

And our, my text with Kate and Megan, we were, we were laughing about how Uncle Mike does this, right? So we're being made fun of by our nieces and nephews more than we know. 

Mike Koelzer: Timmy, what are your thoughts on dad's talk,

Tim: I didn't have a lot of, you know, talks with that. I mean, you had a question, you could ask him a que, it was almost like a wind up. You know, you'd wind up the question and dad would talk for an hour, literally an hour with one question. You gotta be careful with your questions, you know, driving up to

But you know, dad was always there. He had a lot of, you know, a lot of perspective, a lot of, good thoughts. I mean, dad was to think he was rarely wrong. You know, you,

1. You'd ask him something, and he was kind of always right, but he almost always was right.

but it's different now. You know, my kids, I have an ongoing, Like Tommy said, I have an ongoing chess game with my son. You know, we play daily, we connect that we don't talk so much, but there's that connection that kind of transcends time and space and, just the way it is now.

Mike Koelzer: You know, that's fascinating to me because I just figured that's what dad did. I mean, I remember, and part of it was, you know, as, as he was getting older and I was the last of the kids, he kind of like, we talked about how he would come out to the driveway. Well, in my case, I was like the last kid. So I got a lot of that conversation probably I remember, you know, hundreds of talks it seems. But it does make me feel better that I don't have 'em with my kids. I thought you guys were gonna say, yeah, we all talk to our kids for hours and stuff, so I, I guess I feel better now, so

Tim: Part of that. 

Mike Koelzer: I'm okay.

Tim: part of that was a function of, you know, 12 kids an hour, a kid. That's, that's a long

Mike Koelzer: Right.

Tim: You were home, you worked with dad day in, day out,

Mike Koelzer: I was at the pharmacy, so that's, we had a lot of pharmacy talks too.

Pete: Yeah.

Tim: a lot of time. 

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Tim: You, it was rare to go out to dinner.

I think I went out to dinner with mom and dad maybe once, maybe with a few

Mike Koelzer: yeah,

Tim: But you 

the family. We didn't have a lot of one-on-one. I don't know. Tommy, if you

Can you remember how many dinners we had with mom and dad? Part of that was the expense you do every time you go to dinner with

that's multiplied by 10 or 12. do much of that. 

Tom Koelzer: there was not a lot of one-on-one, and I think it's because you didn't have the time

 had too many people. And it probably wasn't until, the majority of the family had moved on where there was less time working, less time coaching, and more time to, to talk to, kids. 

Mike Koelzer: he maybe figured you needed more coaching and guidance than we did too. When you guys think about, traits of dad and spending time on this because he's the unifying leader that we all had through our years in the business area. What good and bad traits have you picked up from dad that you recognize?

Tim: two, kind of speak to me. One is personal responsibility and that goes back from the days of the paper route. You know, you're taking money as a 10-year-old kid waking up in the morning, but it's on you, which I think is a net positive. there's no. overly guidance over direction. So personal responsibility is number one. Number two would probably be, sense of fairness. It's interesting you kind of, those two concepts together. Personal responsibility with fairness. 'cause you know, we have Jenny, our youngest sister who has, intellectual disability. and so you're, you're compassionate. you do it on your own, but you

Do it on your own.

do it on their own. So that combination of personal responsibility with, with a sense of, fairness. 

And dad was always very fair, and you're also looking out for other people, and there's a sense of fairness to always do the right thing, but you're kind of the one that's responsible. So that kind of two life lessons I took away from dad 

Mike Koelzer: What about negative? Is there anything in yourself that you think you're maybe could do a little better on that you've thought, ah, that probably came from dad?

Tim: yeah. You know, dad was right a lot dad had an

a lot of things, so I try to soften that.

Mike Koelzer: I think, grandpa Kelzer, none of us knew him. I think he was quite, opinionated and maybe even back then, what's the term, a male chauvinist or, you know, back

Pete: Yeah,

Mike Koelzer: women had their place and things like that.

Pete: yeah,

Mike Koelzer: that there was a stepping down from that to dad and then hopefully dad to us.

Pete: our mom would say that our grandpa who died before any of us were born,

 you could just tell she didn't like that quality in him.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

So,

about

Pete: So for me,I think one thing I share is a sense of humor. I think dad had a sharp sense of humor could see the irony in things or the funny things you know, you could get him laughing, of course he'd laugh and we're always pretty, he's gonna die 'cause he'd start coughing, for me, the sense of humor and getting the sense of humor is something that, I think I share with dad. And then I think he's kind of a sharp business mind, I mean, I'm better than most people at numbers and doing numbers in my head. I was probably a little bit closer to dad on the football stuff early. I used to go help him all the time, coach the teams. And I was into that sport, maybe a little bit more following it. And like Timmy said, critical thinking, I guess is how I put it. And I think we're all pretty good critical thinkers. If you have a little too much critical thinking, that's maybe a little, your greatest strengths, your greatest weakness, right? So a little bit too critical thinking. In that family, it was dad and our Aunt Judy, very like caustic sense of humor.

 Now. I appreciate it because you're like, yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.

Mike Koelzer: Right.

Pete: It could be a very sharp edge. And, Joan always would say to me, said, yeah, your family picks on each other all the time. . And I think we do.

You kind of can easily get picked on and we're used to it. We take it, but some people aren't used to that. So I think, like Timmy said, critical thinking or having it figured out and being, maybe a little bit too, critical with that sense of humor, whatever.

I think, it's along the lines of, greatest strength, greatest weakness, too much of a good thing. But I do think dad was, he was very much a risk taker, probably more than I am as far as how he used to play. I mean, like play blackjack and play poker,

Now, he wasn't afraid to gamble.

when he was in college, he used to talk about, he bought the pop machine in the, in the dorm that he owned, but he'd put beers in there

Which is illegal. But he would, he'd stock it with beer instead of pop and then sell it.

He'd do his gambling thing where he'd keep track , a little bit more of a risk taker than I'm, and you guys might be Tim and Tom, you might be more that way, I don't know, but.

But just interesting how he would do some of that stuff.

Tom Koelzer: Yeah.

I would kind of pair up my identical twin brother and personal responsibility. I think that, pretty much above everything else, quite a bit above everything else was personal responsibility. It's you. and I've always thought that about my life and, I attribute that a lot to dad.

Dad had a lot of responsibility and he had a lot going on in his life, and occasionally you'd see that eye twitch and there was a little bit of

I think everyone can have a temper. , have to control that. I have found with my own kids, not many times, but I would say in their age 10 through age 20, a couple times you just lose your temper. Nothing physical, nothing, life changing. A couple times I caught myself, having that just a little too quick, and just took a step back and breathed a little bit more.

Mike Koelzer: I usually think that temper too is usually you got something else on your mind. A lot of times you're pissed at something at work or,

Tom Koelzer: think that's,

I think, dad had a lot of responsibility

Mike Koelzer: Right.

Tom Koelzer: and it could be, something completely different,from work, you bring that home from wherever and,

Tom Koelzer: and that was a, that was an area that,

 You joke about it.

 Um, 

Tim: Yeah.

Tom Koelzer: wasn't funny at the time.

Pete: One thing about dad though, I mean, mom had a shorter fuse, right? She wore it on her sleeve, and I'm probably a little bit more like mom and that I'll get i'll, I'll get angry quick, but then I'm done. Dad would bottle up and then every once in a while I'd have his yellow legal pad.

And there's listed like. Here's 15 things that gotta be done and you like had enough and you used to hate to see that yellow legal pad of, you gotta do this and do this and do that. So everybody has a different way and I think it's like with our kids, I see things in my kids that I say, oh wow, that's great.

They get that from me. And then you see things, you think, oh man, I wish they didn't get that from me.

Tim: We talked earlier about dad's eye twitch. He was angry when that happened. You knew something might be coming and you know, you, it was a little, little fearful of that, you know, to see the twitch. 'cause you knew there was something on the other side of that.

and now I asked my kids, "Are you ever afraid of me? They started laughing like, are you kidding me? Afraid of you? 

I'm like, So we alluded to mom, our dear mother who's passed on, a mother of 12 children. we think about her relation, let's start with her relation with the drugstore, with how she felt about things and then expand from there. , If I think mom, had her set of things with her 12 children. and choir director and things like that.

Mike Koelzer: She never. foot in the pharmacy. Figuratively. I mean, she wasn't involved at all with that.

Pete: Yeah, I would agree with that. I don't think mom had anything to do with the pharmacy and had no interest in it. She had her music in choir and all that, from a business standpoint, I mean, a lot of times you'd have a spouse who might be involved quite a bit or do the books or that. I don't think mom did anything with the store.

Tim: Dad also had grandma, so grandma would do the books, 

Pete: Yeah.

Tim: sitting at the kitchen table and you know, grandma would be there or dad would be there. So they shared that more with grandma and dad than mom and dad.

Pete: That's true. 

Tom Koelzer: I think they had a good marriage. I think they were both very busy people and they were both focused on the family, number one. And then, number two and number three was I. Store for dad and coaching in with the family and then mom was her extended sisters, and then her music as being the choir director so I think did as well as any parents can. and I think they did a great job.

Pete: You're right. I think mom, she was too busy with the family when you got 12 kids and all that kinda stuff, and the challenges with Jenny and all that. When you think about it, she'd run the family home life, she did a lot, and dad would do his stuff, so it was kinda like divide and conquer on a few of those things, you know?

Mike Koelzer: You hear us throwing out the number 12 and 11. We had a little brother, an infant brother, that passed away at a couple months old. So that's where the discrepancy of the numbers comes in. 

As you guys think about dad's later years, not thinking about his sickness, but just his later years. How does that affect you in terms of retirement, your retirement age, your thoughts, what you want to do, what you and your spouse want to do? What thoughts do you have 

Tom Koelzer: I was surprised when dad, before he got sick, actually kind of started stepping back a little bit from the drugstore. I thought that he was so into those relationships at the store and that he loved being there. And Mike, you would know better than I would if that was the case or wasn't the case, but it always seemed to me like he would work until the day he died, just because that's what he wanted to do. 

so.

somewhat of a surprise for me. The other thing I learned from, from dad and from mom, is how important it is to. Establish roots, these families that, uproot themselves and buy a house somewhere, I just would never do that because it's so important with the friends and family that I have already at age 62 or three it's more important to be with these people that I like and know as opposed to living somewhere warm for three or four months

Mike Koelzer: I got you in retirement. Packing up and going for a few months. Right. 

Tim: Yeah, Mike, 

How you view it. 'cause you were there with dad. So many entrepreneurs have trouble stepping back. Maybe that's part of

about and seemed from the outside that dad was at least cognizant of that. 

 I know entrepreneurs from one generation to the next. You probably have talked about this from my perspective. My own personal plan is because we do consulting projects for firms to take fewer larger projects and spend less time in the business and really working with the clients in the projects that we like.

 I have no intention of retiring at a certain age at any point in time. I'm just gonna have more flexibility over time is kind of the ideal I think. My business is set up for that as well.

Pete: Yeah, a lot of it depends on where you're set up in business. For me I've been in a position where. I'm not working to make money anymore, even though I'm not working for free. I'll take it, but that's not the driving force. when I had my hip replaced and I was, then I had this infection.

I'm in the hospital for five nights. I kind of changed, it was just, it was like, I'll invest in things, but I'm not gonna waste time on things that aren't important to me. It's easy to be deferred gratification and always work one more year. I'll do one more thing, but I agree with Timmy, and maybe Tommy feels the same way. I don't plan to ever retire. I may change what I do, I might not wanna work this place anymore or that place, and work more for myself or things that are rewarding the reason why you work is different, 

And then the other thing is, you know, this could all change we're all one doctor's appointment for us or our spouses away from changing the plan completely.

Mike Koelzer: With me personally, I look at the store and golly, five years I've been responsible. for every minute that place is open, I'm responsible for it.

So one thing dad instilled in us, and thankfully the pharmacy did pretty well early on, is I'm pretty good with retirement. I'm 58 now. youngest, I've got 10 kids, as you guys know, but 10 kids. The youngest is 14. I've got a couple at home. So I really want to get outta there about as soon as I can.

I still blow through a lot of money with our home here in Grand Rapids, but eventually I want to move to the cottage 30 miles north. But I can't really do that while Drew and Abby are still in school. Once I do that, my costs drop, but I kind of want to get out as soon as I can.

I don't dislike it but I don't like that schedule. I don't like being responsible for that all the time.

Tom Koelzer: Yeah, I get that. Mike. Mike, I have a question. So, Obviously you've been at the pharmacy for 40 years and you have seen a lot of changes, over probably the last 15 years more than the,

25 years, how has it changed? How has it affected you and your family life and just your outlook?

Mike Koelzer: Well, the biggest thing is with these pharmacy benefit managers, they're about 95% of our business and you're kind of their employee. . It's almost like they're your boss and you do what they say and if you don't, and you drop one, you lose 30% of your business basically overnight.

So that's part of it is that my business drive and ideas and things like that is kind of just like, well that's part of the fun of the podcast here. You know? 'cause it's like new and, and doing something with my own ideas. But the store, you can only do so much when you've got that domination by those three players.

And there's a lot of listeners that are doing some cool stuff with, cash based and all this stuff, but kind of being an old fart, I'm just kind of riding the wave out.

Tom Koelzer: And there are very few independent pharmacies that are around or I don't know

are, but I would think over the last 10 or 15 years that has dropped significantly. how was K pharmacy, how are you able to survive, during that time

where most people didn't, 

Mike Koelzer: Right now at the pharmacy we did a few things. One of the biggest ones was we stopped selling brand name drugs. And so we were losing probably a quarter million dollars a year before I stopped, a few years ago. So that's one of the things that saved us is we're just doing generic medicines.

That's what really has kept us afloat, right now I make more money than a pharmacist would at any retail establishment.

So I'm doing better than any pharmacist would, and that's probably it. I've kind of bought myself a nice job. We're open nine to five now, Monday through Friday. I don't really see our future. If I sell, it's gonna go to, let's say three or four pharmacists from Kalamazoo or somewhere that are, young bucks that are trying to do this or that. I'll either sell and do that or just disband the business, sell the records to a chain and, then I've got the building to do something with that. As far as our survival, that's how we've survived by not selling brand names.

Tom Koelzer: Most other family pharmacies that are still around, did they take a similar path or they're just not around anymore?

Mike Koelzer: a lot of 'em aren't around. A lot of 'em break contracts 'cause a PBM says you have to do 90 day supplies, but you lose like 10, 15% on those. So you know a medicine that's a thousand dollars, you're gonna lose 150 bucks. A lot of them go down to a 30 day supply which has better reimbursement. . They try to convince the customer to do that.

There's some games that pharmacies have played, And Michigan's brutal. I don't think the listeners understand how brutal Michigan is , but if you played by the rules in Michigan and didn't do what we did or break the contracts, there's a good chance of being out of business.

Mike Koelzer: Part of the reason I've done the podcast is to stay in the game. I'm 300 shows deep talk to distinguished people like yourselves, and so that's been cool to stay in the game that way. 

And then I've got other things with my hobbies, piano playing and different things like that. We have a customer that came in. He says he's retired now. I said, what do you do now? He said, I took up gardening. I said, well, that's. Pretty cool. He said, yeah, I wake up every day and plant my ass in a lazy boy.

So I want, you know, I wanna do something

Pete: Well, Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: But with that said, if I got out of the store, there's no shortage of people wanting someone to come in for 10 hours, 20 hours a week to work as a pharmacist somewhere. If I wanted to stay in, I could do that. 

I look at mom and dad both punching out basically at 70. Mom lost her memory and so on and lived till 80.

Pete: Right.

Mike Koelzer: It's like, if I'm done at 60, that's only 10 years that you got to do stuff.

Pete: Well, That's true. I mean, we're starting to get that a lot of our relatives, cousins who are older than us, you start to see a few things, and you think, wait a minute, and 70 starts to get pretty close. There was a guy at the Y who had a shirt that said, someday never comes.

I saw him and I said, I like your shirt. 'cause someday I'm gonna do that. Someday never gets there. And I've had times when I, left IBM and started something new, I had a little bit of time off and I said if I have time, I'll play piano, more guitar, or I'll read more, and I didn't do any of that,

So sometimes, if you want to do it, start on it. 

Mike Koelzer: If I could dabble in something, I probably would. But like we talked about with data, the store's not really something you dabble in. Even if I went down in

Pete: right.

Mike Koelzer: 20 hours a week, you still have that weight behind that

 If I look at my salary, that salary plus. Thanks honey. Say how to their brother's son. My 

Tim: Margaret,

Tom Koelzer: Hey

Pete: Oh, Margaret,

Tim: take,

Mike Koelzer: Wanna pull up a chair, hun?

Pete: oh.

Mike Koelzer: No, I got nothing to say

Tom Koelzer: Yeah. Neither do we neither

Mike Koelzer: So if I look at my salary, that would be what I pay a pharmacist, as I say, I do better than a pharmacist does, not a ton better.

if I gave my salary away, I'd have half a salary and then with some profit. But, it starts getting tight. that might be the game, that might be that another couple years that I'm down to 30 hours instead of 40 and just doing that because I still need that three-fourths of the income and so on. 

Pete: I think the thing is, I mean, the stuff that we do, the three of us, and even Mike too, being able to run a business and a lot of different facets and all that is a rare skill. But what it isn't is Mike can do this, but you can't say, all right, I'm gonna stop doing this, but I'll go work for 75 bucks an hour as a pharmacist,

Mike Koelzer: Mm-hmm.

Pete: I'll do, I'll come in as an attorney and charge you 200 bucks an hour.

You don't have an hourly fee where you can just take your skillset and say, oh, you want somebody to work next Tuesday? I'll come in and work at a hundred bucks an hour per day. 

That's a nice thing to have in retirement where you just do that as opposed to now you can do the same thing if you've just consulted with somebody a little bit here and there, but it's, but it's, it's harder to define it, I think.

Mike Koelzer: Alright, so we talked about Tommy being a dentist. Do you guys know what I would do if it wasn't a pharmacy? I'm sure you don't know.

Tim: A comedian,

Mike Koelzer: No, no,

Tim: a chameleon.

Mike Koelzer: no, I'd be a mechanical engineer. I'd do stuff like on those shows, like how it's made, Brian sort of does that.

I would, you know, a line on how to help make, you know, ice cream sandwiches and just those machines that would be kind of fascinating to me.

Tim: I could see you doing that because you think that way. It provides a technical level of expertise. I could never handle the chemistry to be a pharmacist or the mechanic, the physics to be a mechanical engineer, but your mind

there. So I think I could see you in that capacity.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. Well, thank you. Alright, you guys, we talked about dad not giving for better or for worse. A lot of advice when we were in our high school years. Somebody said, I want advice right now from Tommy or Peter or Timmy and someone said, Hey, give me some advice. I'm a senior in high school 

Tom Koelzer: I will answer that 'cause I basically gave the exact same advice to both my kids recently. And it's more about life choices. We have all been fortunate that we picked the right spouse. I think that the number one decision we all have as people is who do you marry? Because that person that you marry is more important than anything as it relates to how the rest of your life looks. So it doesn't really have anything to do with business. It's really more about not rushing into something, and making sure it's the right person, because that is more important than any other decision that you'll make.

Mike Koelzer: Seems like Julie didn't know that advice, so No, I was kidding.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. What Julie says about that.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Tim: Yeah, exactly.

Mike Koelzer: I'm glad that wasn't her goal, Timmy or Peter.

Tim: Just, a couple of thoughts. Number one is work really hard when you're young. has a tendency to open doors later. So, you know, if you can go on and get an advanced degree or just be the guy that's there out hustling everybody. And because it doesn't last forever, it sets you up for success later on. And also, it's not really about find so many people say, if you kind of find your passion, but I think it's more, find something that you're really good at that people 

want from you and then your passion will kind of develop from that you can veer

Where you're heading like slightly and find a lot more

one area versus the other.

So that would be my couple of thoughts .

Pete: I think your spouse is a big one. I would think, it's like understanding what your purpose is and then make that be your priority. What's most important to you when you look back and it's different for everybody. What's your purpose or your passion? And then, stick to that.

Those sound a little bit motherhood and apple pie maybe. But, I would agree with that. if you're got the right spouse and you have balance in your family life, the rest of it will kind of take care of itself,

And you gotta know what successes to you because someone else, you think, oh, they're successful, but, everybody has a different version of what success is

What would you say, Mike?

Mike Koelzer: Mine, I don't know, I just asked the questions around here. Let's see. What would my advice be? It would be, set goals, set daily goals, and compare those goals to yourself instead of anybody else. Try to improve each day, like that.

 Don't compare yourself to anybody else. Compare yourself to yourself day to day and try to improve every day. Something along those lines.

Pete: Yeah, that's good.

Mike Koelzer: Well, golly. Pete, Tim, Tom, thanks for joining us today. Next time we're gonna do this, we'll be around the campfire in July, Mike. Really enjoyed it.

Tom Koelzer: was great. Mike, this

Pete: Yeah. Thanks Mike. Really enjoyed it.

Mike Koelzer: All right. Great job guys. Talk to you soon.