DMV’s Inspections: Now Private
Corrections or additions?
This article was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on September 30, 1998. All rights reserved.
H.M. Royal and Family Business Awards
How can a family business endure through three
generations?
With a cooperating attitude between six family members and the
employees,
says H.L. Boyer Royal. He is the president of H.M. Royal Inc., a raw
materials distribution business founded by his father in Trenton in
1925.
His firm is one of the semifinalists for New Jersey Family Business
of the Year awards, sponsored by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s
Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies. An award ceremony
involves
a luncheon at the Doubletree Hotel in Somerset on Tuesday, October
6. Marcy Syms, CEO of Syms Corp., will deliver the keynote address.
Call 973-443-8880 for more information.
Royal says he knew he would go into the business when he was seven
years old and wrote a school paper on the subject. He went to Lehigh,
Class of ’61, as a chemical engineer, and after a stint in the Army,
he earned an MBA from Wharton and then came to Trenton to work for
his father. The business now has 40 employees in Trenton and about
25 in California. His facility on Pennington Avenue is a 100,000
square
feet warehouse with an office.
His advice to family businesses:
Limit control of the business to members of the originalfamily and their offspring. Involving spouses only adds unnecessarycomplications.Royal says the succession problem has not been difficult, so far,because he has two older brothers, born five years apart. His oldestbrother has retired, and the second-oldest brother is CEO. His sonis in the business, and three nephews are also active in the firm.”Four of the five boys chose to come in,” says Royal, andthough none of the girls made that choice he insists they were notdiscouraged from doing this. He is sure that a Royal family memberwill hold the top post here for some years to come.Plan ahead and watch out for Uncle Sam. “Too manyof the people we have known have had to sell. “Uncle Sam triedto put us out of business,” he says. “We had a plan in place formy father’s stock in 1982.” In 1992, when his father died, theIRS tried to get out of that agreement. “We had a signed offdocument,and we went to appeals court on an inheritance tax closeout, and wewon,” says Royal. Phil Griffin of Fox Rothschild et al was hisattorney.Be ready to change. “We have had to convert adistributionbusiness local to Trenton and Los Angeles into a nationwide sellinggroup. That we have done, so we have nationwide coverage.”The business has changed from supplying raw materialsto the rubber industry to being a supplier of materials for anycompounds,including pharmaceutical. “We sell to the guys who mix stufftogether,”says Royal. “Of our top 30 customers in the mid ’60s, none ofthem exist now. We chase the rubber guys nationwide, but locally wehave had to scrap around and gotten into the pharmaceutical business.We have changed the industry.”Some things do stay the same. The founder’s office had been kept asis and, in fact, was used in filming “IQ” as department storemagnate Louis Bamberger’s office. “There is a lot of traditionto the business,” says Royal. “It is good honest work, andeverybody seems to enjoy it. We are all kind of inbred with the salesability. We all sell.”– Barbara FoxTop Of PageDMV’s Inspections: Now PrivateLast week 482 state inspection lane workerssimultaneouslyreceived pink slips and the invitation to apply for other jobs. Thatwas part of the contract for the new enhanced emissions testingprogramawarded to a private operator in August. Parsons Infrastructure &Technology Inc., of Sacramento, California, will be handling allaspectsof the project — design, construction, operation, and maintenance,but state law requires the firm to offer new jobs to all currentfull-timersin the inspection lanes.In anticipation of its hiring frenzy, Parsons has opened up arecruitmentoffice at 3100 Princeton Pike. “This recruitment campaign is inthe event that not everybody wishes to join Parsons, so that there’sno diminution of services,” says Carl Golden of DKB & Partners,the Morristown-based firm in charge of media relations for Parsons.The numbers indicated that there may be an excess of job vacancies.According to a press release issued by the New Jersey Department ofTransportation, three-fourths of the 482 full-time workers in thestate’s vehicle inspection system are eligible to apply for 224positionsin other DMV-related areas. Parsons will be offering at least 482jobs for the time being. Some might get filled by the more than 150″interim” employees now working the inspection lanes (whoreceived no job guaranty), but there will be hundreds more openingswhen the program is fully operational in December, 1999. By then,Parsons will need a total of 726 employees.The Parsons deal came with a moderate amount of controversy. Whenthe state put out its request for proposal, Golden explains, ahalf-dozencompanies expressed interest in bidding. However, all of the othercompanies dropped out of the bidding process for a variety of reasons,and in June the contract was awarded to Parsons, for $62 million overseven years. “Because there was one bid there was some criticismthat state should have gone out and rebid the thing to get more,”says Golden. “The problem was, the state was under the gun fromthe federal government to comply with the federal Clean Air Act.”However, Golden points out, the Parsons’ bid met all of the state’sspecifications. “There was literally no basis for rejecting thebid,” he says. In a June press release, the DOT noted that thebid submitted by Parsons would save roughly $2.07 per car inspected.Parsons quoted a price of $24.25 per enhanced inspection; the statetreasury estimated that the same inspection would cost $26.32 if doneby public employees.Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Inc., 3100Princeton Pike, Building 3, Suite E, Lawrenceville 08648 LarrySherwood,general manager. 609-620-0702; fax, 609-620-0100.Top Of PageRoute 92 BluesRoute 92 has been no more than a conversation piecefor the last six decades and now, after the federal governmentmeditatedon it again, it appears as if good ol’ 92 will continue to be justa concept.The proposal for the 6.6-mile connector from Exit 8A of the Turnpiketo Route 1 near Ridge Road has received another negativerecommendationfrom the federal Environmental Protection Agency. After requestinga traffic analysis from the Turnpike Authority, the road’s sponsor,the EPA ruled that Route 92 would alleviate only part of the east-westtraffic problem in central New Jersey. In January, 1997, the EPAscuttledan earlier 92 proposal because of wetlands concerns. The New JerseyTurnpike Authority then rerouted and elevated parts of the proposedhighway.The Department of Environmental Protection now has 30 days to acceptor decline the federal recommendation. If it chooses to decline, theproposal will be handed off to the Army Corps of Engineers for furtheranalysis.Plainsboro mayor and Route 92 supporter Peter Cantu said he hopesthe DEP will provide “a more balanced assessment” of 92’straffic impact. Marvin Reed and Phyllis Marchand, mayors of PrincetonBorough and Township respectively, are adding this request: If Route92 is scrapped, then so should be the proposed Millstone Bypass overRoute 1. In a letter to the state transportation commissioner, theywrote, “Without adequate east-west connectors, the economy ofthis part of the state will soon be in free fall.”Top Of PageNew in TownReal Soft Inc., 4262 Route 1 North, Suite 5,MonmouthJunction 08852. Rajan Desai, president. 732-438-6600; fax,732-438-6969.Home page: https://www.realsoftinc.com.The software consulting firm moved from Menlo Park to 3,000 squarefeet on Route 1. The headquarters has 12 employees and roughly 120consultants on billing, says Rajan Desai, the president.The firm specializes in Unix, NT consulting, Internet and intranetsoftware solutions and sends its employees to work with largefinancial,telecommunications, insurance, and pharmaceutical firms.”We hire our own employees and contract them out to thesecompanies,”says Desai. “We also take on the many of the software projectsdirectly and we end up finishing them up at our location.”Desai, 38, has a masters in computer science, from Texas TechUniversityand a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from M.S. University ofBarodain India (Class of ’82). He started the business in 1991 after stintswith AT&T, Lehman Brothers, and Paine Webber. “I saw the needthat there were major corporations that wanted to contractworkers.”Real Soft moved down the road from a direct competitor, Web Sci, at4214 Route 1 North, but has signed a three-year lease and expectsto grow out of its space in that time frame. “We’re growing at50 percent a year,” says Desai.Top Of PageDeathsGeorge Osborne Gale, 67, on September 19. He was amicrobiologistat American Cyanamid.John E. Douglas, 52, on September 21. He had been acomputerprogrammer for Demag DeLaval.William G. Thomas, 76, on September 21. He had been vicepresident of Hill Refrigeration in Trenton.Margen R. Penick, 65, on September 24. Active in planningand preservation issues, she was co-vice chairwoman of the PrincetonREgional Planning Board.Peter Brock Putnam, 78, on September 23. Blinded by aself-inflicted gunshot wound when he was a student at Princeton, hewas an author, lecturer, fundraiser, and president of the PrincetonMemorial Society. He was active with the Recording for the Blind andDyslexic. A memorial service will be Sunday, October 4, at 4 p.m.at the Unitarian Church on Cherry Valley Road.Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
