Levy, Joe, 1989 Leon S. Peters Distinguished Service Award recipient
Item
Title
Levy, Joe, 1989 Leon S. Peters Distinguished Service Award recipient
Description
Talks about his friendship with Leon S. Peters and how Peters inspired him to give back to the community, he talks about his family business, Gottshalks. He talks about his wife and her political career, his thoughts on Fresno and his time on the State Highway Commission.
Creator
Levy, Joe
Mehas, Dr. Peter G.
Relation
Leon S. Peters Legacy Collection
Coverage
Fresno, California
Date
2000
Format
Microsoft word 2003 document, 6 pages
Identifier
SCMS_lspl_00013
extracted text
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: A contributor to the community is known throughout the state,
and so we are very, very privileged, "we" being the Valley Business Conference
Committee to have you come in today and just share some thoughts about what did it
mean to be the recipient of the Leon S. Peters Award since you knew Lee so very,
very well?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it meant, Pete, very much to me, you know. It goes back many
years. I was born in Fresno, so go back more than 60 years ago. And Leon Peters was
always somebody who we looked up to. He was a person that not only had a very
successful business, but was just very giving in everything he did for the
community. And over the years, we used to sit down and talk, we -- he'd come over to
my office, and we'd have lunch, and he was very encouraging. He tried to encourage
another generation of people coming along to follow in his footsteps and take part
in building Fresno and Central Valley, and I have very fond memories of that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: When we talk of Leon Peters, everybody, of course, knows he
was a successful businessman, but what made him so unique was what he gave,
continually gave back to the community. A la what Joe Levy and Sharon Levy and
Gottschalks has done for the community. When did you first meet Leon or Lee, as
people call him, and when did you recognize in terms of that trait of community
commitment?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it was probably in the middle '50s and early '60s where he would
come over and say, "Joe, I want you to take part in this fundraiser or take part in
-- get on this board," and he eventually got me on the Community Hospital board. I
spent better than 16 years on that board itself helping to build a community
hospital. After what Leon had did, did so tremendously. I mean, if you ever went to
give credit for a tremendous organization that he built for, you know, a total of
nonprofit to help the community, it was certainly the community hospitals.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, let's talk for a just a little bit about Gottschalks
because, obviously Gottschalks is known throughout California, and for that matter,
throughout the United States. And, of course, Joe Levy and the Levy family is
Gottschalks. Of course, recently, there's been some changes. Share with us in future
generations how did Gottschalks get started, how did it develop into such an
incredibly successful organization?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it goes back not -- more than 95 years now, it goes back when Emil
Gottschalk came to Fresno because he was hired by my family three generations ago to
come run Kutner Goldstein and they were the Kutners and they hired Emil from
Weinstock Lubin, a famous name in the retailing out of Sacramento to. And Emil came
down here in the 1890s and went to work for Kutner Goldstein and worked for them for
a better of part 10, 12 years. In that time, he married the boss's daughter, my
grandmother's sister. And in turn, at the end of about 10 more years or so, family
do have disagreements, and Emil said to them that he wanted either to own the store,
or he was going to open his own, and so they let him open his own. And at that point
in 1904, he took, oh, I think about 20 employees and himself and my grandfather and
my great uncle Henry Korn, and they opened Gottschalks on the corner of Tulare -- in
those days, it wasn't Tulare, Tulare and Fulton Street. And I guess it wasn't the
old Patterson Building as we knew it, it was the building before the Patterson
Building. And he rented the basement, the first floor and the mezzanine to open
Gottschalks. At that point, he was -- he tried to bring fashion to what we call, you
know, the central part of the valley here. He traveled to Europe and bring back
piece goods. It was more a dry goods operation that he ran. There were dressmakers
and suitmakers in those days. Everybody had their clothes made. It wasn't -- they
weren't readymade. And he was very successful. He was the leading fashion store of
the whole valley here. And people came from the long area to shop with him, and 10
years later, he built what was then a spectacular store at Kern and Fulton, which
was 100,000-foot 3-story building that we lived in for many years, in fact, until I
got here in Fresno in '56 I started working there. So it's an interesting time. I
can go from there ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Yeah, when did you get sort of formally involved in the
business?
>>Joe Levy: Well, my father was involved in it and, of course, the other family from
Emil's side, which was Jerry Blum's family, A. Blum, and my father Irving, and it
was sort of a family business that Emil ran, even though he didn't live here in town
for the lot of the ending years right up until he passed away in '39. And, of
course, then the family took over and ran the business. And when I got -- I worked,
you know, during high school and holiday seasons and during the summer at the store.
You know, that's all I really knew was that store and retail and selling and working
there. I was very intrigued with it. After college -- I went to USC, spent a few
years in Des Moines, Iowa, working for a department store back there and then came
back to Fresno in '56. We had one store. We did about $4 million in downtown Fresno.
We had about 130 people, and that's -- you know, it was ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And the organization now is right -- what? Was how many
employees?
>>Joe Levy: It was very much like -- you know, they had -- you know, they probably
hadn't grown for 15 to 20 years there, just sort of sat dormant. And from there on,
it was -- we just pushed it and kept it moving. Today, we're 6,000 employees in 40
stores all the way from Tacoma, Washington, down to Southern California, also over
in Nevada and Oregon. So it's an exciting business today.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And what's the estimated worth of Gottschalks on the stock
market?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the capital -- our cap worth -- and that's one of the
things you can look at every day because of the value of the stock -- being listed
it on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, it was about 116 million, so I own a small
part of that, but it's still very exciting.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I don't think I'm exaggerating when I probably say one of the
most probably widely known family in the Central Valley and Joe and Sharon Levy and
all of that you have contributed to this area. Tell us a little bit about Sharon,
when you first met Sharon. I know people who know you say, "It's incredible. They're
still newlyweds after many, many, many years." The deep love that you have for each
other and the success of your family. Where did you meet Sharon and a little bit
about the Levy family without being too personal.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I don't mind being personal. You know, when you're in politics,
like my wife is, you're -- you sit under a looking glass and everything is out in
the open. But I had the chance to meet her. It was a summer romance at USC. A
fraternity brother introduced me to his cousin, and it was a blind date. She was in
high school, and I was a freshman at USC, and we met every summer from there on
during the four years I was going to USC. And that last year, we ended up eloping.
We went off to Las Vegas and we eloped, and we didn't even tell anybody about it.
[Laughter] And so we've been married now the better part of 44 years in a very
exciting, happy, romantic marriage it has been. But like all marriages, you work at
it. It isn't something that you take for granted.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And certainly with Sharon receiving the very coveted Rose Ann
Vuich Award, I do not know of anybody else as a couple, the recipient of the Leon
Peters Award, and the spouse, the recipient of the Rose Ann Vuich Award, which was
certainly a tribute to her as well.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think she's -- deserves that award far better than I ever
deserved the award of the Leon S. Peters Award. To stand in his shoes is a very,
very difficult task because they were very, very large shoes to fill.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Being in Fresno, you've seen a lot of changes, not only in
terms of the business, but in terms of the community. Any observations about the
changes, positive and negative, and where do you see the future of Fresno going?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I've seen a lot of the world, Pete, and I'm going to say as of
this very moment, I still think Fresno's the best place to live in the entire world.
We take for granted our climate -- climatic condition but we have a beautiful
climate. We have a beautiful location because where we are located is so ideal to be
able to go places and see things whether you want to go hiking in the mountains and
fishing, you want to go to the coast and sit in the fog, it's just a tremendous
place to be, and I have no desire to live anywhere else. I'll say when I -- you
know, early memories, Fresno was a very small town, probably less than 40,000
people. Everybody knew everybody. I'll say this, as the years went by, you used to
get on a plane to go somewhere, if you don't know half the people on the plane, you
were surprised. [Laughter] Sometimes you knew pilot and the stewardess also. Today,
you get on a plane out of here, even though they complain a lot about it, but
there's still a lot of planes out of here, you don't know anybody, and you say,
"Gee, the town really has grown," you know. But I've seen it grown -- grow. In an
interesting way, I think it's easy to look back and say what was wrong. I think it's
a lot better to look forward and say what's right and what can we really improve to
make better.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I think this is an accurate to sort of characterization of
future generations are going to look at the freeway system here in Fresno County,
and clearly, those of us who've been involved with government knew that not only
Measure C, but when you served on the State Highway Commission, Fresno finally began
to get its fair share of its freeways. And I know of your involvement, and I know
that you clearly were a catalyst for that freeway system, which has enormous
implications, of course, to the economy and our lifestyle here in Fresno, the City
of Fresno and Fresno County as well. Could you sort of comment a little bit about
what transpired and what went on? Because I think it's important for future
generations to really know how the freeway system really sort of came about in the
City of Fresno.
>>Joe Levy: Well, you know, Pete, I've always let’s say been intrigued with the
automobile. The automobile and myself always been very close, and I know growing up
here in Fresno you used a car to go anywhere. It was really the automobile which we
used to go places and see things. And over the years, I've spent four years in Los
Angeles, I watched the freeway system develop in Los Angeles and the ease of moving
around as different parts were opened up. So when I came back to Fresno, I was
disappointed that we didn't really have any system. It was very difficult to go any
distance. To go to Clovis, it was, you know, like [laughter] unbelievable. And I
just couldn't believe that we couldn't get something built. It was planned early, it
was laid out, and probably when I got on the chamber was the first opportunity,
became president of chamber and worked hard to get 41 off of dead center. Those were
the Jerry Brown days and no freeways were being built and money was going elsewhere.
You know, that gasoline tax is dedicated in the Constitution. That's one of the
great things that whoever thought of that, they couldn't spend it on other things,
so they had to do something with it, and that gas tax. And so we made a quest to get
Jerry Brown to build that 41 freeway, and I don't know, probably isn't known too
much, but that was the only freeway he built in his eight years as governor in the
state of California, was the only piece of freeway that he authorized that wasn't
filling in a gap somewhere in the freeway system. It was a new freeway to be built.
And we did get it authorized in our administration there, worked hard at it. And
after that, George Deukmejian came along and my wife was his campaign chairman in
the county here and George, you know, wanted to appoint whatever, you know, whatever
his administration wanted us to work in it. And I said, "Gee, I'd love to be on the
California Transportation Commission." Because if I could -- you know look what I
did under Jerry Brown's administration. What could I do if -- around the state? And,
you know, I had a lot of fun in eight years because today I drive on a lot of
sections of freeway and road improvements that I helped push through. That Pacheco
Pass, that division up there, it's fun to drive on and many of the others around the
state, and some of the ones we didn't get. But during that period. We pretty much
solidified the Fresno system. We did bring back about 120 million to build the 180
cross-town, cross member there and also we worked hard to get that after we learned
about what San Jose had done with their sales tax. Looking back, we were the second
state to put it into effect, the second county, rather. And so, again, I feel very
pleased over what's happening. I think that, again, is the future because we haven't
really driven much on our new freeway system outside of the 41. And, you know, that
41 South, I've been driving on that recently. That's a whale of an improvement for
safety sake. I remember all of people that have been killed over the years along Elm
Avenue and all, but now have a chance in this beautiful expressway. All part of that
system that -- you know, it's movement of people safely is the way I look at it.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, we certainly were the beneficiaries of your tenure on
the State Highway Commission, and clearly, George Duekmejian and Jerry Brown were
wise in having you as an appointee. I'm not about to eulogize you because you have
many good years to go, but as you look at your professional career and you look at
your personal life here in the Fresno area, how would you like people to sort of -when they write in the history books of Fresno and down the road, how do you want
them to remember Joe Levy, what do you want them to say about you?
>>Joe Levy: I don't -- Pete, I've never tried to, you know -- I'm not trying to
build a pyramid. I think we all pass through here, we all contribute, some more,
some less, and if we can make Fresno, the area that we live in, just a little better
for the next generation coming. That's what it's all about. I'm not trying, you
know, to be remembered by anything. My kids and their friends and their
acquaintances and the next generations alone find it a little better place to live
or a little more friendly. I'd like to see people get along a little better. We've
had such strife around the world, and I'd like to see a lot of that get behind us.
And I'm an optimist, of course, and I think it will happen. I think at this very
moment, people are living better throughout the world than they ever have in the
history of the world, and that is a continuous process, and we should all work
towards that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Tom Brokaw talks about in his book The Great Generation those
people who we are living off the equity, "we" being my generation of those people
who lived through the Great Depression, those people who fought the great wars,
those people who have put the man on the moon, this all took incredible leadership
and sacrifice and dedication, things that you have gone through in your business and
in your life. If I could ask you in terms as you see in leadership, leadership in
different ways in the community because that's really what the Leon Peters Award
stands for. It doesn't -- not boisterous leadership because generally, you folks -Lee was a quiet -- unassuming -- unpretentious individual, as you are, and others
who have been the recipient. What qualities of leadership do you think are essential
now to use the trite expression, "to lead us into the new millennium,” which we're
about to embark on?
>>Joe Levy: I think we all, you know, owe a debt of gratitude to Lee to do what he
did, to go out and look for the next generation of people and bring them along to
work. Just like Leadership Fresno, which I think is a tremendous idea, has been
doing. We sponsored it one year. I know a lot of the major corporations have. And I
guess when it goes around, we'll come back and sponsor it again. When I say "we," I
mean Gottschalks. I think that in itself is what Leon was all about is to bring
leaders of each generation along to work and make Fresno and the Valley, for that
matter, a better place to live.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And lastly, and sort of summary, as a good teacher, you always
leave an open-ended question to anything I should have asked but didn't ask. And so
it's sort of your nickel, Joe. Anything that you'd like to share for future Leon
Peters recipients or for those people who are going to live in the Fresno community,
any suggestions, any advice to pass on?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the best thing I could add to that is you have to look to
the future. The future's going to be better. It always is. The mind of man is
staggering what he could think of and do, and certainly, this electronic technical
era that we're going into is proving it. It's un -- everything that we can think of
today will pass so rapidly as the new developments come along and the new scientific
breakthroughs. And I feel that we will -- we will put colonies on the moon and Mars
and probably even other parts of the solar system and probably move out of that into
the universe, and I think it's just the very beginning and people should be excited,
enjoy and have some fun. I've always underlined, if you don't enjoy what you're
doing, do something else because life is so fast. It goes in a twinkle, and have
some fun with it too.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I now understand also why your daughter was the legacy. She
was a USC graduate?
>>Joe Levy: I've had all three of my ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: All three of your ->>Joe Levy: Three of my kids went through USC. Only two graduated. The oldest went
to the University of Idaho to get her architectural degree and graduate up there,
but ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: So the Trojan legacy continues?
>>Joe Levy: Yes.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, on behalf of the Valley Business Conference and if I
could be so presumptuous to say many of us who have grown up in the Fresno area want
to express our sincere appreciation to you and to the Levy family for your unselfish
contribution to the quality of life in the Fresno area, and we wish you and Sharon
and your family well in years to come.
>> Joe: Thank you, Peter.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
and so we are very, very privileged, "we" being the Valley Business Conference
Committee to have you come in today and just share some thoughts about what did it
mean to be the recipient of the Leon S. Peters Award since you knew Lee so very,
very well?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it meant, Pete, very much to me, you know. It goes back many
years. I was born in Fresno, so go back more than 60 years ago. And Leon Peters was
always somebody who we looked up to. He was a person that not only had a very
successful business, but was just very giving in everything he did for the
community. And over the years, we used to sit down and talk, we -- he'd come over to
my office, and we'd have lunch, and he was very encouraging. He tried to encourage
another generation of people coming along to follow in his footsteps and take part
in building Fresno and Central Valley, and I have very fond memories of that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: When we talk of Leon Peters, everybody, of course, knows he
was a successful businessman, but what made him so unique was what he gave,
continually gave back to the community. A la what Joe Levy and Sharon Levy and
Gottschalks has done for the community. When did you first meet Leon or Lee, as
people call him, and when did you recognize in terms of that trait of community
commitment?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it was probably in the middle '50s and early '60s where he would
come over and say, "Joe, I want you to take part in this fundraiser or take part in
-- get on this board," and he eventually got me on the Community Hospital board. I
spent better than 16 years on that board itself helping to build a community
hospital. After what Leon had did, did so tremendously. I mean, if you ever went to
give credit for a tremendous organization that he built for, you know, a total of
nonprofit to help the community, it was certainly the community hospitals.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, let's talk for a just a little bit about Gottschalks
because, obviously Gottschalks is known throughout California, and for that matter,
throughout the United States. And, of course, Joe Levy and the Levy family is
Gottschalks. Of course, recently, there's been some changes. Share with us in future
generations how did Gottschalks get started, how did it develop into such an
incredibly successful organization?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it goes back not -- more than 95 years now, it goes back when Emil
Gottschalk came to Fresno because he was hired by my family three generations ago to
come run Kutner Goldstein and they were the Kutners and they hired Emil from
Weinstock Lubin, a famous name in the retailing out of Sacramento to. And Emil came
down here in the 1890s and went to work for Kutner Goldstein and worked for them for
a better of part 10, 12 years. In that time, he married the boss's daughter, my
grandmother's sister. And in turn, at the end of about 10 more years or so, family
do have disagreements, and Emil said to them that he wanted either to own the store,
or he was going to open his own, and so they let him open his own. And at that point
in 1904, he took, oh, I think about 20 employees and himself and my grandfather and
my great uncle Henry Korn, and they opened Gottschalks on the corner of Tulare -- in
those days, it wasn't Tulare, Tulare and Fulton Street. And I guess it wasn't the
old Patterson Building as we knew it, it was the building before the Patterson
Building. And he rented the basement, the first floor and the mezzanine to open
Gottschalks. At that point, he was -- he tried to bring fashion to what we call, you
know, the central part of the valley here. He traveled to Europe and bring back
piece goods. It was more a dry goods operation that he ran. There were dressmakers
and suitmakers in those days. Everybody had their clothes made. It wasn't -- they
weren't readymade. And he was very successful. He was the leading fashion store of
the whole valley here. And people came from the long area to shop with him, and 10
years later, he built what was then a spectacular store at Kern and Fulton, which
was 100,000-foot 3-story building that we lived in for many years, in fact, until I
got here in Fresno in '56 I started working there. So it's an interesting time. I
can go from there ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Yeah, when did you get sort of formally involved in the
business?
>>Joe Levy: Well, my father was involved in it and, of course, the other family from
Emil's side, which was Jerry Blum's family, A. Blum, and my father Irving, and it
was sort of a family business that Emil ran, even though he didn't live here in town
for the lot of the ending years right up until he passed away in '39. And, of
course, then the family took over and ran the business. And when I got -- I worked,
you know, during high school and holiday seasons and during the summer at the store.
You know, that's all I really knew was that store and retail and selling and working
there. I was very intrigued with it. After college -- I went to USC, spent a few
years in Des Moines, Iowa, working for a department store back there and then came
back to Fresno in '56. We had one store. We did about $4 million in downtown Fresno.
We had about 130 people, and that's -- you know, it was ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And the organization now is right -- what? Was how many
employees?
>>Joe Levy: It was very much like -- you know, they had -- you know, they probably
hadn't grown for 15 to 20 years there, just sort of sat dormant. And from there on,
it was -- we just pushed it and kept it moving. Today, we're 6,000 employees in 40
stores all the way from Tacoma, Washington, down to Southern California, also over
in Nevada and Oregon. So it's an exciting business today.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And what's the estimated worth of Gottschalks on the stock
market?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the capital -- our cap worth -- and that's one of the
things you can look at every day because of the value of the stock -- being listed
it on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, it was about 116 million, so I own a small
part of that, but it's still very exciting.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I don't think I'm exaggerating when I probably say one of the
most probably widely known family in the Central Valley and Joe and Sharon Levy and
all of that you have contributed to this area. Tell us a little bit about Sharon,
when you first met Sharon. I know people who know you say, "It's incredible. They're
still newlyweds after many, many, many years." The deep love that you have for each
other and the success of your family. Where did you meet Sharon and a little bit
about the Levy family without being too personal.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I don't mind being personal. You know, when you're in politics,
like my wife is, you're -- you sit under a looking glass and everything is out in
the open. But I had the chance to meet her. It was a summer romance at USC. A
fraternity brother introduced me to his cousin, and it was a blind date. She was in
high school, and I was a freshman at USC, and we met every summer from there on
during the four years I was going to USC. And that last year, we ended up eloping.
We went off to Las Vegas and we eloped, and we didn't even tell anybody about it.
[Laughter] And so we've been married now the better part of 44 years in a very
exciting, happy, romantic marriage it has been. But like all marriages, you work at
it. It isn't something that you take for granted.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And certainly with Sharon receiving the very coveted Rose Ann
Vuich Award, I do not know of anybody else as a couple, the recipient of the Leon
Peters Award, and the spouse, the recipient of the Rose Ann Vuich Award, which was
certainly a tribute to her as well.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think she's -- deserves that award far better than I ever
deserved the award of the Leon S. Peters Award. To stand in his shoes is a very,
very difficult task because they were very, very large shoes to fill.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Being in Fresno, you've seen a lot of changes, not only in
terms of the business, but in terms of the community. Any observations about the
changes, positive and negative, and where do you see the future of Fresno going?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I've seen a lot of the world, Pete, and I'm going to say as of
this very moment, I still think Fresno's the best place to live in the entire world.
We take for granted our climate -- climatic condition but we have a beautiful
climate. We have a beautiful location because where we are located is so ideal to be
able to go places and see things whether you want to go hiking in the mountains and
fishing, you want to go to the coast and sit in the fog, it's just a tremendous
place to be, and I have no desire to live anywhere else. I'll say when I -- you
know, early memories, Fresno was a very small town, probably less than 40,000
people. Everybody knew everybody. I'll say this, as the years went by, you used to
get on a plane to go somewhere, if you don't know half the people on the plane, you
were surprised. [Laughter] Sometimes you knew pilot and the stewardess also. Today,
you get on a plane out of here, even though they complain a lot about it, but
there's still a lot of planes out of here, you don't know anybody, and you say,
"Gee, the town really has grown," you know. But I've seen it grown -- grow. In an
interesting way, I think it's easy to look back and say what was wrong. I think it's
a lot better to look forward and say what's right and what can we really improve to
make better.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I think this is an accurate to sort of characterization of
future generations are going to look at the freeway system here in Fresno County,
and clearly, those of us who've been involved with government knew that not only
Measure C, but when you served on the State Highway Commission, Fresno finally began
to get its fair share of its freeways. And I know of your involvement, and I know
that you clearly were a catalyst for that freeway system, which has enormous
implications, of course, to the economy and our lifestyle here in Fresno, the City
of Fresno and Fresno County as well. Could you sort of comment a little bit about
what transpired and what went on? Because I think it's important for future
generations to really know how the freeway system really sort of came about in the
City of Fresno.
>>Joe Levy: Well, you know, Pete, I've always let’s say been intrigued with the
automobile. The automobile and myself always been very close, and I know growing up
here in Fresno you used a car to go anywhere. It was really the automobile which we
used to go places and see things. And over the years, I've spent four years in Los
Angeles, I watched the freeway system develop in Los Angeles and the ease of moving
around as different parts were opened up. So when I came back to Fresno, I was
disappointed that we didn't really have any system. It was very difficult to go any
distance. To go to Clovis, it was, you know, like [laughter] unbelievable. And I
just couldn't believe that we couldn't get something built. It was planned early, it
was laid out, and probably when I got on the chamber was the first opportunity,
became president of chamber and worked hard to get 41 off of dead center. Those were
the Jerry Brown days and no freeways were being built and money was going elsewhere.
You know, that gasoline tax is dedicated in the Constitution. That's one of the
great things that whoever thought of that, they couldn't spend it on other things,
so they had to do something with it, and that gas tax. And so we made a quest to get
Jerry Brown to build that 41 freeway, and I don't know, probably isn't known too
much, but that was the only freeway he built in his eight years as governor in the
state of California, was the only piece of freeway that he authorized that wasn't
filling in a gap somewhere in the freeway system. It was a new freeway to be built.
And we did get it authorized in our administration there, worked hard at it. And
after that, George Deukmejian came along and my wife was his campaign chairman in
the county here and George, you know, wanted to appoint whatever, you know, whatever
his administration wanted us to work in it. And I said, "Gee, I'd love to be on the
California Transportation Commission." Because if I could -- you know look what I
did under Jerry Brown's administration. What could I do if -- around the state? And,
you know, I had a lot of fun in eight years because today I drive on a lot of
sections of freeway and road improvements that I helped push through. That Pacheco
Pass, that division up there, it's fun to drive on and many of the others around the
state, and some of the ones we didn't get. But during that period. We pretty much
solidified the Fresno system. We did bring back about 120 million to build the 180
cross-town, cross member there and also we worked hard to get that after we learned
about what San Jose had done with their sales tax. Looking back, we were the second
state to put it into effect, the second county, rather. And so, again, I feel very
pleased over what's happening. I think that, again, is the future because we haven't
really driven much on our new freeway system outside of the 41. And, you know, that
41 South, I've been driving on that recently. That's a whale of an improvement for
safety sake. I remember all of people that have been killed over the years along Elm
Avenue and all, but now have a chance in this beautiful expressway. All part of that
system that -- you know, it's movement of people safely is the way I look at it.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, we certainly were the beneficiaries of your tenure on
the State Highway Commission, and clearly, George Duekmejian and Jerry Brown were
wise in having you as an appointee. I'm not about to eulogize you because you have
many good years to go, but as you look at your professional career and you look at
your personal life here in the Fresno area, how would you like people to sort of -when they write in the history books of Fresno and down the road, how do you want
them to remember Joe Levy, what do you want them to say about you?
>>Joe Levy: I don't -- Pete, I've never tried to, you know -- I'm not trying to
build a pyramid. I think we all pass through here, we all contribute, some more,
some less, and if we can make Fresno, the area that we live in, just a little better
for the next generation coming. That's what it's all about. I'm not trying, you
know, to be remembered by anything. My kids and their friends and their
acquaintances and the next generations alone find it a little better place to live
or a little more friendly. I'd like to see people get along a little better. We've
had such strife around the world, and I'd like to see a lot of that get behind us.
And I'm an optimist, of course, and I think it will happen. I think at this very
moment, people are living better throughout the world than they ever have in the
history of the world, and that is a continuous process, and we should all work
towards that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Tom Brokaw talks about in his book The Great Generation those
people who we are living off the equity, "we" being my generation of those people
who lived through the Great Depression, those people who fought the great wars,
those people who have put the man on the moon, this all took incredible leadership
and sacrifice and dedication, things that you have gone through in your business and
in your life. If I could ask you in terms as you see in leadership, leadership in
different ways in the community because that's really what the Leon Peters Award
stands for. It doesn't -- not boisterous leadership because generally, you folks -Lee was a quiet -- unassuming -- unpretentious individual, as you are, and others
who have been the recipient. What qualities of leadership do you think are essential
now to use the trite expression, "to lead us into the new millennium,” which we're
about to embark on?
>>Joe Levy: I think we all, you know, owe a debt of gratitude to Lee to do what he
did, to go out and look for the next generation of people and bring them along to
work. Just like Leadership Fresno, which I think is a tremendous idea, has been
doing. We sponsored it one year. I know a lot of the major corporations have. And I
guess when it goes around, we'll come back and sponsor it again. When I say "we," I
mean Gottschalks. I think that in itself is what Leon was all about is to bring
leaders of each generation along to work and make Fresno and the Valley, for that
matter, a better place to live.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And lastly, and sort of summary, as a good teacher, you always
leave an open-ended question to anything I should have asked but didn't ask. And so
it's sort of your nickel, Joe. Anything that you'd like to share for future Leon
Peters recipients or for those people who are going to live in the Fresno community,
any suggestions, any advice to pass on?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the best thing I could add to that is you have to look to
the future. The future's going to be better. It always is. The mind of man is
staggering what he could think of and do, and certainly, this electronic technical
era that we're going into is proving it. It's un -- everything that we can think of
today will pass so rapidly as the new developments come along and the new scientific
breakthroughs. And I feel that we will -- we will put colonies on the moon and Mars
and probably even other parts of the solar system and probably move out of that into
the universe, and I think it's just the very beginning and people should be excited,
enjoy and have some fun. I've always underlined, if you don't enjoy what you're
doing, do something else because life is so fast. It goes in a twinkle, and have
some fun with it too.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I now understand also why your daughter was the legacy. She
was a USC graduate?
>>Joe Levy: I've had all three of my ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: All three of your ->>Joe Levy: Three of my kids went through USC. Only two graduated. The oldest went
to the University of Idaho to get her architectural degree and graduate up there,
but ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: So the Trojan legacy continues?
>>Joe Levy: Yes.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, on behalf of the Valley Business Conference and if I
could be so presumptuous to say many of us who have grown up in the Fresno area want
to express our sincere appreciation to you and to the Levy family for your unselfish
contribution to the quality of life in the Fresno area, and we wish you and Sharon
and your family well in years to come.
>> Joe: Thank you, Peter.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: A contributor to the community is known throughout the state,
and so we are very, very privileged, "we" being the Valley Business Conference
Committee to have you come in today and just share some thoughts about what did it
mean to be the recipient of the Leon S. Peters Award since you knew Lee so very,
very well?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it meant, Pete, very much to me, you know. It goes back many
years. I was born in Fresno, so go back more than 60 years ago. And Leon Peters was
always somebody who we looked up to. He was a person that not only had a very
successful business, but was just very giving in everything he did for the
community. And over the years, we used to sit down and talk, we -- he'd come over to
my office, and we'd have lunch, and he was very encouraging. He tried to encourage
another generation of people coming along to follow in his footsteps and take part
in building Fresno and Central Valley, and I have very fond memories of that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: When we talk of Leon Peters, everybody, of course, knows he
was a successful businessman, but what made him so unique was what he gave,
continually gave back to the community. A la what Joe Levy and Sharon Levy and
Gottschalks has done for the community. When did you first meet Leon or Lee, as
people call him, and when did you recognize in terms of that trait of community
commitment?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it was probably in the middle '50s and early '60s where he would
come over and say, "Joe, I want you to take part in this fundraiser or take part in
-- get on this board," and he eventually got me on the Community Hospital board. I
spent better than 16 years on that board itself helping to build a community
hospital. After what Leon had did, did so tremendously. I mean, if you ever went to
give credit for a tremendous organization that he built for, you know, a total of
nonprofit to help the community, it was certainly the community hospitals.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, let's talk for a just a little bit about Gottschalks
because, obviously Gottschalks is known throughout California, and for that matter,
throughout the United States. And, of course, Joe Levy and the Levy family is
Gottschalks. Of course, recently, there's been some changes. Share with us in future
generations how did Gottschalks get started, how did it develop into such an
incredibly successful organization?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it goes back not -- more than 95 years now, it goes back when Emil
Gottschalk came to Fresno because he was hired by my family three generations ago to
come run Kutner Goldstein and they were the Kutners and they hired Emil from
Weinstock Lubin, a famous name in the retailing out of Sacramento to. And Emil came
down here in the 1890s and went to work for Kutner Goldstein and worked for them for
a better of part 10, 12 years. In that time, he married the boss's daughter, my
grandmother's sister. And in turn, at the end of about 10 more years or so, family
do have disagreements, and Emil said to them that he wanted either to own the store,
or he was going to open his own, and so they let him open his own. And at that point
in 1904, he took, oh, I think about 20 employees and himself and my grandfather and
my great uncle Henry Korn, and they opened Gottschalks on the corner of Tulare -- in
those days, it wasn't Tulare, Tulare and Fulton Street. And I guess it wasn't the
old Patterson Building as we knew it, it was the building before the Patterson
Building. And he rented the basement, the first floor and the mezzanine to open
Gottschalks. At that point, he was -- he tried to bring fashion to what we call, you
know, the central part of the valley here. He traveled to Europe and bring back
piece goods. It was more a dry goods operation that he ran. There were dressmakers
and suitmakers in those days. Everybody had their clothes made. It wasn't -- they
weren't readymade. And he was very successful. He was the leading fashion store of
the whole valley here. And people came from the long area to shop with him, and 10
years later, he built what was then a spectacular store at Kern and Fulton, which
was 100,000-foot 3-story building that we lived in for many years, in fact, until I
got here in Fresno in '56 I started working there. So it's an interesting time. I
can go from there ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Yeah, when did you get sort of formally involved in the
business?
>>Joe Levy: Well, my father was involved in it and, of course, the other family from
Emil's side, which was Jerry Blum's family, A. Blum, and my father Irving, and it
was sort of a family business that Emil ran, even though he didn't live here in town
for the lot of the ending years right up until he passed away in '39. And, of
course, then the family took over and ran the business. And when I got -- I worked,
you know, during high school and holiday seasons and during the summer at the store.
You know, that's all I really knew was that store and retail and selling and working
there. I was very intrigued with it. After college -- I went to USC, spent a few
years in Des Moines, Iowa, working for a department store back there and then came
back to Fresno in '56. We had one store. We did about $4 million in downtown Fresno.
We had about 130 people, and that's -- you know, it was ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And the organization now is right -- what? Was how many
employees?
>>Joe Levy: It was very much like -- you know, they had -- you know, they probably
hadn't grown for 15 to 20 years there, just sort of sat dormant. And from there on,
it was -- we just pushed it and kept it moving. Today, we're 6,000 employees in 40
stores all the way from Tacoma, Washington, down to Southern California, also over
in Nevada and Oregon. So it's an exciting business today.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And what's the estimated worth of Gottschalks on the stock
market?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the capital -- our cap worth -- and that's one of the
things you can look at every day because of the value of the stock -- being listed
it on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, it was about 116 million, so I own a small
part of that, but it's still very exciting.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I don't think I'm exaggerating when I probably say one of the
most probably widely known family in the Central Valley and Joe and Sharon Levy and
all of that you have contributed to this area. Tell us a little bit about Sharon,
when you first met Sharon. I know people who know you say, "It's incredible. They're
still newlyweds after many, many, many years." The deep love that you have for each
other and the success of your family. Where did you meet Sharon and a little bit
about the Levy family without being too personal.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I don't mind being personal. You know, when you're in politics,
like my wife is, you're -- you sit under a looking glass and everything is out in
the open. But I had the chance to meet her. It was a summer romance at USC. A
fraternity brother introduced me to his cousin, and it was a blind date. She was in
high school, and I was a freshman at USC, and we met every summer from there on
during the four years I was going to USC. And that last year, we ended up eloping.
We went off to Las Vegas and we eloped, and we didn't even tell anybody about it.
[Laughter] And so we've been married now the better part of 44 years in a very
exciting, happy, romantic marriage it has been. But like all marriages, you work at
it. It isn't something that you take for granted.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And certainly with Sharon receiving the very coveted Rose Ann
Vuich Award, I do not know of anybody else as a couple, the recipient of the Leon
Peters Award, and the spouse, the recipient of the Rose Ann Vuich Award, which was
certainly a tribute to her as well.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think she's -- deserves that award far better than I ever
deserved the award of the Leon S. Peters Award. To stand in his shoes is a very,
very difficult task because they were very, very large shoes to fill.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Being in Fresno, you've seen a lot of changes, not only in
terms of the business, but in terms of the community. Any observations about the
changes, positive and negative, and where do you see the future of Fresno going?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I've seen a lot of the world, Pete, and I'm going to say as of
this very moment, I still think Fresno's the best place to live in the entire world.
We take for granted our climate -- climatic condition but we have a beautiful
climate. We have a beautiful location because where we are located is so ideal to be
able to go places and see things whether you want to go hiking in the mountains and
fishing, you want to go to the coast and sit in the fog, it's just a tremendous
place to be, and I have no desire to live anywhere else. I'll say when I -- you
know, early memories, Fresno was a very small town, probably less than 40,000
people. Everybody knew everybody. I'll say this, as the years went by, you used to
get on a plane to go somewhere, if you don't know half the people on the plane, you
were surprised. [Laughter] Sometimes you knew pilot and the stewardess also. Today,
you get on a plane out of here, even though they complain a lot about it, but
there's still a lot of planes out of here, you don't know anybody, and you say,
"Gee, the town really has grown," you know. But I've seen it grown -- grow. In an
interesting way, I think it's easy to look back and say what was wrong. I think it's
a lot better to look forward and say what's right and what can we really improve to
make better.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I think this is an accurate to sort of characterization of
future generations are going to look at the freeway system here in Fresno County,
and clearly, those of us who've been involved with government knew that not only
Measure C, but when you served on the State Highway Commission, Fresno finally began
to get its fair share of its freeways. And I know of your involvement, and I know
that you clearly were a catalyst for that freeway system, which has enormous
implications, of course, to the economy and our lifestyle here in Fresno, the City
of Fresno and Fresno County as well. Could you sort of comment a little bit about
what transpired and what went on? Because I think it's important for future
generations to really know how the freeway system really sort of came about in the
City of Fresno.
>>Joe Levy: Well, you know, Pete, I've always let’s say been intrigued with the
automobile. The automobile and myself always been very close, and I know growing up
here in Fresno you used a car to go anywhere. It was really the automobile which we
used to go places and see things. And over the years, I've spent four years in Los
Angeles, I watched the freeway system develop in Los Angeles and the ease of moving
around as different parts were opened up. So when I came back to Fresno, I was
disappointed that we didn't really have any system. It was very difficult to go any
distance. To go to Clovis, it was, you know, like [laughter] unbelievable. And I
just couldn't believe that we couldn't get something built. It was planned early, it
was laid out, and probably when I got on the chamber was the first opportunity,
became president of chamber and worked hard to get 41 off of dead center. Those were
the Jerry Brown days and no freeways were being built and money was going elsewhere.
You know, that gasoline tax is dedicated in the Constitution. That's one of the
great things that whoever thought of that, they couldn't spend it on other things,
so they had to do something with it, and that gas tax. And so we made a quest to get
Jerry Brown to build that 41 freeway, and I don't know, probably isn't known too
much, but that was the only freeway he built in his eight years as governor in the
state of California, was the only piece of freeway that he authorized that wasn't
filling in a gap somewhere in the freeway system. It was a new freeway to be built.
And we did get it authorized in our administration there, worked hard at it. And
after that, George Deukmejian came along and my wife was his campaign chairman in
the county here and George, you know, wanted to appoint whatever, you know, whatever
his administration wanted us to work in it. And I said, "Gee, I'd love to be on the
California Transportation Commission." Because if I could -- you know look what I
did under Jerry Brown's administration. What could I do if -- around the state? And,
you know, I had a lot of fun in eight years because today I drive on a lot of
sections of freeway and road improvements that I helped push through. That Pacheco
Pass, that division up there, it's fun to drive on and many of the others around the
state, and some of the ones we didn't get. But during that period. We pretty much
solidified the Fresno system. We did bring back about 120 million to build the 180
cross-town, cross member there and also we worked hard to get that after we learned
about what San Jose had done with their sales tax. Looking back, we were the second
state to put it into effect, the second county, rather. And so, again, I feel very
pleased over what's happening. I think that, again, is the future because we haven't
really driven much on our new freeway system outside of the 41. And, you know, that
41 South, I've been driving on that recently. That's a whale of an improvement for
safety sake. I remember all of people that have been killed over the years along Elm
Avenue and all, but now have a chance in this beautiful expressway. All part of that
system that -- you know, it's movement of people safely is the way I look at it.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, we certainly were the beneficiaries of your tenure on
the State Highway Commission, and clearly, George Duekmejian and Jerry Brown were
wise in having you as an appointee. I'm not about to eulogize you because you have
many good years to go, but as you look at your professional career and you look at
your personal life here in the Fresno area, how would you like people to sort of -when they write in the history books of Fresno and down the road, how do you want
them to remember Joe Levy, what do you want them to say about you?
>>Joe Levy: I don't -- Pete, I've never tried to, you know -- I'm not trying to
build a pyramid. I think we all pass through here, we all contribute, some more,
some less, and if we can make Fresno, the area that we live in, just a little better
for the next generation coming. That's what it's all about. I'm not trying, you
know, to be remembered by anything. My kids and their friends and their
acquaintances and the next generations alone find it a little better place to live
or a little more friendly. I'd like to see people get along a little better. We've
had such strife around the world, and I'd like to see a lot of that get behind us.
And I'm an optimist, of course, and I think it will happen. I think at this very
moment, people are living better throughout the world than they ever have in the
history of the world, and that is a continuous process, and we should all work
towards that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Tom Brokaw talks about in his book The Great Generation those
people who we are living off the equity, "we" being my generation of those people
who lived through the Great Depression, those people who fought the great wars,
those people who have put the man on the moon, this all took incredible leadership
and sacrifice and dedication, things that you have gone through in your business and
in your life. If I could ask you in terms as you see in leadership, leadership in
different ways in the community because that's really what the Leon Peters Award
stands for. It doesn't -- not boisterous leadership because generally, you folks -Lee was a quiet -- unassuming -- unpretentious individual, as you are, and others
who have been the recipient. What qualities of leadership do you think are essential
now to use the trite expression, "to lead us into the new millennium,” which we're
about to embark on?
>>Joe Levy: I think we all, you know, owe a debt of gratitude to Lee to do what he
did, to go out and look for the next generation of people and bring them along to
work. Just like Leadership Fresno, which I think is a tremendous idea, has been
doing. We sponsored it one year. I know a lot of the major corporations have. And I
guess when it goes around, we'll come back and sponsor it again. When I say "we," I
mean Gottschalks. I think that in itself is what Leon was all about is to bring
leaders of each generation along to work and make Fresno and the Valley, for that
matter, a better place to live.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And lastly, and sort of summary, as a good teacher, you always
leave an open-ended question to anything I should have asked but didn't ask. And so
it's sort of your nickel, Joe. Anything that you'd like to share for future Leon
Peters recipients or for those people who are going to live in the Fresno community,
any suggestions, any advice to pass on?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the best thing I could add to that is you have to look to
the future. The future's going to be better. It always is. The mind of man is
staggering what he could think of and do, and certainly, this electronic technical
era that we're going into is proving it. It's un -- everything that we can think of
today will pass so rapidly as the new developments come along and the new scientific
breakthroughs. And I feel that we will -- we will put colonies on the moon and Mars
and probably even other parts of the solar system and probably move out of that into
the universe, and I think it's just the very beginning and people should be excited,
enjoy and have some fun. I've always underlined, if you don't enjoy what you're
doing, do something else because life is so fast. It goes in a twinkle, and have
some fun with it too.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I now understand also why your daughter was the legacy. She
was a USC graduate?
>>Joe Levy: I've had all three of my ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: All three of your ->>Joe Levy: Three of my kids went through USC. Only two graduated. The oldest went
to the University of Idaho to get her architectural degree and graduate up there,
but ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: So the Trojan legacy continues?
>>Joe Levy: Yes.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, on behalf of the Valley Business Conference and if I
could be so presumptuous to say many of us who have grown up in the Fresno area want
to express our sincere appreciation to you and to the Levy family for your unselfish
contribution to the quality of life in the Fresno area, and we wish you and Sharon
and your family well in years to come.
>> Joe: Thank you, Peter.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
and so we are very, very privileged, "we" being the Valley Business Conference
Committee to have you come in today and just share some thoughts about what did it
mean to be the recipient of the Leon S. Peters Award since you knew Lee so very,
very well?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it meant, Pete, very much to me, you know. It goes back many
years. I was born in Fresno, so go back more than 60 years ago. And Leon Peters was
always somebody who we looked up to. He was a person that not only had a very
successful business, but was just very giving in everything he did for the
community. And over the years, we used to sit down and talk, we -- he'd come over to
my office, and we'd have lunch, and he was very encouraging. He tried to encourage
another generation of people coming along to follow in his footsteps and take part
in building Fresno and Central Valley, and I have very fond memories of that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: When we talk of Leon Peters, everybody, of course, knows he
was a successful businessman, but what made him so unique was what he gave,
continually gave back to the community. A la what Joe Levy and Sharon Levy and
Gottschalks has done for the community. When did you first meet Leon or Lee, as
people call him, and when did you recognize in terms of that trait of community
commitment?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it was probably in the middle '50s and early '60s where he would
come over and say, "Joe, I want you to take part in this fundraiser or take part in
-- get on this board," and he eventually got me on the Community Hospital board. I
spent better than 16 years on that board itself helping to build a community
hospital. After what Leon had did, did so tremendously. I mean, if you ever went to
give credit for a tremendous organization that he built for, you know, a total of
nonprofit to help the community, it was certainly the community hospitals.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, let's talk for a just a little bit about Gottschalks
because, obviously Gottschalks is known throughout California, and for that matter,
throughout the United States. And, of course, Joe Levy and the Levy family is
Gottschalks. Of course, recently, there's been some changes. Share with us in future
generations how did Gottschalks get started, how did it develop into such an
incredibly successful organization?
>>Joe Levy: Well, it goes back not -- more than 95 years now, it goes back when Emil
Gottschalk came to Fresno because he was hired by my family three generations ago to
come run Kutner Goldstein and they were the Kutners and they hired Emil from
Weinstock Lubin, a famous name in the retailing out of Sacramento to. And Emil came
down here in the 1890s and went to work for Kutner Goldstein and worked for them for
a better of part 10, 12 years. In that time, he married the boss's daughter, my
grandmother's sister. And in turn, at the end of about 10 more years or so, family
do have disagreements, and Emil said to them that he wanted either to own the store,
or he was going to open his own, and so they let him open his own. And at that point
in 1904, he took, oh, I think about 20 employees and himself and my grandfather and
my great uncle Henry Korn, and they opened Gottschalks on the corner of Tulare -- in
those days, it wasn't Tulare, Tulare and Fulton Street. And I guess it wasn't the
old Patterson Building as we knew it, it was the building before the Patterson
Building. And he rented the basement, the first floor and the mezzanine to open
Gottschalks. At that point, he was -- he tried to bring fashion to what we call, you
know, the central part of the valley here. He traveled to Europe and bring back
piece goods. It was more a dry goods operation that he ran. There were dressmakers
and suitmakers in those days. Everybody had their clothes made. It wasn't -- they
weren't readymade. And he was very successful. He was the leading fashion store of
the whole valley here. And people came from the long area to shop with him, and 10
years later, he built what was then a spectacular store at Kern and Fulton, which
was 100,000-foot 3-story building that we lived in for many years, in fact, until I
got here in Fresno in '56 I started working there. So it's an interesting time. I
can go from there ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Yeah, when did you get sort of formally involved in the
business?
>>Joe Levy: Well, my father was involved in it and, of course, the other family from
Emil's side, which was Jerry Blum's family, A. Blum, and my father Irving, and it
was sort of a family business that Emil ran, even though he didn't live here in town
for the lot of the ending years right up until he passed away in '39. And, of
course, then the family took over and ran the business. And when I got -- I worked,
you know, during high school and holiday seasons and during the summer at the store.
You know, that's all I really knew was that store and retail and selling and working
there. I was very intrigued with it. After college -- I went to USC, spent a few
years in Des Moines, Iowa, working for a department store back there and then came
back to Fresno in '56. We had one store. We did about $4 million in downtown Fresno.
We had about 130 people, and that's -- you know, it was ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And the organization now is right -- what? Was how many
employees?
>>Joe Levy: It was very much like -- you know, they had -- you know, they probably
hadn't grown for 15 to 20 years there, just sort of sat dormant. And from there on,
it was -- we just pushed it and kept it moving. Today, we're 6,000 employees in 40
stores all the way from Tacoma, Washington, down to Southern California, also over
in Nevada and Oregon. So it's an exciting business today.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And what's the estimated worth of Gottschalks on the stock
market?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the capital -- our cap worth -- and that's one of the
things you can look at every day because of the value of the stock -- being listed
it on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, it was about 116 million, so I own a small
part of that, but it's still very exciting.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I don't think I'm exaggerating when I probably say one of the
most probably widely known family in the Central Valley and Joe and Sharon Levy and
all of that you have contributed to this area. Tell us a little bit about Sharon,
when you first met Sharon. I know people who know you say, "It's incredible. They're
still newlyweds after many, many, many years." The deep love that you have for each
other and the success of your family. Where did you meet Sharon and a little bit
about the Levy family without being too personal.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I don't mind being personal. You know, when you're in politics,
like my wife is, you're -- you sit under a looking glass and everything is out in
the open. But I had the chance to meet her. It was a summer romance at USC. A
fraternity brother introduced me to his cousin, and it was a blind date. She was in
high school, and I was a freshman at USC, and we met every summer from there on
during the four years I was going to USC. And that last year, we ended up eloping.
We went off to Las Vegas and we eloped, and we didn't even tell anybody about it.
[Laughter] And so we've been married now the better part of 44 years in a very
exciting, happy, romantic marriage it has been. But like all marriages, you work at
it. It isn't something that you take for granted.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And certainly with Sharon receiving the very coveted Rose Ann
Vuich Award, I do not know of anybody else as a couple, the recipient of the Leon
Peters Award, and the spouse, the recipient of the Rose Ann Vuich Award, which was
certainly a tribute to her as well.
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think she's -- deserves that award far better than I ever
deserved the award of the Leon S. Peters Award. To stand in his shoes is a very,
very difficult task because they were very, very large shoes to fill.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Being in Fresno, you've seen a lot of changes, not only in
terms of the business, but in terms of the community. Any observations about the
changes, positive and negative, and where do you see the future of Fresno going?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I've seen a lot of the world, Pete, and I'm going to say as of
this very moment, I still think Fresno's the best place to live in the entire world.
We take for granted our climate -- climatic condition but we have a beautiful
climate. We have a beautiful location because where we are located is so ideal to be
able to go places and see things whether you want to go hiking in the mountains and
fishing, you want to go to the coast and sit in the fog, it's just a tremendous
place to be, and I have no desire to live anywhere else. I'll say when I -- you
know, early memories, Fresno was a very small town, probably less than 40,000
people. Everybody knew everybody. I'll say this, as the years went by, you used to
get on a plane to go somewhere, if you don't know half the people on the plane, you
were surprised. [Laughter] Sometimes you knew pilot and the stewardess also. Today,
you get on a plane out of here, even though they complain a lot about it, but
there's still a lot of planes out of here, you don't know anybody, and you say,
"Gee, the town really has grown," you know. But I've seen it grown -- grow. In an
interesting way, I think it's easy to look back and say what was wrong. I think it's
a lot better to look forward and say what's right and what can we really improve to
make better.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I think this is an accurate to sort of characterization of
future generations are going to look at the freeway system here in Fresno County,
and clearly, those of us who've been involved with government knew that not only
Measure C, but when you served on the State Highway Commission, Fresno finally began
to get its fair share of its freeways. And I know of your involvement, and I know
that you clearly were a catalyst for that freeway system, which has enormous
implications, of course, to the economy and our lifestyle here in Fresno, the City
of Fresno and Fresno County as well. Could you sort of comment a little bit about
what transpired and what went on? Because I think it's important for future
generations to really know how the freeway system really sort of came about in the
City of Fresno.
>>Joe Levy: Well, you know, Pete, I've always let’s say been intrigued with the
automobile. The automobile and myself always been very close, and I know growing up
here in Fresno you used a car to go anywhere. It was really the automobile which we
used to go places and see things. And over the years, I've spent four years in Los
Angeles, I watched the freeway system develop in Los Angeles and the ease of moving
around as different parts were opened up. So when I came back to Fresno, I was
disappointed that we didn't really have any system. It was very difficult to go any
distance. To go to Clovis, it was, you know, like [laughter] unbelievable. And I
just couldn't believe that we couldn't get something built. It was planned early, it
was laid out, and probably when I got on the chamber was the first opportunity,
became president of chamber and worked hard to get 41 off of dead center. Those were
the Jerry Brown days and no freeways were being built and money was going elsewhere.
You know, that gasoline tax is dedicated in the Constitution. That's one of the
great things that whoever thought of that, they couldn't spend it on other things,
so they had to do something with it, and that gas tax. And so we made a quest to get
Jerry Brown to build that 41 freeway, and I don't know, probably isn't known too
much, but that was the only freeway he built in his eight years as governor in the
state of California, was the only piece of freeway that he authorized that wasn't
filling in a gap somewhere in the freeway system. It was a new freeway to be built.
And we did get it authorized in our administration there, worked hard at it. And
after that, George Deukmejian came along and my wife was his campaign chairman in
the county here and George, you know, wanted to appoint whatever, you know, whatever
his administration wanted us to work in it. And I said, "Gee, I'd love to be on the
California Transportation Commission." Because if I could -- you know look what I
did under Jerry Brown's administration. What could I do if -- around the state? And,
you know, I had a lot of fun in eight years because today I drive on a lot of
sections of freeway and road improvements that I helped push through. That Pacheco
Pass, that division up there, it's fun to drive on and many of the others around the
state, and some of the ones we didn't get. But during that period. We pretty much
solidified the Fresno system. We did bring back about 120 million to build the 180
cross-town, cross member there and also we worked hard to get that after we learned
about what San Jose had done with their sales tax. Looking back, we were the second
state to put it into effect, the second county, rather. And so, again, I feel very
pleased over what's happening. I think that, again, is the future because we haven't
really driven much on our new freeway system outside of the 41. And, you know, that
41 South, I've been driving on that recently. That's a whale of an improvement for
safety sake. I remember all of people that have been killed over the years along Elm
Avenue and all, but now have a chance in this beautiful expressway. All part of that
system that -- you know, it's movement of people safely is the way I look at it.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, we certainly were the beneficiaries of your tenure on
the State Highway Commission, and clearly, George Duekmejian and Jerry Brown were
wise in having you as an appointee. I'm not about to eulogize you because you have
many good years to go, but as you look at your professional career and you look at
your personal life here in the Fresno area, how would you like people to sort of -when they write in the history books of Fresno and down the road, how do you want
them to remember Joe Levy, what do you want them to say about you?
>>Joe Levy: I don't -- Pete, I've never tried to, you know -- I'm not trying to
build a pyramid. I think we all pass through here, we all contribute, some more,
some less, and if we can make Fresno, the area that we live in, just a little better
for the next generation coming. That's what it's all about. I'm not trying, you
know, to be remembered by anything. My kids and their friends and their
acquaintances and the next generations alone find it a little better place to live
or a little more friendly. I'd like to see people get along a little better. We've
had such strife around the world, and I'd like to see a lot of that get behind us.
And I'm an optimist, of course, and I think it will happen. I think at this very
moment, people are living better throughout the world than they ever have in the
history of the world, and that is a continuous process, and we should all work
towards that.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Tom Brokaw talks about in his book The Great Generation those
people who we are living off the equity, "we" being my generation of those people
who lived through the Great Depression, those people who fought the great wars,
those people who have put the man on the moon, this all took incredible leadership
and sacrifice and dedication, things that you have gone through in your business and
in your life. If I could ask you in terms as you see in leadership, leadership in
different ways in the community because that's really what the Leon Peters Award
stands for. It doesn't -- not boisterous leadership because generally, you folks -Lee was a quiet -- unassuming -- unpretentious individual, as you are, and others
who have been the recipient. What qualities of leadership do you think are essential
now to use the trite expression, "to lead us into the new millennium,” which we're
about to embark on?
>>Joe Levy: I think we all, you know, owe a debt of gratitude to Lee to do what he
did, to go out and look for the next generation of people and bring them along to
work. Just like Leadership Fresno, which I think is a tremendous idea, has been
doing. We sponsored it one year. I know a lot of the major corporations have. And I
guess when it goes around, we'll come back and sponsor it again. When I say "we," I
mean Gottschalks. I think that in itself is what Leon was all about is to bring
leaders of each generation along to work and make Fresno and the Valley, for that
matter, a better place to live.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: And lastly, and sort of summary, as a good teacher, you always
leave an open-ended question to anything I should have asked but didn't ask. And so
it's sort of your nickel, Joe. Anything that you'd like to share for future Leon
Peters recipients or for those people who are going to live in the Fresno community,
any suggestions, any advice to pass on?
>>Joe Levy: Well, I think the best thing I could add to that is you have to look to
the future. The future's going to be better. It always is. The mind of man is
staggering what he could think of and do, and certainly, this electronic technical
era that we're going into is proving it. It's un -- everything that we can think of
today will pass so rapidly as the new developments come along and the new scientific
breakthroughs. And I feel that we will -- we will put colonies on the moon and Mars
and probably even other parts of the solar system and probably move out of that into
the universe, and I think it's just the very beginning and people should be excited,
enjoy and have some fun. I've always underlined, if you don't enjoy what you're
doing, do something else because life is so fast. It goes in a twinkle, and have
some fun with it too.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: I now understand also why your daughter was the legacy. She
was a USC graduate?
>>Joe Levy: I've had all three of my ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: All three of your ->>Joe Levy: Three of my kids went through USC. Only two graduated. The oldest went
to the University of Idaho to get her architectural degree and graduate up there,
but ->>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: So the Trojan legacy continues?
>>Joe Levy: Yes.
>>Dr. Peter G. Mehas: Well, on behalf of the Valley Business Conference and if I
could be so presumptuous to say many of us who have grown up in the Fresno area want
to express our sincere appreciation to you and to the Levy family for your unselfish
contribution to the quality of life in the Fresno area, and we wish you and Sharon
and your family well in years to come.
>> Joe: Thank you, Peter.
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